Wladyslaw Ossowski (born 5 November 1925 in the village of Iwaszkowce near Turka, Poland, died 5 August 2000 in Legnica), was a Polish boyscout and member of the

White Couriers White Couriers (Polish: ''Biali Kurierzy'') was a group of around 20-30 Polish boy scouts and former soldiers of the Polish Army, most of whom had been associated with the interbellum sports club Junak Drohobycz. It existed between October 1939 a ...

. Using pseudonyms ''Maly Wladzio'', ''Smyk'', and ''Pitolcio'' Ossowski, as a 14-year-old boy, began leading Polish escapees from Soviet-occupied

Eastern Poland Eastern Poland is a macroregion in Poland comprising the Lublin, Podkarpackie, Podlaskie, Świętokrzyskie, and Warmian-Masurian voivodeships. The make-up of the distinct macroregion is based not only of geographical criteria, but also econo ...

. Between late 1939 and mid-1940, Ossowski, together with a group of Polish scouts mostly from

Lwow Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

, led scores of people across Soviet-Hungarian border (see:

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...

) in the Eastern

Carpathians The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretches ...

. He would lead to

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

those Poles who wanted to escape Soviet occupation. From Hungary, he would bring newspapers and directives of General Wladyslaw Sikorski. Ossowski, who was born and raised in the borderland area (before the war, there had been the Polish -

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

n border), used his knowledge and skills. On 8 May 1940 Ossowski was arrested in a house in the village of Komarniki, on the way to Hungary. At first, he was transported to a military prison in

Drohobycz Drohobych ( uk, Дрого́бич, ; pl, Drohobycz; yi, דראָהאָביטש;) is a city of regional significance in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Drohobych Raion and hosts the administration of Drohobych urban hro ...

, but the trial of the whole group of couriers took place in

. Ossowski was sentenced to death, but due to his young age (14 at the time), the sentence was changed into 30 years of hard labor. He was taken to a

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

and his nationality was changed from Polish to Ukrainian, which made it impossible for him to return to Poland in latter years. Ossowski was released in 1955 and settled in

Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk ( ; rus, Красноя́рск, a=Ru-Красноярск2.ogg, p=krəsnɐˈjarsk) (in semantic translation - Red Ravine City) is the largest city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yeni ...

. In the following years, he was arrested multiple times and his adventures were described in a book written by Marek Celt. Despite living in Soviet Union for several decades, he never forgot the

Bałak jargon Bałak (; often mistakenly called ''bałach'') is a jargon or a sociolect spoken by the commoners of the city of Lwów (modern Lviv, Ukraine). A distinct part of the Lwów dialect of the Polish language, it consists of a Lesser Poland Polish lan ...

of the Polish language. In 1991 Ossowski and his family were accidentally found and next year they returned to Poland, after 52 years spent in Siberia. At first he settled in Szczecin, where he tried to run a pizzeria, given to him by a generous person. He frequently met local boyscouts, telling them about his adventures. Some time in late 1990s, Ossowski moved to Legnica, where he died.

See also

Further reading