Poland
17 June 1945
Trial of the Sixteen
Neither the Polish wartime government in London nor the HA command in Poland recognised the Yalta arrangements. HA soldiers continued a guerrilla struggle with the Red Army and NKVD occupying Poland. To fight the resistance, Stalin invited sixteen leaders of the clandestine state to the Moscow talks and had them arrested and convicted to long jail terms. HA soldiers became ‘criminals’ wanted by the security apparatus, tortured in prisons and murdered, while the memory of the heroes was erased.