National Underground in the Rzeszów Region 1939-1944

Krzysztof Kaczmarski, PH.D. is a historian, Head of the Branch Public Education Office in Rzeszów. The presented book is a widened version of his doctoral thesis in which he made a pioneer attempt to reconstruct the history of the National Alliance, the National Military Organisation and the National Armed Forces in the Rzeszów region in the period from autumn 1939 to July-August 1944, i.e. from the beginning of the existence of the national conspiracy in the Rzeszów region to the moment of the invasion of that territory by the Soviet troops. The publication presents the structures of the national underground in the Rzeszów Area, changes it underwent as well as main forms of its activities. The book also shows the position of the national underground on the conspiracy map of the Rzeszów region, at the background of civilian and military structures of the Polish Underground State. Krzysztof Kaczmarski managed to contact a few veterans of the national underground who are still alive as well as to reach few existing reports and recollections which were often written by emigrants outside Poland and which have not been so far published nor used. The author had to face a lack of organisational materials of the National Alliance and the National Military Organisation because their archives were almost completely destroyed. Thus, out of necessity, he based his work on investigation and court proceeding records concerning approximately one hundred activists of the national underground. He confronted these records with other existing documents and recollections in order to check their reliability.

Bibliographic notes of more than one hundred activists of the national underground are a vital addendum to the publication. A majority of them was elaborated especially for the needs of the book. Other interesting elements are unknown documents attached in the Annex as well as organigrams and maps depicting the territorial structure of the National Alliance, the National Military Organisation and the National Armed Forces in the Rzeszów region.