Zamach na esesmanów pod Ełkiem

Abstract

On 31 October 1943, a fifteen-person strong unit of the Home Army, under the command of Władysław Świacki “Sęp” (1900–1972), with intelligence support from Czesław Nalborski “Dzik” (1910–1992), was to carry out a successful strike to take out an SS execution squad commanded by Haupsturmführer Stammer in East Prussia, on the road between Lyck (Ełk) and the village of Neuendorf (Nowa Wieś Ełcka). The German squad was said to have carried out a mass execution of Italian prisoners of war, held at the camp in Bogusze. On 28 October 1989, an obelisk with a plaque commemorating this operation was unveiled in Nowa Wieś Ełcka. The spectacular strike is recorded in the documentation of the ZBoWiD (the Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy), but has not been confirmed in any source unconnected to its supposed participants. The execution of the Italians, assassination of Stammer, and even the date of the operation (31 October 1943) were all contrived by a writer based in Białystok, Aleksander Omiljanowicz (1923–2005). The information board erected in 2017 presents a compilation of Świacki’s recollections, Omiljanowicz’s fiction, and selectively chosen historical facts. The monument in Nowa Wieś Ełcka is a troublesome legacy, as too are the heroic and martyrological stories of former Home Army members belonging to the ZBoWiD.