Russian Emigrants and Polish Underground in 1939–1948
Russian Emigrants and Polish Underground in 1939–1948

Summary/Abstract: The present article brings up a practically forgotten episode in the history of Russian emigration. An archival inquiry revealed the engagement of several Russian post-revolutionary émigrés in the fight against the Germans during World War II in the territory of occupied Poland. The persons described in this concise article are an example of unconventional behaviour. One year ago, the author of the present article, when asked on which side Russian émigrés had fought in World War II, answered: on the German side, against the Bolsheviks. However, numerous discourses with experts and the reading of several books on this subject changed his opinion; and the contact with a living eyewitness of history, who remembers the events described in the article, proved to be priceless. The article is devoted to the fate of Russian anti-communist émigrés, called “Whites”, engaged in the fight against the National Socialist Germans and Austrians. Several glorious examples are mentioned here, such as the forgotten Tumanow brothers (unknown even to the Warsaw Uprising Museum), Jurasow, Kurochkin, or Tryfonow, who all fought in the Polish Home Army of the Navahrudak (Nowogródek) and Wilno/Vilno areas. The article is not exhaustive, as some other figures should be mentioned as well, namely Aleksandr Grigorovich, Jan Szaliłow (“Renek”), Dmitri Sokoltsov, or Irena Tamara Misztal (Tamara Pyetukhova). They have actively engaged in resistance, and fought as if against all tendencies, against the easier life – and often risking theirs. This fascinating and unknown episode of World War II requires a deeper systematisation and the verification of numerous biographies of the representatives of the pre-war post-revolutionary Russian diaspora living in the Second Polish Republic, who spent the war fighting “for our freedom and yours”.

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