Jerzy Zakulski

Second lieutenant Jerzy Zakulski (Wadowice, 28 June 1911 – 31 July 1947, Warsaw) was a young prewar attorney, and World War II member of the National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) in German-occupied Poland. He was sentenced to death and executed by Stalinist officials in Soviet-controlled postwar Poland, on charges of being an enemy spy.

A Jewish Holocaust survivor from Kraków, Maria Błeszyńska née Bernstein, attempted to save Zakulski's life in gratitude for his rescue of her and her daughter during the Holocaust in Poland; however, she was unsuccessful. The certified letter she sent to the Regional Military Court in Warsaw was thrown out, along with his plea for presidential mercy.

Biography
Jerzy Zakulski was born to a family of high-school teacher Ludwik Zakulski. They settled in Kraków at św. Kingi 7 street in the district of Podgórze. Jerzy enrolled at the Jagiellonian University and graduated with the law degree in 1936. Two years later he passed the exams for an attorney. On 1 September 1939 Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. Zakulski was conscripted with the reserve military rank of Podporucznik of the Polish Army and took part in the September campaign.

After Poland's defeat Zakulski joined the underground Military Organization Lizard Union (Związek Jaszczurczy) due to his prewar contacts in the Organizacja Polska. In the Podgórze district where he lived, on 3 March 1941 the Nazis created Kraków Ghetto on the orders of Gauleiter Hans Frank. Some 15,000 Jews were removed from their homes in the district of Kazimierz – the main spiritual and cultural centre of Kraków Jewry – and crammed into an area of Podgórze previously inhabited by 3,000 people.

Just before the liquidation of the Ghetto in the course of the murderous Operation Reinhard in Kraków under Holocaust perpetrator Amon Göth, one night, Maria Błeszyńska Bernstein escaped from there with her three year old daughter. They were rescued by Jerzy Zakulski. He engaged his whole family in the rescue mission including his father-in-law Jan Bahr, hiding Maria and her child in both households by turns. Eventually, they took them out of the city to a safer place of a cousin Zofia Strycharska in Myślenice. Both Maria and her daughter survived the war and came back to Kraków. In her letter to the Stalinist military court in Warsaw dated 23 June 1947, Maria, living on Długa 32 street at the time, insisted that Zakulskis risked their lives to save theirs.

Execution


After the takeover of Kraków by the Red Army, Zakulski continued his clandestine work with the anticommunist Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj, collecting data on the Soviet crime wave and looting of the city. He was betrayed and captured by the security forces a year later along with several others. His trial began on 29 May 1947 in Warsaw and concluded after two weeks on 16 June 1947. Zakulski was sentenced to death and shot in prison on 31 July 1947. Nothing is known about the Jews he saved. The Volume 3 of his court case concerning brutal interrogation by the Department of Ministry of Public Security (Poland), [pg.55] headed by Col. Józef Różański, was destroyed.

The Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces), to which Zakulski belonged, was one of the largest underground organizations of World War II, resisting the Nazis as much as the Soviets. It was wrongfully but purposely accused by the Stalinist officials in postwar Poland of collaborating with the Nazis.

Long after the end of the Soviet domination in Central Europe, the Polish Parliament Sejm passed a bill in 2012 commemorating the 70th anniversary of the creation of Narodowe Siły Zbrojne in 1942, acknowledging its massive contribution to the fight for Poland's sovereignty. The Sejm pointed out that NSZ members became the most obstinate target of repressions and hate propaganda by security apparatus under Stalinism. The crimes attributed to NSZ were made up by the Soviet-installed government with logistical help from the NKVD, which in itself was a criminal organization according to legal definition passed by the Sejm in 1998.