Born in 1892, Władysław Anders commanded a cavalry brigade at the start of the war. He was wounded and taken prisoner by the Soviets in September 1939.
He spent 22 months in the NKVD’s Lubyanka prison in Moscow. Tortured in countless interrogations, he came under pressure to join the Red Army, but he refused to meet any of the Soviet demands.
He was freed after Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 and was appointed commander of the Polish army in the Soviet Union.
In the summer of 1942, the Anders Army, together with over 20,000 Polish civilians freed from prisons and labour camps, was evacuated to Iran, Iraq and Palestine.
There, Anders formed and led the 2nd Polish Corps, which fought in the Battle for Monte Cassino and the Battle for Rome during the Italian Campaign.
After the end of the war, General Anders openly criticised the decisions of the Yalta Conference. In 1946, the communist authorities in Poland deprived him of his Polish citizenship and his military rank.
As a political émigré in Britain, he continued his political activities aimed at preserving the constitutional continuity of the Polish government-in-exile in London. He took part in a campaign for the release of Poles still held in Soviet labour camps.
Władysław Anders died on May 12, 1970, the 26th anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino, and was buried, in accordance with his wishes, at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino.
After the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989, his citizenship and military rank were posthumously reinstated.
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