Photograph by Wojciech Maslanka 

On March 1, we honor the Cursed Soldiers—heroes of Poland’s post-war independence underground who, after 1945, refused to lay down their arms and resisted Soviet control.

They formed Europe’s largest anti-communist underground, with 120,000–180,000 participants across Poland and the pre-war Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic. Over 20,000 lost their lives at the hands of the communist regime, and for decades their stories were silenced.

Today, the memory of the Cursed Soldiers is being restored...