Zygmunt Milczewski (1 October 1905 – 2 June 2001) was a Polish historian associated with

Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

, a community leader in the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

, and World War II resistance fighter in the underground

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...

(Armia Krajowa) with the postwar rank of Lieutenant (''

porucznik Porucznik (Por.) is a rank of the Polish Army, roughly equivalent to the military rank of the First Lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank o ...

''). During the darkest years of

Stalinism in Poland Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

he spent three years in prison from 1949 to 1952 as a so-called enemy of the state along with thousands of other political prisoners persecuted by the communist ''

Urząd Bezpieczeństwa The Ministry of Public Security ( pl, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), commonly known as UB or later SB, was the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic. From 1945 to 1954 it w ...

''. Milczewski is best remembered for his research into wartime history of his beloved province, with special focus on the attempted genocide of ethnic Poles of Pomerania in the course of Nazi

Operation Tannenberg Operation Tannenberg (german: Unternehmen Tannenberg) was a codename for one of the anti-Polish extermination actions by Nazi Germany that were directed at the Poles during the opening stages of World War II in Europe, as part of the ''Generalplan ...

, known as '' Intelligenzaktion'', including

massacres in Piaśnica The massacres in Piaśnica were a set of mass executions carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II, between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940 in Piaśnica Wielka (Groß Piasnitz) in the Darzlubska Wilderness near Wejherowo. The exact nu ...

among various atrocities and expulsions.Zygmunt Milczewski
Nazwiska ofiar Piaśnicy z obszaru powiatu morskiego
(PDF file, direct download). Dokument przygotował Łukasz Borchmann.

Life and work

Milczewski was born in

Strzepcz Strzepcz (, csb, Strzépcz, ger, Strepsch or Streep, rus, Strzebcz) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Linia, within Wejherowo County, Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland. It is approximately east of Linia, southwest ...

near Wejherowo. He graduated from the Warsaw University in the field of economics and took up a post of secretary to mayor ('' wójt'') of a rural community of Rumia- Zagórze in the interwar Poland; credited with helping the town grow quicker. After the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

by Nazi Germany, Milczewski relocated to

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

in the southern part of

occupied Poland ' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...

and joined the anti-Nazi underground, ''

nom de guerre A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

'' Wąsowicz. In 1942 he was assigned to ''Komenda Okręgu AK Kraków-Miasto'' (pl) with the rank of '' Podporucznik'' (the Second Lieutenant). For his resistance activities he was awarded four times by the

Polish government-in-exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

Ministry of National Defence (''

Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej Ministry of National Defense ( Polish: ''Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej, MON'') is the office of government in Poland under the Minister of National Defense. It is responsible for the organization and management of the Polish Armed Forces. During ...

'') with the Medal of Valor and the Cross of AK, locally. After the

defeat of Nazi Germany The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf H ...

Milczewski returned to Wejherowo and soon began his research into ani-Nazi resistance in Pomerania. His was thrown in prison in 1949 with the onset of the Stalinist terror in postwar Poland, and released in 1952. Milczewski was a member of the ''Światowy Związek Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej'' (World Union of the Home Army Soldiers). He died on 2 June 2001 at the age of 95, and was buried in Wejherowo.

Wejherowo chronicle

Milczewski published his heartrending book ''Wejherowo i Powiat Morski: Wrzesień 1939 - Maj 1945'' (Wejherowo and the Marine County: September 1939 till May 1945) in

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

soon after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Void of any emotional interpretation the book presents a chronological account of persecution of the Polish people in the town and its environs based on German and Polish archives, testimonies of survivors, his own historical research, and materials collected by the Polish scientific community. One of the more shocking facts revealed by Milczewski was that the large German minority who, for decades, lived next door to Polish Kashubians, have expressed hatred and rage towards them in that period, leading to nothing but death and destruction and yet Poles resisted the state-sanctioned Germanization.

Books

*Zygmunt Milczewski, ''Wejherowo i powiat morski : wrzesień 1939 - maj 1945 : kronika'' Publisher:

: elbstverl. 1990.Tadeusz Bolduan
Review of book "Wejherowo i powiat morski" by Zygmunt Milczewski, Gdańsk 1991
(dLibra, external

DjVu DjVu ( , like French "déjà vu") is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, indexed color images, and photographs. It uses technologies such as ima ...

format for digital libraries with installation instructions). ''Pomerania'' monthly 1/1992. Pages: 35–36. Bałtycka Biblioteka Cyfrowa.

Notes and references

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Milczewski, Zygmunt 1905 births 2001 deaths People from Wejherowo County People from West Prussia 20th-century Polish historians Polish male non-fiction writers University of Warsaw alumni Home Army members Prisoners and detainees of Poland