Stefan Korboński Stefan Korboński ( 2 March 1901 in Praszka - 23 April 1989 in Washington , D . C . ) was a Polish agrarian politician , lawyer , journalist and a notable member of the wartime authorities of the Polish Secret State . Among others , he was the last person to hold the post of the Government Delegate at Home . Arrested by the NKVD in 1945 , he was released soon afterwards only to be forced into exile . He settled in the United States , where he remained active among the local Polish diaspora . An active journalist , he was among the few people whose names were completely banned by the communist censorship in Poland . Life and education . Stefan Korboński was born March 2 , 1901 in Proszka near Wieluń . In 1908 his family moved to Częstochowa , where Korboński received basic education at the local gymnasium . However , already in 1918 he joined the ranks of the Lwów Eaglets as a volunteer and took part in the Defence of Lwów . After the besieged city had been liberated , he returned home and volunteered for the Polish Army at the outbreak of the Polish - Soviet War . Demobilized after the end of hostilities , he did not return home and instead volunteered for the third time - this time joining the ranks of the troops of the Third Silesian Uprising . For his service in various formations he was awarded with the Virtuti Militari and the Silesian Cross . After the Polish conflicts for the borders ended , Korboński passed his matura exams and joined the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań , where he graduated from the faculty of law . During his studies he became involved in politics and joined the ranks of the Polish People ' s Party " Wyzwolenie " and then , in 1931 , the People ' s Party . Following his application , he started working in the local Prosecutors Office and in 1929 opened up his own practice in Warsaw . He also quickly rose through the ranks of his party and in 1936 became its chairman for the Białystok Voivodeship ( 1919 - 1939 ) . Korboński married Zofia Ristau on 10 July 1938 . World War II activities . Prior to the outbreak of World War II he was mobilized for the Polish Army and commissioned to the 57th Infantry Regiment in the rank of First Lieutenant . During the Polish Defensive War his unit got surrounded by the Red Army and Korboński himself was taken prisoner by the NKVD . However , he managed to escape and reach the German - occupied part of Poland . He help found the Polish underground as an active member of the Union of Armed Struggle ( ZWZ ) and then the Armia Krajowa . Simultaneously , he was also one of the leaders of the clandestine People ' s Party , active within the system of the Polish Secret State . As such in 1940 he became a member of the Political Communications Committee , a clandestine political platform attached to the underground army as its political arm and a nucleus of the future parliament . Supported by most parties , already in April of the following year he became the chief of the Directorate of Civil Struggle , the agenda of the Polish government responsible for the coordination and organization of civilian resistance , information and propaganda . During his term at the office , Korboński also extended the responsibilities of the Directorate by including maintaining law and order , organizing a net of underground civil courts and coordinating carrying out their verdicts by the National Security Corps . Korboński in December 1942 became head of Directorate of Civil Resistance . It was Korboński who informed the London based Poles that the slaughter of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had started . The BBC broadcast the information . In July 1943 Korboński also became the head of the Social Resistance Department of the Directorate of Underground Resistance . Following the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944 , Korboński became the chief of the Department of Internal Affairs , a " de facto " minister of internal affairs of Poland . However , the fall of the Uprising put an end to that duty . Korboński managed to leave Warsaw as a civilian and continued his duties in hiding . In March 1945 , after the NKVD arrested Jan Stanisław Jankowski , Korboński became the last Government Delegate at Home and held that post until his arrest by the NKVD in June of the same year , during which time he worked to rebuild Government Delegacy . Postwar career . Released of Soviet prison following the creation of the communist - controlled Provisional Government of National Unity , he returned to the bar and active political career within the reactivated Polish People ' s Party , the most popular party in Poland at the time and the main opposition force to the Soviet - backed communist regime . 30 of the 145 seats in the post - war government were offered to non - Soviet supported group and it was planned for Korboński to be part of the post - war government but his name was removed by Bierut . In the forged 1947 elections he was also elected a member of the Sejm . However , the rise of Stalinism in Poland put an end to a small margin of political freedom and , following the flight of Stanisław Mikołajczyk , Korboński and his wife also were forced to flee Poland . They fled to Sweden and then settled in the United States . Korboński continued his political career in the U . S . within the Polish emigree circles . He headed the New York office in 1950 . Korboński also became a noted journalist , a head of the Polish Council of Unity and a member of the International PEN Club . Among other awards , in 1973 he received the Alfred Jurzykowski Prize and in 1980 the Yad Vashem Institute granted Korboński with the Righteous Among the Nations medal . Korboński was also a recipient of the Cross of the Home Army , the 1939 - 1945 War Medal , Golden Cross of Merit and the Order of the White Eagle ( posthumously in 1995 ) . Scientific work . Korboński authored numerous works devoted to the history of AK and Polish underground . They include :