Poland: National Day of Remembrance of the "Cursed Soldiers"

 Poland celebrates the National Day of Remembrance of the Cursed Soldiers on March 1 since 2011.  On that day in 1951, in Warsaw, the leaders of the "Freedom and Independence" organization were murdered by the secret police with a shot to the back of the head.

An estimated 50,000 members of the Cursed Soldiers perished at the hands of the communists between 1944 and 1956. Many of them were buried in unmarked graves, most of which still could not have been found. According to estimates, the Polish underground state after WWII comprised over 300,000 people.

"The Cursed Soldiers never accepted a Poland that was not truly independent, and they decided to fight for freedom and independence until the very end," said today President Andrzej Duda.

"This was a large movement. Many of its members were killed, many were tortured, many spent years in Soviet torture chambers. Many of them paid a high price for their desire for a free and independent Poland," continued Duda.