Operation: destruct the Church

Department IV of the Ministry of the Interior was a safety Service unit specialised in combating the Church. He did more than just watch over clergy and faithful. The tasks of the esbeeks of vertical IV besides included kidnappings, beatings and murders on priests considered to be peculiarly dangerous.

During crucial political events, until the end of the "people's" Poland, all sermon and all public message of representatives of the Church was noted. Statistical lists were drawn up of the number of sermons "politically involved" and those that were considered "purely religious". The clergy, who were identified as dangerous, were trying to weaken, and who were regarded as "positive" safety helped in their careers - besides through support provided by the confiscationists. ...

Repressions reached the apogee in 1953. The communists then conducted the alleged process of Krakow curia, introduced a decree on the filling of church posts, sentenced Fr. Czesława Kaczmarka, and in September they interned the Primate of Poland Fr. Stefan Wyszynski.

A partial change in the destiny of the Church came with "rehydration". In October 1956, the Primate of the Millennium returned to Warsaw. The communists besides changed their tactics - they realized that the Church could not be destroyed. So they started on a wider scale of his surveillance, which would aid paralyze any of his activities.(...) In 1962, the notorious Department IV was established - a specialized structure to combat the Church. A year later, the esbeks were ordered to lead for all spiritual person (not only diocesan priests, monks and nuns, but besides alumnic seminaries) so-called. Operations Records files for the Priest (THEOK), likewise documented events in all parish under the alleged TEOP, which is Operational Records files for the Parish.(...) Against the clergy were utilized all the esbek arsenal: agentry, area and telephone eavesdropping, previews, photographic documentation, secret searches, correspondence control, external observation...

(...) The alleged "Rokity Report" reads, among others: "Among the established methods of disintegration actions were used: anonymisms defaming people from the church environment; the instigation of antagonisms through secret collaborators; publications of peculiar magazines controlled by the Ministry of the Interior ('Ancora'); the collection of leaflets, posters, etc.; the forgery of memoir materials to defamate people present in them. However, the methods of peculiar action are: beatings, harm to property, abduction, threats of illegality, intoxication, assaults on housing, arson. It cannot be excluded that there have been cases of homicide during peculiar actions".

... In 1982, as part of the nationwide "Kruk" action, the safety Service created and later updated, a list of about a 100 clergymenwho were found to be the most troublesome to the regime. shortly any of them began to die. In 1983, the Dominican o. Honorius Kowalczyk. On October 30, 1984, a massacred body, bearing traces of torture, was fished from Vistula. George Popieluszko. Priests were besides to die Adolf Chojnacki and Henryk Jankowski - traces of homicide preparations have been preserved in SB files. "Unknown perpetrators" beat up a priest Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski and set fire to the car of the Metropolitan of Wroclaw Fr. Henry Gulbinovich...

In subsequent years, the next chaplains of "Solidarity" and clergymen declared "enemies of the system" were killed - in February 1985 Fr. Stanisław Palimaka, in January 1989, just before the circular Table, Fr. Stefan Niedziela, respective days later Fr. Stanisław Suchowolec, and after the contract election, in July 1989, Fr. New Year’s Eve.

Today, any people are urging us not to condemn the PRL in the pulpit. To look to the affirmative side of the regime, and to any of its rulers we treated with respect and called "people of honor." The peculiar is the optics that dictates that it is average to consider a state in which respective twelve clergymen died as spiritual and patriotic activities, and thousands were imprisoned, repressed administratively or harassed by "unknown perpetrators".

Film material No. 1

The Polish People's Republic implemented a model of totalitarian, based on aggressive atheistic ideology, communist russian system. The Catholic Church as an independent social structure, with its own, religious-based Christian curriculum of teaching and education, was a fundamental obstacle to this objective. Therefore, the fight against him in the Polish People's Republic was 1 of the most crucial tasks that the country had done to itself.

The fundamental causes of the fight against the Church in the communist strategy should be recalled. Communism was in fact a pseudo-religion that did not tolerate any another religion, especially Catholicism. Teaching the Church about unquestionable moral principles and the same criteria of good and evil strengthened the independency of thinking, hindered the control of society and subjugated it(...)

Immediately after the war, the authorities applied the tactics of masking their intentions. This was intended to weaken the intellectual and social opposition to the terror-imposed communist power. For example on 3 May 1945, the government in its entirety, headed by the "unparty" president Birut, attended a solemn service at the Carmelite church in Warsaw. A fewer weeks later, the head of state himself appeared at the dedication ceremony of the restored statue of Christ before the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw. By swearing on the Constitution, Birut as an atheist ended it with the words "So aid me God". Following his example, organization and state officials took part in the services and trials of God's Body, leading celebrities to the altars. Polish Radio programs began with the song "When the wounded rise," and the army sang it at the morning gathering. There were old and fresh Catholic writings, and on Sunday morning junior advanced school students went to church in pairs. There were Catholic youth associations (Maria's Sodalicia) and independent scouting(...) At the same time, there were continued repressions in the form of murders by communist militias on priests in contact with the anti-communist underground or legal opposition political parties at the time. By 1948, respective 100 priests had been arrested and convicted on the basis of accusations of "making politics", "trying to overthrow the system" and specified akin charges.

Methods of fighting the Catholic Church in People's Poland were based on tried russian designs from the interwar period.(...) During the interwar period in the fight against the Catholic Church, the russian authorities utilized various forms of repression against the clergy: fake accusations of a political nature, demonstration processes, issuing harsh convictions and mobilising public opinion against it. The Orthodox church was broken from within by the so-called. surviving Church. ...

Rev. Kaczmark's confession to the absurd accusations made to him amazed people in Poland. The public did not yet know the methods utilized in the investigation by the UB, which led to the collapse of the prisoner.(...) the effort by Fr. Józef Rozanski (Goldberg) who told him: "I've already chained my mouths to defenders and I've observed the bishop's priest, so he won't dare to do anything like this again."

Many people in Poland were deceived by propaganda depicting the bishop as a Nazi collaborator and traitor. Any consequence was impossible. Bishop Kaczmarek was sentenced by the Military territory Court in Warsaw to 12 years in prison. The attacks on him were joined by "progress of Catholics" from the then PAX. The detestable propaganda had a wide range. In the Polish movie Chronicle, the average of Kielce was shown in the bishop's costume and with the inscription "on enemy services". His "fascist-spy activities" were condemned in the workplace. This was based on pre-war russian designs.(...)

Trials were accompanied by continuous, defamatory and slanderous propaganda in the press and on the radio. A large group of writers took part in the run against the judges in Krakow. erstwhile convicted in February 1953 The priests looked forward to the execution of the death sentence, the Krakow branch of the Union of Polish Literaries announced on 8 February a resolution, signed by celebrated writers, supporting the sentences issued. It was a peculiarly disgusting act.

It was severely punished to break the ban on reading the message condemned by the bishop's authorities. erstwhile Fr Aleksander Wozny of Krakow, contrary to his notification that for reading a message from the pulpit about the dissolution of the Caritas State awaits him 2 years imprisonment, he did so, got a year in prison. In 1953 he was arrested and for 3 years interned Polish Primate Fr.

The alleged October thaw in 1956 changed any forms of repression. The safety Service has consistently applied a number of repressive measures: harassment through surveillance, intimidation, telephone threats, blackmail, assault, beatings by "unknown perpetrators" sometimes with fatal effect (ex. Roman Kotlarz of Radom), causing accidents car priests with tragic effect (O. Honorius Kowalczyk OP), slander in the press, refusal to accept pastoral functions and others.(...)

Following the introduction of the martial law in December 1981 and the illegalisation of the "Solidarity" SB, SB re-used post-war repression in the form of the murderous execution of its activists, including priests whose activities were of wider social scope. The documentation on this subject includes a list of over 100 deaths in unexplained circumstances of various individuals who were murdered by "unknown perpetrators", that is, the PRL safety Service. respective priests besides belonged to them. ...

Repressions towards Catholic clergy from 1945 to 1989 included bishops, diocesan and spiritual priests. By 1953, 9 bishops had been removed from their capitals and exiled, any of them were, as noted, tried and convicted on the basis of fake charges.

According to criteria adopted by Fr Jerzy Myszor, 982 clergymen were subjected to repression from 1944 to 1989. The investigations so far have proved that 48 priests and 25 nuns were murdered from this group. In unexplained circumstances, 10 priests were killed and 52 were deported inside the russian Union. The punishment was 67 from 10 years in prison until life imprisonment, and 259 clergymen from 6 months in prison to 10 years in prison. It is not known precisely how many died in prison(...)

The authorities of the Polish People's Republic have done everything possible to conceal the criminal scope of the repression apparatus.(...) Already after the first political breakthrough in 1989, the investigations undertaken were hampered, blocked and decommissioned and the documentation was lost. Criminals stay undetected and unpunished. The regulation of the most crucial media allowed post-communist formations to return to power. In this situation, the memory of repression fades.

The repressive activities of the PRL authorities are closely linked to the humiliating problem of priests recruited for secret cooperation with the UB and later with the SB (...) According to historians, the group of clergymen who cooperated with the PRL repression authorities was between 10 and 15 percent. It should be remembered, however, that for 45 years the clergy of the Catholic Church were the most persecuted group in the Polish People's Republic. due to its existence, it was counted among the enemies of the people. However, 90% of them resisted force and threats. any priests for defending the fact and helping the persecuted gave their lives.(...). From 1939 to 1989 the Church in Poland was the Church of Martyrs. Theirs. symbol isHonorable Servant of God Fr Jerzy Popieluszko.

Kiszczak interrupts the interview

Film material No. 2

For dessert quote from Michalkiewicz: