[PRL propaganda print] Trial of Okulicki and others in Moscow [1945].

Trial of Okulicki and others in Moscow before the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR on June 18-20, 1945.

Publisher: Warsaw 1945
Cover: booklet
Condition: good, 61 pages.
Remarks: light loss/damage to cover.

The Trial of the Sixteen - the political trial of the leaders of the Polish Underground State, held on June 18-21, 1945 in Moscow before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Leaders and representatives of eight parties standing in opposition to the Provisional Government were invited to talks with the Russian leadership. The activists of the Polish Underground, who arrived at the meeting place in Pruszkow, were arrested and taken to Moscow. After spending three months in the NKVD's Lupianka prison, they stood before a Soviet court accused of, among other things, terrorist and sabotage activities in the rear of the Red Army. The trial "was held according to Soviet models, which bore no relation to the judicial process in a democratic state" (Wikipedia). Gen. Leopold Okulicki, the main defendant, stated in his defense speech: "This trial is political in nature. It is about punishment for activities directed against the Red Army, activities threatening the interests of the Soviet Union, directed against the United Nations in its struggle against Germany. In a word, it is about punishing the Polish underground" (these words are not quoted, of course, in the brochure presented here). The sentences were harsh. Okulicki, sentenced to 10 years in prison, spent a year and a half in prison - he was most likely murdered on Christmas Eve 1946. The remaining few convicts shared Okulicki's fate and died shortly after the sentence in a Soviet prison or immediately after leaving it. Some of the convicts, after serving their sentences and returning to Poland, suffered harsh reprisals from the Polish authorities. Three defendants were acquitted.