77 years ago, on June 21, 1945, in Moscow, the Soviet authorities sentenced 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State in a show trial. Three months earlier, they were deceitfully arrested in Warsaw and deported to the capital of the Soviet Union. On the basis of prepared evidence, the communists accused them of cooperation with Germany during the Second World War.

During the German occupation, the Polish Underground State functioned in Poland with its structures of civil and military administrations. In 1944, the Soviet army began to enter the Polish territory within the borders before the outbreak of World War II. Many towns were liberated by partisan squads of the Home Army, and in many cases, there were also joint actions of Poles and the Soviet army. Unfortunately, later the Red Army soldiers disarmed the Polish partisans. Many of them were murdered by the Soviets, some were deported to the Soviet Union.

In March 1945, the Soviet authorities in Warsaw invited Polish conspirators for talks with Marshal Georgy Zhukov on possible cooperation. The last commander of the Home Army, General Leopold Okulicki, was against the meetings with the Soviets, foreseeing a trick. However, he received an order from Stanisław Jankowski, a representative of the government in exile, to participate in the talks. On March 27 and 28, 1945, Polish representatives of the underground authorities who came for the negotiations were arrested by officers of the Soviet political police – NKVD, immediately transported to Moscow and imprisoned there. They were tortured and investigated until June 1945.

On June 18-21, a trial took place. As a result, 16 Poles were accused of terrorist activities and espionage at the rear of the Red Army, as well as preparing a military alliance with Germany against the Soviet Union. The judges were chaired by General Wasilij Ulrych, known for his participation in political show trials in the 1930s. The prosecutor was General R. Rudenko, who later represented the Soviet Union in the Nuremberg trial.

On June 21, the verdicts were issued- General Okulicki was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Stanisław Jankowski – to 8 years, three were acquitted, and the rest were sentenced to six to five years in prison. The three convicts never regained their freedom. Gen. Leopold Okulicki, Stanisław Jankowski and Stanisław Jasiukowicz died or were murdered in Soviet prisons.