Zygmunt Szendzielarz Zygmunt Szendzielarz ( also known as " Łupaszka " ; 12 March 1910 – 8 February 1951 ) was commander of the Polish 5th Wilno Home Army Brigade . Early life . Szendzielarz was born in Stryj ( now in Lviv Oblast ) , then part of the Austro - Hungarian Empire , into the family of a railway worker . After graduating from primary school in Lwów , he attended a biological - mathematical " gymnasium " in Lwów and then in Stryj . After graduating , he volunteered for the Polish Army and completed Infantry Non - commissioned officer School in Ostrów Mazowiecka ( 1932 ) , then Cavalry NCO School in Grudziądz . He was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to Wilno , where he assumed command of a squadron in the 4th Uhlan Regiment . World War II . With his unit he took part in the 1939 September Campaign . His unit was attached to the Wilno Cavalry Brigade under General Władysław Anders , part of the Prusy Army . After retreating from northern Poland , the forces of Gen . Anders fought their way towards the city of Lwów and the Romanian Bridgehead . However , in the area of Lublin Szendzielarz ' s unit was surrounded and suffered heavy losses . Soon afterwards Szendzielarz was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets , but he managed to escape to Lwów , where he lived for a short period under a false name . He tried to cross the Hungarian border to escape from Poland and reach the Polish Army being formed in France , but he failed and finally moved with his family to Wilno . In Wilno , Szendzielarz started working on various posts under false names . In mid - 1943 he joined the Home Army under the nom de guerre " Łupaszko " , and in August he started organizing his own partisan group in the forests surrounding the city . Soon the unit was joined by local volunteers and the remnants of a unit of Antoni Burzyński " Kmicic " , destroyed by Soviet Partisans and the Wehrmacht . By September , the unit was 700 men strong and was officially named the V Vilnian Home Army Brigade ( " V Wileńska Brygada Armii Krajowej " ) . " Łupaszko ' s " unit fought against the German army and SS units in the area of southern Wilno Voivodeship , but was also frequently attacked by the Soviet Partisans paradropped in the area by the Red Army . In April 1944 , Zygmunt Szendzielarz was arrested by the Lithuanian police and handed over to the Gestapo . Łupaszko was free in the same month under circumstances that remain unclear . In reprisal actions his brigade captured several dozen German officials and sent several threatening letters to Gestapo but it remains unknown if and how these contributed to his release . Ostra Brama . In August , the commander of all Home Army units in the Wilno area , Gen . Aleksander " Wilk " Krzyżanowski , ordered all six brigades under his command to prepare for Operation Tempest — a planned all - national rising against the German forces occupying Poland . In what became known as Operation Ostra Brama , Brigade V was to attack the Wilno suburb of Zwierzyniec in cooperation with advancing units of the 3rd Belorussian Front . However , Łupaszko , for fear of being arrested with his units by the NKVD and killed on the spot , disobeyed orders and moved his unit to central Poland . Wilno was liberated by Polish and Soviet forces , and the Polish commander was then arrested by the Soviets and the majority of his men were sent to Gulags and sites of detention in the Soviet Union . It is uncertain why Szendzielarz was not court - martialed for desertion . Probably it was in fact General " Wilk " himself who removed Łupaszko ' s unit from the Wilno area , due to Łupaszko long having been involved in fighting with Soviet partisans and to Wilk not wanting to provoke the Red Army . Regardless , after crossing into the Podlasie and Białystok area in October , the brigade continued the struggle against withdrawing Germans in the ranks of the Białystok Home Army Area . After the region was overrun by the Soviets , Łupaszko ' s unit remained in the forests and he decided to await the outcome of Russo - Polish talks held by the Polish Government in Exile . Meanwhile the unit was reorganized and captured enough equipment to fully arm 600 men with machine guns and machine pistols . After the war . After the governments of the United Kingdom and United States broke the pacts with Poland and accepted the Polish Committee of National Liberation as the provisional government of Poland , Łupaszka restarted the hostilities - this time against a new oppressor , in the ranks of Wolność i Niezawisłość organization . However , after several successful actions against the NKVD units in the area of Białowieża Forest , it became apparent that such actions would result in a total destruction of his unit . In September 1945 , Zygmunt Szendzielarz moved with a large part of his unit to Gdańsk - Oliwa , where he remained underground while preparing his unit for a new partisan offensive against the Soviet - backed communist authorities of Poland . On April 14 , 1946 , Szendzielarz finally mobilized his unit and headed for the Tuchola Forest , where he started operations against the forces of the Internal Security Corps , Urząd Bezpieczeństwa and the communist authorities . Łupaszko was hoping that in the spring of 1946 the former Western Allies of Poland would start a new war against the Soviet Union and that the Polish underground units could prove useful in liberating Poland . However , when he realized that no such war was planned he decided to disband his unit . He saw further fight as a waste of blood of his men and decided to retire from open fight against the communists . After several years underground , he was arrested by the UB on June 28 , 1948 , in Osielec near Nowy Targ . After more than two years of brutal interrogation and torture in Warsaw ' s Mokotów Prison he was sentenced to death on November 2 , 1950 by the Soviet - controlled court martial in Warsaw . He was executed on February 8 , 1951 , together with several other Home Army soldiers . Szendzielarz was 40 years old . His body was buried in an undisclosed location . During a 2013 exhumation Szendzielarz ' s remains were recovered and identified as one of roughly 250 bodies buried in a mass grave at the so - called Meadow at Warsaw ' s Powązki Military Cemetery . Posthumous . After Łupaszko ' s death , communist propaganda accused him of all sorts of crimes , from crimes against humanity , robbery and common theft to membership in Ukrainian Insurgent Army . In 1988 Szendzielarz was posthumously promoted to " rotmistrz " and awarded the " Virtuti Militari " , Poland ' s highest military decoration , by Kazimierz Sabbat , the President of Poland in exile . After the fall of communism , in 1993 , Szendzielarz was rehabilitated and declared innocent of charges which he had been accused of . On 2007 Polish president Lech Kaczyński posthumously awarded Szendzielarz with the order of Polonia Restituta .