The Day of Remembrance of the “Cursed Soldiers” was established by the Polish Parliament in 2011. It is celebrated on 1 March as a tribute to the soldiers of the armed underground who did not accept the communist system in Poland imposed by the Soviet Union and fought on.

The date of March 1 was not chosen by chance. It was on that day, in 1951, the communists murdered the leaders of the Freedom and Independence Association (WiN) – the largest armed underground organization after 1945, led by Łukasz Ciepliński aka “Plough”. The entry of the Red Army to Poland in 1944 did not mean that Poles regained independence. As a result of the arrangements between the USA, Soviet Union and Great Britain, Poland was occupied by communists. The eastern part of the territory of Poland before 1939 was incorporated directly into the Soviet Union. Already in the second half of 1944, the communist authorities arrested tens of thousands of soldiers of the Polish Underground State. Brutally investigated, many of them were murdered in communist prisons. Those repressions, as well as the lack of acceptance for the installation of a communist government fully controlled by Moscow in Poland, initially based only on the strength of Soviet troops, prevented the masses of Polish soldiers from leaving the underground. They took up the fight to regain full independence of Poland.

It is assumed that at the height of the new anti-communist conspiracy, it included about 150,000-200,000 people, with tens of thousands of active partisans. Their activity would not be possible without the support by the local population. Many conspirators died with weapons in hand, many of them were brutally murdered in the jails of the security service. Thousands were executed on the basis of illegal sentences issued by communist courts. Finally, many of them were detained in prison for many years.

The last soldier of the anti-communist underground Józef Franczak pseud. ” Laluś ” died in combat on October 21, 1963.