Book about the Righteous Kazimierz Leski

Kazimierz Leski (1912-2000) was soldier of the Home Army, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Uprising. After the war, he was imprisoned and tortured by the communists.

Leski fought in the Defensive War of September 1939. During the first days of the Nazi occupation, he joined the underground movement. In the Home Army, he participated in the activity of the counterintelligence. Leski, pseudonym “Bradl”, travelled throughout Europe in the uniform of a Wehrmacht general as Julius von Hallmann, building a courier network.

During the Warsaw Uprising, he commanded the company of the Miłosz Battalion. He was decorated with the Virtuti Militari Cross and three times with the Cross of Valour.

After the capitulation, he got out of the column of captives. He was chief of the Home Army Western Area and later of the Armed Forces Delegation for Poland. When the Soviet army took control of Poland, he started working in the Gdańsk Shipyard. For the whole time, he remained in contact with the underground movement.

In July 1945 he was arrested by the secret police. In the process of the members of the “Wolność i Niezawisłość” organization, he was sentenced to 12 years of prison. On the strength of amnesty, his sentence was shortened to 6 years.

Towards the end of his sentence, Leski was condemned to another ten years for “collaborating with the fascist invader”. The investigation and interrogations were extremely brutal, Leski was subjected to torture. In 1955 he was released from prison. He kept being persecuted by the secret police.

He was rehabilitated after Poland had regained independence. In 1995 the Yad Vashem Institute honored him with the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving Jews during the Second World War.