Investigation and the Trial of Lt. Col. Bolesław Michał Nieczuja-Ostrowski

Abstract

This is another article devoted to Lt. Col. Bolesław Michał Nieczuja-Ostrowski “Bolko”, “Tysiąc” (1907-2008) who during the Second World War was an officer of the Polish Army, then of the underground Home Army (Armia Krajowa – AK), and since 1944 the commander of the great unit of the AK: the 106th Infantry Division. The article is associated with the investigations conducted against this man and with a trial as a result of which he was sentenced to death. The author used mainly the materials prepared by the functionaries of the Office of Public Security during the inquiry and the trial that were conducted. The information was compared and extended by the data contained in the publications of Lt. Col. Nieczuja-Ostrowski that appeared after 1989.Ostrowski was accused of participation in “illegal organisations” after 1945, and previously he was accused of the contacts that were maintained by the soldiers of the division that he commanded (the division operated on the areas of the AK “Maria” Regional Inspectorate) with the representatives of the German occupation authorities, as well as the supposed killings of Soviet soldiers, people of Jewish ethnicity and communist activists. In the years 1946-1956 he was arrested a number of times, he was repeatedly interrogated, imprisoned and as a result of this he was sentenced to death two times. After the amnesty his sentence was reduced to 12 years of prison (he spent a total of more than seven years in prison).