Celebrating its eighth edition this year, the event took place in 365 locations in Poland as well as abroad. The local runs started at noon except the one in the eastern town of Mińsk Mazowiecki (some 60 km from Warsaw) that was opened and joined by Polish President Andrzej Duda in the morning.
“I’m happy that we are going to run again and that we will be joined by those who still remember and those willing to pay tribute to the ”Cursed Soldiers” in this sporting way by following their trail,” Duda said ahead of the run on Sunday.
The event 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. 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.
The run was staged as part of the commemorative events of The National Day of Cursed Soldiers officially observed on March 1st. 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.
Source: PAP, IAR
(mo)