Calendar card: Major Fire
date: February 20, 2013 Editor: csp
21 February 1947. In the village of Ostrowsko close Nowy Targ, he was surrounded by russian hycli (UB, KBW, militia) Major Józef Kuraś “Fire”, died after a fewer hours on 22 February (23 X 1915 Waksmund †22 II 1947 Nowy Targ) – a legend of the postwar anti-communist partisan in Podhale.
He had no chance, it was an ambush, accompanied by a tiny group of subordinates. There was no way back. "Fire" did not want to hear about surrender, about "investigation", about the show "procesion" and humiliation. He shot himself in the head in the attic of 1 of the sharp houses. A strong, barely 31-year-old body fought back. "Fire" did not die until at the fresh York hospital, shortly after midnight.
Maciej Korkuć of Kraków IPN wrote about “King Podhala”:
Fire - no retreat
(www.sgpm.krakow.pl)
[...] In the second half of the 1940s, the authoritative propaganda portrayed him as a ‘psychopathy’, ‘known already before the war of a horse thief’, a bandit ‘marking a peculiar sadism towards the exploited mountainous population’, whose ‘worst collaborators’ were the ‘members of the SS and Gestapo’, a helper of ‘wolves and related fascist movements’, who wanted to turn Podhale into ‘a land of mad ‘firers’ carrying the fire and murder’!
Stefan Korboński, acting in 1945 as the delegate of the Polish Government to the country called him “King Podhala” and “Tatra Janosik of the 20th century, whose fame on the Podhale will live for many years, passed from generation to generation.”
Today it is recognized by any - mostly thanks to the long-term propaganda of communists - as a "controversial" figure. At the time, according to the PPR documents, the biggest pain of the "people's authority" was the clear support of Podhale's population for its troops.
Józef Kuraś was born on 23 October 1915 in a household with traditions of commitment to patriotic and civic activity. As a pre-war lieutenant and associate in the September campaign, he practically became active in conspiracy activity since the beginning of the occupation. Under the pseudonym “Orzeł” he was the commander and teacher of the training of the diversion group, the subordinate regional independency organization of the Tatra Confederation. Following the demolition of this organization by the Germans, his group became the basis on which 1 of the first guerrilla troops of the Home Army in Podhale was created.
The commander was initially Lieutenant Władysław Szczypka "Lech", later Jan Stachura "Adam" and Krystian Więckowski "Zavisz". Joseph Kuras served as head of the branch at all times. At that time, he had already worn the nickname “Fire”, which he accepted after on June 29, 1943, in 1 night, in retaliation for his conspiracy activity, his 73-year-old father, wife and two-and-a-half-year-old boy were murdered. The bodies of the murdered and the full home were poured with gasoline and set on fire, prohibiting the extinguishing of the fire.
At the end of December 1943, during the absence of “Zavisz”, led by the impounder, the Germans amazed the guerrillas and set up a troop camp. 2 guerrillas died in the fight. The Fire, which led the branch in the replacement of Zawisza, was held liable for these events. Despite the reports he sent to the territory Command and requests for a detailed investigation, he was sentenced to death, which was only annulled in the summertime of 1944.
In specified circumstances, in the spring of 1944, "Fire", leading a group of subordinates, he accepted the proposal to replace them as a branch of the People's safety Guard, or armed conspiracy formation of the People's organization "Roch". In the fall of 1944, his already about 80 soldiers, the guerrilla group became an executional branch of the Regional Delegation of the Polish Government in Nowy Targ and executed the judgments of underground peculiar courts.
At the end of 1944, behind the cognition of his political sovereignty, he established cooperation with the Al-Captain of Podhale, Lieutenant Isaac Gutman. This coincided with the decision of the Nova Rican leadership of the folk movement to effort at local level to take power after the Red Army entered the area. The people hoped that the communists, having no background among the people in Podhale, would gotta accept the facts made by SL. akin actions were undertaken by SL in another areas of Małopolska. The chicken was expected to carry out these plans in fresh York.
After the Soviets seized Podhale, “Fire” brought his subordinates to Nowy Targ and formed region troops of the folk militia. Upon the arrival of the UB-organised operating group, he utilized the protection of Gutman's aelators and succeeded in receiving a nomination for the UB's newtarian manager, who heavy overlaid his own subordinates. It turned out very rapidly that the implementation of the underground concept of SL had no chance of success. After 3 weeks nominally serving as UB manager, Józef Kuraś again went to the mountains and from his subordinates and created the Partisan Branch “Błyskawica”.
The NKVD captures and later UB, CBW and troops were incapable to prevent the branch's growth. In 1946, the companies under Kurasi operated in an area ranging from the border areas of Slovakia to the south, to the city of Kraków and the areas of the Miechów territory in the north.
"Fire" did not have any illusions about the real goals of the 1945 amnesty. The substance of laying down arms: as a Pole and an old guerrilla, I declare: I will endure to the end in my position «So aid me God» - he wrote in a letter dated October 15, 1945 to the fresh Yorkers. I wasn't a traitor and I won't be. ... your in vain labors, your pains, and all sorts of deceptions. Guarantees of freedom are issued to prisoners you torture like barbarians. Shame, shame. You will destruct yourself by your actions. Good-bye, fellow communists, sending greetings to Borovich... and many others who will turn into banners floating on a dry tree.
Since the beginning of 1946, the area in which the communist administration exercised power has been shrinking virtually all day. Eugeniusz Warzar, a then propaganda teacher at the PPR Regional Committee in Nowy Targ, wrote years later that in 1946 there was not a single MO station in the territory but Zakopane and Szczawnica. another beings repeatedly disarmed, files and devices destroyed, weapons and uniforms taken and what more active officers beat or killed. 1 can say - the Warrier wrote - that the Fire then reigned in the field, constituted strength, had its troops in almost all corner. His influence reached so far that even the safety and militia authorities were not free of them.
Not without reason in another memoirs, the same author wrote that in winter conditions there were areas whose real rulers became swarming throughout the territory armed bands of Fire. According to the warlord, an example of the forest-controlled area was Volunteer Górna, where the local population had reasonable doubts as to whether the people's power existed at all, after all, in that area it did not matter, it was not felt, at all turn it was known to the reactionary underground. The Highlanders did not fulfil their duties to you ..., e.g. only 5% of conscripts volunteered for military service.
The then president of the Provincial organization Control Commission of PPR Bronisław Pawlik in his study from November 1945 to February 1946 defined the situation in the areas of Nowy Targ, Żywiec and Nowy Sącz districts as very severe, stating the melting of PPR ranks in these areas: The peasants in the countryside aid him again, keeping him and his men. There are villages where there is formally no authority at all, so the organization ... in the field is not developing at all, and the full territory Committee is working under fear.
Even more alarming for communists were the reports of the PPR territory secretaries at the PPR Provincial Committee plenary of 19 March 1946. Among others, the secretary from Nowy Targ said: panic is very strong, many members give their IDs out of fear. ...the general poorness of the population that is hostile to you - the darkness of the masses. ... There's no work until we've destroyed a bunch of fires. ... Cooperation with PPS does not exist, there is simply a reaction in the offices, a list was issued collecting food cards in the hands of Fire.
In action plans against the underground, the fight against the “Fire” group came first among the most crucial tasks in the voivodship. In 1946 additional military units were sent to the territory of Nowotarsk. Contrary to the communists' expectations, this did not change the situation in Podhale and in the voivodship. The study by the Head of the Main Board of Political and Educational Affairs for August 1946 states that the underground activity in the Kraków Voivodeship has intensified: The most dangerous areas proceed to be the districts of Nowy Targ, Nowy Sącz - Limanowa - areas of Fire activity and its subordinate bands. The situation in this area is peculiarly dangerous - Fire is the actual host who imposes contributions, displaces undesirable people from villages, changes the chiefs, etc. Local MO stations, either are disarmed or secretly cooperate, or at least are neutral against the bands. ... Trains proceed to halt regularly, disarm soldiers. The PPR reports say that Nowy Targ is the most hard area in the voivodship. panic - which has not been so far ... Propaganda - threatening posters and flyers have increased. The worst part is that the population does not respond to these accidents but for individuals who condemn banditism. ... Members cannot formally act as pepeerists - the organization does not grow.
PPR cells in Nowy Targ, Zakopane and surrounding areas, as well as in another areas of the voivodship, went to conspiracy... It is no wonder, therefore, that the warlord quoted earlier recorded among the PPRs there a sense of hopelessness of the situation expressed that ... we have evolved into a kind of ceremony facility leading to the cemetery almost all week, and sometimes twice a week bodies of murdered comrades.... We started drinking beautiful abundantly. We were getting drunk to be sad. On the another hand, the study of the Provincial Committee on organization Control states that people were sent to the territory of Nowotarski to UB or MO as punishment.
"Fire" treated its activities as self-defense and preparation to participate in the fresh war. He believed that the Western conflict with the USSR would shortly bring real independency to Poland. On 14 November 1946 there was a letter to Bierut, in which he scored, among others, the objectives of his fight:
The Partisan Branch «Błyskawica» fights for Free, Independent and truly democratic Poland. We will fight for the east and western borders. We do not recognise the interference of the USSR in interior affairs of the Polish state policy. Communism, which wants to master Poland, must be destroyed.
In the "Fire" call, he warned all impounders and people in the UB of management positions in order to dull real Poles, that they would be hanged and shot at all step, without looking at their origin, and their possessions would be confiscated for the benefit of guerrilla troops. Therefore, the activities of his troops were aimed at many times at both Polish and German, Slovak and judaic origins. With respect to the latter, Józef Kuraś suggested carrying out a run to evict Jews from Podhale (as at the same time they were made to Germans from Silesia and Pomerania), which active the universal recognition of Jews with the fresh government at the time – due to their many participation in the structures of communist power. The subordinates of the “Fire” powerfully deny the accusations of seeking the physical liquidation of the judaic population. There was no accident that the hebrew for origin itself was eliminated - he spoke many years after the war “Hercules”, a erstwhile aide Kurasia.
At the end of 1946, UB noted respective successes in the fight against the Fire troops. At the same time, utilizing the rule of collective responsibility, mass arrests began in the Podhale villages, which further aggravated the situation of guerrillas.
In the morning of February 20, 1947, Kuraś and a 6-member group of subordinates arrived in Ostrowska. The next morning around 9.30 a.m. was informed about this by the recently built PUBP. An alarm was issued for a 40-man company of 6 independent KBW operating battalion. It was joined by 10 UB and MO officers from fresh Market. The home of the guerrillas was surrounded. The attack began at 1 p.m. After winning the homestead, it turned out that the Fire with its subordinates withdrew unnoticed to the adjacent building. During the next attack, the guerrillas attempted to escape, during which the “cold” and “Kruk” fell. Through the lap they have penetrated the “Powicher”, “Harnas” and “Szpak”.
It was only after the buildings of KBW had been burned that Kuraś and ‘Hanka’ had run unnoticed to the next building. The home was surrounded and demanded that Kuras surrender. The “Fire” proposal he rejected, but instructed “Hance” to lay down their weapons and go outside. Then, trying to commit suicide, he severely injured his head with a gun. In a state of partial unconsciousness, he was transported to a infirmary in Nowy Targ, where he died.
Many of his subordinates, utilizing a fresh amnesty, laid down their weapons. any continued the fight for the following years.
Andrzej Kołakowski
Epitaph to Major Fire
If I die for you,
If I gotta bargain the flag,
He'll come for everyone.
It's time.
Silver eagle from my hat,
on cliffs in the heart of the Tatras,
He'll find a nest.
You hide me, my land of Podhale,
You stone me to sleep.
The Lord's hand has protected me so many times.
Today God called me to the report.
Wolves have their paths,
I followed the wolf trail,
Death chased me through the woods like a hunting dog.
She stopped by the creek,
a short flash over the mountain slope,
God's will, my fight ends today.
You hide me, my land of Podhale,
You stone me to sleep.
The Lord's hand has protected me so many times.
Today God called me to the report.
Polish Silver Eagle
He put his claws into our souls.
and guerrilla legend
above the tops he rose.
In Podhale, under Turbach,
The partisan willow cries.
Fire's gone,
But his memory's inactive in the air.
Piotr Szubarczyk
== sync, corrected by elderman ==
Maciej Korkuć of Kraków IPN wrote about “King Podhala”:
Fire - no retreat
(www.sgpm.krakow.pl)
[...] In the second half of the 1940s, the authoritative propaganda portrayed him as a ‘psychopathy’, ‘known already before the war of a horse thief’, a bandit ‘marking a peculiar sadism towards the exploited mountainous population’, whose ‘worst collaborators’ were the ‘members of the SS and Gestapo’, a helper of ‘wolves and related fascist movements’, who wanted to turn Podhale into ‘a land of mad ‘firers’ carrying the fire and murder’!
Stefan Korboński, acting in 1945 as the delegate of the Polish Government to the country called him “King Podhala” and “Tatra Janosik of the 20th century, whose fame on the Podhale will live for many years, passed from generation to generation.”
Today it is recognized by any - mostly thanks to the long-term propaganda of communists - as a "controversial" figure. At the time, according to the PPR documents, the biggest pain of the "people's authority" was the clear support of Podhale's population for its troops.
Józef Kuraś was born on 23 October 1915 in a household with traditions of commitment to patriotic and civic activity. As a pre-war lieutenant and associate in the September campaign, he practically became active in conspiracy activity since the beginning of the occupation. Under the pseudonym “Orzeł” he was the commander and teacher of the training of the diversion group, the subordinate regional independency organization of the Tatra Confederation. Following the demolition of this organization by the Germans, his group became the basis on which 1 of the first guerrilla troops of the Home Army in Podhale was created.
The commander was initially Lieutenant Władysław Szczypka "Lech", later Jan Stachura "Adam" and Krystian Więckowski "Zavisz". Joseph Kuras served as head of the branch at all times. At that time, he had already worn the nickname “Fire”, which he accepted after on June 29, 1943, in 1 night, in retaliation for his conspiracy activity, his 73-year-old father, wife and two-and-a-half-year-old boy were murdered. The bodies of the murdered and the full home were poured with gasoline and set on fire, prohibiting the extinguishing of the fire.
At the end of December 1943, during the absence of “Zavisz”, led by the impounder, the Germans amazed the guerrillas and set up a troop camp. 2 guerrillas died in the fight. The Fire, which led the branch in the replacement of Zawisza, was held liable for these events. Despite the reports he sent to the territory Command and requests for a detailed investigation, he was sentenced to death, which was only annulled in the summertime of 1944.
In specified circumstances, in the spring of 1944, "Fire", leading a group of subordinates, he accepted the proposal to replace them as a branch of the People's safety Guard, or armed conspiracy formation of the People's organization "Roch". In the fall of 1944, his already about 80 soldiers, the guerrilla group became an executional branch of the Regional Delegation of the Polish Government in Nowy Targ and executed the judgments of underground peculiar courts.
At the end of 1944, behind the cognition of his political sovereignty, he established cooperation with the Al-Captain of Podhale, Lieutenant Isaac Gutman. This coincided with the decision of the Nova Rican leadership of the folk movement to effort at local level to take power after the Red Army entered the area. The people hoped that the communists, having no background among the people in Podhale, would gotta accept the facts made by SL. akin actions were undertaken by SL in another areas of Małopolska. The chicken was expected to carry out these plans in fresh York.
After the Soviets seized Podhale, “Fire” brought his subordinates to Nowy Targ and formed region troops of the folk militia. Upon the arrival of the UB-organised operating group, he utilized the protection of Gutman's aelators and succeeded in receiving a nomination for the UB's newtarian manager, who heavy overlaid his own subordinates. It turned out very rapidly that the implementation of the underground concept of SL had no chance of success. After 3 weeks nominally serving as UB manager, Józef Kuraś again went to the mountains and from his subordinates and created the Partisan Branch “Błyskawica”.
The NKVD captures and later UB, CBW and troops were incapable to prevent the branch's growth. In 1946, the companies under Kurasi operated in an area ranging from the border areas of Slovakia to the south, to the city of Kraków and the areas of the Miechów territory in the north.
"Fire" did not have any illusions about the real goals of the 1945 amnesty. The substance of laying down arms: as a Pole and an old guerrilla, I declare: I will endure to the end in my position «So aid me God» - he wrote in a letter dated October 15, 1945 to the fresh Yorkers. I wasn't a traitor and I won't be. ... your in vain labors, your pains, and all sorts of deceptions. Guarantees of freedom are issued to prisoners you torture like barbarians. Shame, shame. You will destruct yourself by your actions. Good-bye, fellow communists, sending greetings to Borovich... and many others who will turn into banners floating on a dry tree.
Since the beginning of 1946, the area in which the communist administration exercised power has been shrinking virtually all day. Eugeniusz Warzar, a then propaganda teacher at the PPR Regional Committee in Nowy Targ, wrote years later that in 1946 there was not a single MO station in the territory but Zakopane and Szczawnica. another beings repeatedly disarmed, files and devices destroyed, weapons and uniforms taken and what more active officers beat or killed. 1 can say - the Warrier wrote - that the Fire then reigned in the field, constituted strength, had its troops in almost all corner. His influence reached so far that even the safety and militia authorities were not free of them.
Not without reason in another memoirs, the same author wrote that in winter conditions there were areas whose real rulers became swarming throughout the territory armed bands of Fire. According to the warlord, an example of the forest-controlled area was Volunteer Górna, where the local population had reasonable doubts as to whether the people's power existed at all, after all, in that area it did not matter, it was not felt, at all turn it was known to the reactionary underground. The Highlanders did not fulfil their duties to you ..., e.g. only 5% of conscripts volunteered for military service.
The then president of the Provincial organization Control Commission of PPR Bronisław Pawlik in his study from November 1945 to February 1946 defined the situation in the areas of Nowy Targ, Żywiec and Nowy Sącz districts as very severe, stating the melting of PPR ranks in these areas: The peasants in the countryside aid him again, keeping him and his men. There are villages where there is formally no authority at all, so the organization ... in the field is not developing at all, and the full territory Committee is working under fear.
Even more alarming for communists were the reports of the PPR territory secretaries at the PPR Provincial Committee plenary of 19 March 1946. Among others, the secretary from Nowy Targ said: panic is very strong, many members give their IDs out of fear. ...the general poorness of the population that is hostile to you - the darkness of the masses. ... There's no work until we've destroyed a bunch of fires. ... Cooperation with PPS does not exist, there is simply a reaction in the offices, a list was issued collecting food cards in the hands of Fire.
In action plans against the underground, the fight against the “Fire” group came first among the most crucial tasks in the voivodship. In 1946 additional military units were sent to the territory of Nowotarsk. Contrary to the communists' expectations, this did not change the situation in Podhale and in the voivodship. The study by the Head of the Main Board of Political and Educational Affairs for August 1946 states that the underground activity in the Kraków Voivodeship has intensified: The most dangerous areas proceed to be the districts of Nowy Targ, Nowy Sącz - Limanowa - areas of Fire activity and its subordinate bands. The situation in this area is peculiarly dangerous - Fire is the actual host who imposes contributions, displaces undesirable people from villages, changes the chiefs, etc. Local MO stations, either are disarmed or secretly cooperate, or at least are neutral against the bands. ... Trains proceed to halt regularly, disarm soldiers. The PPR reports say that Nowy Targ is the most hard area in the voivodship. panic - which has not been so far ... Propaganda - threatening posters and flyers have increased. The worst part is that the population does not respond to these accidents but for individuals who condemn banditism. ... Members cannot formally act as pepeerists - the organization does not grow.
PPR cells in Nowy Targ, Zakopane and surrounding areas, as well as in another areas of the voivodship, went to conspiracy... It is no wonder, therefore, that the warlord quoted earlier recorded among the PPRs there a sense of hopelessness of the situation expressed that ... we have evolved into a kind of ceremony facility leading to the cemetery almost all week, and sometimes twice a week bodies of murdered comrades.... We started drinking beautiful abundantly. We were getting drunk to be sad. On the another hand, the study of the Provincial Committee on organization Control states that people were sent to the territory of Nowotarski to UB or MO as punishment.
"Fire" treated its activities as self-defense and preparation to participate in the fresh war. He believed that the Western conflict with the USSR would shortly bring real independency to Poland. On 14 November 1946 there was a letter to Bierut, in which he scored, among others, the objectives of his fight:
The Partisan Branch «Błyskawica» fights for Free, Independent and truly democratic Poland. We will fight for the east and western borders. We do not recognise the interference of the USSR in interior affairs of the Polish state policy. Communism, which wants to master Poland, must be destroyed.
In the "Fire" call, he warned all impounders and people in the UB of management positions in order to dull real Poles, that they would be hanged and shot at all step, without looking at their origin, and their possessions would be confiscated for the benefit of guerrilla troops. Therefore, the activities of his troops were aimed at many times at both Polish and German, Slovak and judaic origins. With respect to the latter, Józef Kuraś suggested carrying out a run to evict Jews from Podhale (as at the same time they were made to Germans from Silesia and Pomerania), which active the universal recognition of Jews with the fresh government at the time – due to their many participation in the structures of communist power. The subordinates of the “Fire” powerfully deny the accusations of seeking the physical liquidation of the judaic population. There was no accident that the hebrew for origin itself was eliminated - he spoke many years after the war “Hercules”, a erstwhile aide Kurasia.
At the end of 1946, UB noted respective successes in the fight against the Fire troops. At the same time, utilizing the rule of collective responsibility, mass arrests began in the Podhale villages, which further aggravated the situation of guerrillas.
In the morning of February 20, 1947, Kuraś and a 6-member group of subordinates arrived in Ostrowska. The next morning around 9.30 a.m. was informed about this by the recently built PUBP. An alarm was issued for a 40-man company of 6 independent KBW operating battalion. It was joined by 10 UB and MO officers from fresh Market. The home of the guerrillas was surrounded. The attack began at 1 p.m. After winning the homestead, it turned out that the Fire with its subordinates withdrew unnoticed to the adjacent building. During the next attack, the guerrillas attempted to escape, during which the “cold” and “Kruk” fell. Through the lap they have penetrated the “Powicher”, “Harnas” and “Szpak”.
It was only after the buildings of KBW had been burned that Kuraś and ‘Hanka’ had run unnoticed to the next building. The home was surrounded and demanded that Kuras surrender. The “Fire” proposal he rejected, but instructed “Hance” to lay down their weapons and go outside. Then, trying to commit suicide, he severely injured his head with a gun. In a state of partial unconsciousness, he was transported to a infirmary in Nowy Targ, where he died.
Many of his subordinates, utilizing a fresh amnesty, laid down their weapons. any continued the fight for the following years.
Andrzej Kołakowski
Epitaph to Major Fire
If I die for you,
If I gotta bargain the flag,
He'll come for everyone.
It's time.
Silver eagle from my hat,
on cliffs in the heart of the Tatras,
He'll find a nest.
You hide me, my land of Podhale,
You stone me to sleep.
The Lord's hand has protected me so many times.
Today God called me to the report.
Wolves have their paths,
I followed the wolf trail,
Death chased me through the woods like a hunting dog.
She stopped by the creek,
a short flash over the mountain slope,
God's will, my fight ends today.
You hide me, my land of Podhale,
You stone me to sleep.
The Lord's hand has protected me so many times.
Today God called me to the report.
Polish Silver Eagle
He put his claws into our souls.
and guerrilla legend
above the tops he rose.
In Podhale, under Turbach,
The partisan willow cries.
Fire's gone,
But his memory's inactive in the air.
Piotr Szubarczyk
== sync, corrected by elderman ==
