"The Spectre of Death" (October 31, 1943). Myth-making in the war prose of Aleksander Omiljanowicz and the autobiography of Władysław Świacki

Abstract

Relying on archival material, the author verified the story of the alleged Home Army action near Ełk (Germ. Lyck) on October 31, 1943, according to which a Home Army platoon under the command of Lt. Władysław Świacki was to carry out an attack on the SS detail who were executing Italian prisoners of war near the camp at Bogusze. It is recounted in The Spectre of Death by Aleksander Omiljanowicz (1965) and the autobiography of W. Świacki (2007). The study reconstructs the complex biographies of the protagonists of the engagement, i.e. Świacki and Czesław Nalborski. Also, attention is drawn to the plot elements in Omiljanowicz’s narrative (including the date of the engagement and the name of the SS commander), which were then adopted in the accounts of the combatants themselves. The analysis of archival documents from various periods indicates that this story is a legend created in the 1960s. Despite this, the action has remained a fragment of the collective memory of the war in the Ełk district to this day. On October 28, 1989, a monument to the successful attack on the SS men was erected in Nowa Wieś Ełcka. It still stands there, demonstrating that local memory is influenced by the myth-making practices of the Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy.