Celebrating its 11th edition this year, the event took place in some 350 localities in Poland as well as abroad including Germany, Austria, and the UK, PAP wrote.
Held since 2013, the run aims to pay tribute to the soldiers who took up arms against the imposition of communist rule in the postwar Poland, acting mainly in the 1940’s.
With local runs starting in the morning, the distances were 5 and 10 km as well as the symbolic 1963 meters, which refers to the year when the last “Cursed Soldier” was killed.
All runners, often including whole families, received T-shirts with soldiers’ images and commemorative medals.
Each year the organisers choose a different idea to be promoted throughout the event. This year’s theme is 'couriers', Wolf’s Trail ambassador Barbara Konarska told PAP.
The term refers to members of the Polish underground state who smuggled documents, news, weapons, money, medical supplies or forged identity cards into and out of Nazi-German occupied Poland during WWII.
The run was staged as part of the celebration of The National Day of Cursed Soldiers officially observed on March 1.
The subject of 'Cursed Soldiers' was taboo during the communist era, and it was not until 2011 that an official day of remembrance was introduced.
After Poland's official underground army of World War II disbanded in 1945, thousands of Poles continued to fight in other formations as the Soviet Red Army extended its grip across the country. The anti-communist guerrillas were largely stamped out by Communists by the end of the decade.
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Source: PAP