Armia Krajowa Cross was awarded to veterans of AK by the Polish government in exile
Armia Krajowa collects parts of the V-2 rocket from the Bug River, c. 1944
The Armia Krajowa, or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union for Armed Struggle). Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces. It was loyal to the Polish government in exile and constituted the armed wing of what became known as the “Polish Underground State.” Estimates of its membership in 1944 range from 200,000 to 600,000, with the most common number being 400,000; that figure would make it not only the largest Polish underground resistance movement but one of the three largest in Europe during World War II. It was disbanded on January 20, 1945, when Polish territory had been mostly cleared of German forces by the advancing Soviet Red Army.
Man photographing woman in Warsaw, Poland after the uprising. Had to make their own backdrop because the city was mostly destroyed, 1944
Witold Pilecki (13 May 1901 – 25 May 1948) was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska) resistance group and a member of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa). As the author of Witold’s Report, the first intelligence report on Auschwitz concentration camp, Pilecki enabled the Polish government-in-exile to convince the Allies that the Holocaust was taking place. On 19 September 1940, he deliberately went out during a Warsaw street roundup (łapanka) and was caught by the Germans, along with some 2,000 innocent civilians. After two days of torture in Wehrmacht barracks, Pilecki was sent to Auschwitz where he was assigned inmate number 4859.
