World War II
During World War II, the ND became part of a coalition which formed the Polish Government in Exile. It was closely linked with the National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne), an underground organization which became a part of the Polish resistance movement. ND armed organizations fought not only against Nazi Germany but also against the Soviet Union. Both occupying forces regarded members of the movement as their mortal enemy, and its leaders were killed in mass executions, in concentration camps and in the Katyn massacre. Among those killed are:
- Leopold Bieńkowski (father of Zygmunt Witymir Bieńkowski), arrested by the NKVD in early 1940, died in a Gulag near Arkhangelsk in 1941
- reverend Feliks Bolt, a senator of the Republic of Poland, died in Stutthof in 1940
- Tadeusz Fabiani, a lawyer, shot at Pawiak in 1940
- Stanisław Głąbiński, died in NKVD prison in Lubyanka in 1940
- doctor Wincenty Harembski, shot in NKVD prison in Kharkiv in 1940
- Tadeusz Zygmunt Hernes, journalist, killed in Katyń massacre
- reverend Marceli Nowakowski, shot in Warsaw in December 1939
- Stanisław Piasecki, writer, shot in Palmiry in June 1941
- reverend Jozef Pradzynski, died in Dachau in 1942
- Michał Starczewski, murdered in the Katyn massacre
- Tadeusz Szefer, murdered in the Katyn massacre
- Jan Szturmowski, murdered by the Germans in September 1939
- Jan Waliński, murdered by the NKVD in Kharkiv in 1940
- Jan Wujastyk, murdered in the Katyn massacre
- Czesław Jóźwiak, murdered by the Gestapo in 1940 in Dresden prison
- Jozefat Sikorski, murdered by the Gestapo in the Berlin-Plotzensee prison in 1942
- Antoni Wolniewicz, murdered by the Gestapo in the Berlin-Plotzensee prison in 1942
Read more about this topic: National Democracy
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are “made in America.””
—Helen Rowland (1875–1950)
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)