Leopold Okulitskiy Last commandant of the Home Army. Date of Birth: 12.11.1898 Country: Poland

Biography of Leopold Okulicki

Leopold Okulicki was the last commander of the Home Army. He was born on November 12, 1898 (according to some sources, November 11 or 13) in Bratuchytsi near Bohon. In 1910, Okulicki became a member of the paramilitary Rifleman's Association, and in 1914 (at the age of 16) he passed the exams to become a non-commissioned officer. In 1915, he joined the 3rd Regiment of the Polish Legions. Okulicki participated in World War I and the Soviet-Polish wars. During the interwar period, he remained in the army, graduated from the Higher Military School in Warsaw in 1925, and served as a staff officer and instructor.

After the outbreak of World War II, Okulicki participated in the defense of Warsaw. He managed to avoid capture and joined the underground organization "Service for Poland's Victory". Later, he became the commander of the Lodz district of the "Union of Armed Struggle" and then the commander of this organization in Lviv.

In 1941, Okulicki was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. After the start of the Great Patriotic War and the signing of the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement between Sikorski and the Soviet government, Okulicki was released and appointed as the chief of staff of the Polish Army being created on the territory of the USSR under General Anders. He was later appointed the commander of the 7th Infantry Division. After training in London, he was sent for clandestine work in occupied Poland. In July 1944, Okulicki became the commander of the second echelon of the Home Army. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski appointed him as his deputy and successor.

Leopold Okulicki participated in the Warsaw Uprising as the chief of staff of the Home Army. After the suppression of the uprising, he managed to escape with the civilian population. On October 3, 1944, Okulicki assumed the position of the Chief Commander of the Home Army. On January 19, 1945, he received an order for the self-liquidation of the Home Army at the railway station in Częstochowa.

Okulicki was arrested again by the NKVD, and on March 27, 1945, he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment at the "Trial of the Sixteen". The fate of Okulicki after 1945 is not precisely known. On June 21, 1955, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom sent official notes to Moscow and Warsaw inquiring about the fate of those convicted at the "Trial of the Sixteen" who had not returned from the USSR by that time. As a result, in October 1955 and in 1956, the Soviet authorities announced that Leopold Okulicki died in Lubyanka Prison on December 24, 1946, from a heart attack and paralysis, and that his remains were cremated. This information was also questioned by Adam Bienia and Antoni Pająk, who were convicted at the trial and had been released by that time. They claimed that Okulicki was killed: both of them heard that on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1946, he was taken out of cell number 62 for execution.