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Guide

Polish Army soldiers, 1939 and 1943–1945

This guide is for families of soldiers of the September 1939 campaign and of the Polish Army formed in the USSR, from Lenino in 1943 to the Pomeranian Wall, Kołobrzeg, Bautzen and Berlin. According to post-war calculations by the War Compensation Office, about 66,000 Polish soldiers were killed fighting the Germans in 1939. According to Polish studies, some 155,000–180,000 Polish soldiers took part in the Berlin operation, and nearly 5,000 were killed in the battle of Bautzen alone.

How to search

  1. 01Start with family papers: the military service book, a death notice, letters from the front, photographs and decorations, as well as civil registration and parish records. The key details are full name, father's first name, date and place of birth, unit, and where the last news came from.
  2. 02Next, search straty.pl, the IPN's database. It covers more than 5 million named victims and people repressed under German occupation, including soldiers killed, missing or dead in service. If there is no entry or it is incomplete, write to the database team or send the details through the questionnaire on the site.
  3. 03Military records are kept by the Central Military Archive, part of the Military Historical Bureau in Warsaw. The Sikorski Institute in London names the Military Historical Bureau as the holder of Polish Army records from before 1939.
  4. 04For graves outside Poland, including the countries of internment in 1939, Germany and Belarus, search the war cemeteries catalogue of the Polonika database, which can be searched by person.
  5. 05If the soldier's fate remains unknown, apply to the Polish Red Cross National Information and Tracing Bureau, which issues certificates on wartime fate based on records and searches. If he was taken prisoner by the Germans or the Soviets, the next steps are in the guide “Prisoners of war”.

Where to search

We checked the addresses and holdings on these institutions' own websites. Their rules can change, so check their current pages before sending a request.

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