The Last Trail

The exhibition was created on the 80th anniversary of Operation "Lawina". It is a tribute to the victims of a communist provocation that ended the history of the largest independence underground formation in Podbeskidzie after World War II.

The Group of the VII District Silesian-Cieszyn Region of the National Armed Forces, under the command of Capt. Henryk Flame "Bartek", numbered more than 300 partisans at its peak, in spring 1946. The day of special triumph was the parade of "Bartek's" soldiers on 3 May 1946 in Wisła.

The exhibition combines sculptures of the murdered soldiers with elements of partisan uniforms, weapons and equipment. They are accompanied by graphic works on patriotic themes, connected with the Cursed Soldiers.

The creators of the exhibition-installation are artists from Bielsko-Biała: "Kratka" (graphics) and Piotr Walczak (sculptures). Family members of the exhibition's authors were soldiers fighting under the command of Capt. Henryk Flame "Bartek".

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The destruction of about 100 of "Bartek's" soldiers was the result of Operation "Lawina", prepared by MBP officer Henryk Wendrowski, who infiltrated the ranks of the National Armed Forces as "Captain Lawina".

Wendrowski already had considerable "merits" as a traitor: he was a Home Army soldier of the Białystok Inspectorate who, after the Soviet entry into the Białystok region in July 1944, began cooperating with the Soviet counterintelligence SMERSH, handing over hundreds of people involved in the Białystok underground.

In summer 1946, Wendrowski-"Lawina" met "Bartek" at the base on Baraniej Góra, promising safe transport of his soldiers to the Jelenia Góra area, where they were to guard the border. He was accompanied by UBP officer Czesław Krupowies, who posed as NSZ Lieutenant "Korzeń".

Both supervised the operation, in which from 5 to 25 September 1946, in three transports heading toward Lower Silesia, about 100 partisans of "Bartek's" group departed. Lured into the trap, they were murdered by officers of the Security Office and the Soviet NKVD in several places in the Opole region (near Malerzowice Wielkie, the "death glade" in the forest near Barut, Stary Grodków).

"Bartek" himself was then recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg and intended to join his soldiers in the last, fourth transport, but this did not happen. Earlier, he had been warned by the commander of one of the units subordinate to him, Antoni Bieguń "Sztubak", about the provocation by the UB (Sztubak's unit survived, as it did not leave for the Western Territories).

"Bartek" learned what had happened to his soldiers when he travelled to the Opole region in spring 1947. He himself was killed half a year later, shot by a militiaman in Zabrzeg near Czechowice.

"Captain Lawina" was generously rewarded by his principals for this and the following operation ("Cezary"). Despite his past in the Home Army, from 1962 he held high posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in 1968-1973 he was the People's Republic of Poland's ambassador to Denmark, and in 1979-1981 to Iceland. His words from an interview given in the 1990s are chilling: "I am proud of what I did for my comrades from the forest. I helped them return to normal life".

Since 2016, the IPN Search and Identification Bureau has been conducting exhumations in the villages of Barut and Stary Grodków. In May 2026, at the new war cemetery in Kamesznica, nearly 60 soldiers of the NSZ Group of Capt. Henryk Flame "Bartek" were buried, of whom almost half were identified thanks to genetic research.