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Danuta Siedzikówna alias Inka
Born 3 September 1928 in Guszczewina,
murdered 28 August 1946 in Gdańsk.
The daughter of Wacław Siedzik, a forest ranger,
and Eugenia Tymińska. During the Second World
War she lost both parents. She grew up in the cult
of the January Uprising of 1863, in which her
ancestors had taken part. She joined the Polish Home
Army in December 1943, and took on a pseudonym
“Inka” (in remembrance of a school friend).
In October 1944, she started working as a clerk
in the forest district office of Narewka. Along
with all other employees, she was arrested by an
NKVD (Soviet secret police agency) and UB (Polish
secret police under Communism) group in June
1945 on the charge of collaboration with “bands
of reactionary underground movement”. Released
by one of patrols of the 5th Wileńska Brigade of the
Polish Home Army, commanded by Major Zygmunt
Szendzielarz alias Łupaszka. Afterwards she could
continue as a clerk in the Miłomłyn forest district
office but she chose to fight for Poland, by joining,
as an orderly, the squadron of Major Zdzisław
Badocha alias Żelazny.
She was arrested on the night of 19 to 20 July 1946,
when the cover of a safe house in Gdańsk Wrzeszcz
was blown. She was subject to close questioning at
UB. The communists charged her of participation
in the “Łupaszka’s band”, unlawful possession
of arms, and – this juvenile orderly – of ordering
to kill two secret police officers. Even the “court”
subordinate to the secret police agency did not
prove her guilty of the “crime”, neither did two of five
policemen giving evidence “voluntarily”, whom
Łupaszka’s soldiers had spared their lives, confirm
the “crime”. One of the policemen even testified that
she had dressed his wounds after a battle. During
the investigation secret police agents tried to get out
from Siedzikówna the information on Łupaszka’s
whereabouts. She did not betray her commander.
She was sentenced to death by the verdict of the District
Military Court in Gdańsk of 3 August 1946. She did not
ask Bolesław Bierut (Polish communist leader at that
time) for pardon, because in the letter prepared by
a defence counsel her colleagues from the troop had
been called bandits. She was murdered at 6.15 a.m. on
28 August 1946 in the Gdańsk prison at Kurkowa Street,
just six days before her 18th birthday. Before she died
she managed to cry out: “Long live Poland!”, “Long live
Łupaszko!”. Shortly before her death, in the kite smuggled
to Mikołajewski sisters from Gdańsk, Inka wrote: “Tell
my grandma that I acted as I should”.
In the 1990s, the Regional Court in Gdańsk declared
the verdict sentencing Inka to death to be invalid and
pronounced “in connection with the activity
of Danuta Siedzikówna for the sovereignty
of the Polish State”.
On 12 September 2014, Inka’s mortal remains
were found under the flagstones in the Garrison
Cemetery in Gdańsk by the team led by Professor
Krzysztof Szwagrzyk. On 1 March 2015, the Institute
of National Remembrance announced that they
had managed to identify Danuta Siedzikówna.
On the 70th anniversary of the execution
of such disgraceful sentence, the state funeral
of Danuta Siedzikówna alias Inka and Feliks
Selmanowicz alias Zagończyk took place on
28 August 2016.
Tadeusz Płużański