page_title: Romuald Rajs
section_title: Actions in Zaleszczany, Wólka, and Puchały Stare
hierarchical_section_title: Romuald Rajs / Life / National Military Union / Actions in Zaleszczany, Wólka, and Puchały Stare
caption_attribution_description: Polski: "Bury" i "Szczepcio". 3 Wileńska Brygada AK
context_page_description: Romuald Rajs, nom de guerre "Bury", was a Polish soldier and anti-communist insurgent. Member of Home Army and National Military Union, he was sentenced to death in a show trial held by the Polish communist government in 1949, charged with membership in delegalized NZW, and the 1946 killings of Polish Belarusians. Rajs denied the charges of war crimes, and was executed in prison three months later. His death penalty was nullified by the Military Court of Warsaw in 1995, as a communist crime.
  Romuald Rajs and his co-conspirator and deputy, Lieutenant Kazimierz Chmielowski nom de guerre "Rekin", became the subject of a 475-page monograph by Jerzy Kułak, historian from the IPN Branch in Białystok, titled Executed Battalion. Monograph of the 3rd Wilno Brigade of NZW - Białystok Region 1945-1946 published in 2007 and reprinted in 2015 as Hardcover by Wydawnictwo Mireki with 678 pages.
context_section_description: On 29 January 1946 the battalion arrived in Zaleszany, Hajnówka County aiming to feed the horses. During a routine document check by the partisans, a Red Army soldier and NKVD informer, Aleksander Zielinko was identified, serving as Communist Party secretary in nearby Suchowolce. All inhabitants were ordered to report to a spacious house of Dymitr Sacharczuk where they were taken hostage. They were questioned on the whereabouts of suspected collaborator, and Sołtys of Zaleszany, Łukasz Demianiuk who vanished. His 16-year-old son Piotr (already a PPR member) was identified and executed together with Zielinko. Not a single hostage was killed from the gathering at Sacharczuk's house. According to official report released in 2005 by the Institute of National Remembrance conducting investigation into the matter, all hostages kept in Sacharczuk's house run out to safety and survived; they were not persecuted, but the PAS NZW set a number of other buildings on fire, and 16 people died in Zaleszany while attempting to hide from the soldiers. The final IPN investigation revealed that the later description of what happened there was falsified by the Stalinist functionaries. The unit led by Rajs ("Bury") departed for the neighbouring village of Wólka Wygonowska. Some farm buildings were set ablaze for refusal to provide assistance. Two local men were shot dead while they were running away from the soldiers: Jan Zinkiewicz and Stefan Babulewicz. Many years later, Zinkiewicz's daughter rationalized that her father ran to save his farm equipment from burning, and that he was not fleeing from them.
  On the following day of 30 January 1945 the command of NZW PAS Brigade arrived in Krasna Wieś village where they arranged the exchange of horse-drawn carriers. Eye-witness Włodzimierz K. from Jagodniki later testified that they arrived in Krasna Wieś ahead of others. Most of the partisan group fell behind. The farmers were ordered to wait for them but instead, took their horse-drawn carriages and run away. They were chased through the forest by the "Modrzew's" platoon, caught around Puchały Stare village, arrested, taken away, and executed in two groups. "Modrzew" himself was killed on 16 February 1946; his true identity is unknown. Years later, the exhumations conducted by the authorities in Puchały on 27 April 1951 revealed that 27 farmers have been killed there and buried in two shallow graves. In 1997 the number was raised to 30. The subsequent 2005 investigation by IPN revealed – based on new evidence – that purported eye-witness Prokop Iwacik lied in his postwar account of the massacre, because he could not have possibly been there.
caption: Rajs (left) in a meeting with Lieutenant Piotr Motylewicz, special-operations paratrooper from the Silent Unseen (1944)
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