Background
Polish-Lithuanian relations during the interbellum period were strained since both sides had laid claim to the Vilnius region. During the Second World War these tensions were exacerbated due to conflicts between the Lithuanian pro-German administration and military units, and the anti-Nazi Polish resistance, as well as the discrimination against Poles by the independent Lithuanian state between 1939 and 1940. On 20 June 1944 members of the Polish resistance killed four members of the Lithuanian police, and wounded several others in the village of Glitiškės (Glinciszki); in retaliation the Lithuanian police killed thirty-six Polish villagers (the Glinciszki massacre). After hearing of this, as well as other information about intensified pacification actions by the Lithuanian forces, the Armia Krajowa ("AK") command for the Vilnius region (under Aleksander Krzyżanowski "Wilk") assumed that it represented a beginning of a new, large anti-Polish operation and only a demonstration of the strength of Polish forces in the region could stop the killings and protect the Polish civilians. Leaflets were distributed through the region that AK was planning to execute members of the Lithuanian units guilty of the Glinciszki massacre, and a raid on the pre-war Lithuanian Republic territory was planned. The AK command did not plan, and actually strictly forbade, any reprisals against innocent civilians.
In the meantime, elements of the 5th AK Brigade under command of Zygmunt Szendzielarz aka "Łupaszko" learned that some of the responsible individuals and their families were stationed in the police station in Dubingai. An AK unit - a company of the 5th Brigade under Jan Wiktor Wiącek "Rakoczy" - decided to destroy the police station in the village as well as to execute several Nazi-Lithuanian informants in the village. There are different versions as to who led the raid on Dubingiai; most sources attribute it to the commander of the 5th Brigade, Szendzielarz - although Henryk Piskunowicz, Polish historian and author of several publications about Armia Krajowa operations in Vilnius region, specifically pointed to Wiącek.
The AK headquarters having learned of that initiative, and afraid that the soldiers of the 5th Brigade who have freshly witnessed the aftermath of Glinciszki may not follow the orders forbidding actions against civilians, sent a courier from AK headquarters in Vilnius ordering the 5th Brigade to stay put, the courier, however, did not reach the local commanders in time.
Read more about this topic: Dubingiai Massacre
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