Soldiers
About 5,000 Poles fought in that unit. The Brigade was named after the 19th century Polish general Jarosław Dąbrowski. The unit was formed as Dąbrowski's battalion in October 1936; in June 1937 it was reorganised into the 150th Brigade, which in addition to two Polish battalions (Dąbrowski's and Palefox's) included also a Hungarian (Rakosy's) and a Belgian-French (Marty's) one. In August it was renamed again to the 13th Dąbrowski's International Brigade. The brigade was demobilized in 1938 but volunteered back to service in 1939. On 9 January it crossed the French border and was finally dissolved; most of its soldiers were interned.
Most of Dąbrowszczacy were Polish communists. For their communist orientation they were condemned by the Second Polish Republic, which cancelled the citizenship of many of them (in spite of the fact, that Poland was second biggest arms supplier to the Republic, just after USSR). On the other hand, they were portrayed as heroes in the People's Republic of Poland; many of them served in the Berling Army, Armia Ludowa and Gwardia Ludowa during the Second World War.
Read more about this topic: Dabrowski Battalion
Famous quotes containing the word soldiers:
“How red the rose that is the soldier’s wound,
The wounds of many soldiers, the wounds of all
The soldiers that have fallen, red in blood,
The soldier of time grown deathless in great size.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“We, the soldiers who have returned from battles stained with blood; we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes; we who have attended their funerals and cannot look in the eyes of their parents; we who have come from a land where parents bury their children; we who have fought against you, the Palestinians—we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice: enough of blood and tears. Enough.”
—Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995)
“But that wasn’t fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to
people they say Oh yes, they’re the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)