On 1 March 1951, in the Rakowiecka Prison in Warsaw, the communists murdered Colonel Łukasz Ciepliński a.k.a. “Plough”, the Head of the 4th Board of the Freedom and Independence Association. 

Łukasz Ciepliński was born on 26 November 1913 in Kwilcz, in the region of Wielkopolska. His parents ran a bakery and a shop. His father Franciszek and two older brothers took part in the Wielkopolska Uprising. From 1929 to 1934, he was a student at the Cadet Corps No. 3 in Rawicz. He continued his military education at the Infantry Officer Cadet School in Ostrów Mazowiecka. 

After receiving an officer promotion, he was sent to the 62nd Infantry Regiment in Bydgoszcz. During the September Campaign of 1939, in the Battle of Bzura, he personally destroyed 8 German tanks, for which he was awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari. After the capitulation of Warsaw, he made his way to Hungary, from where he was sent back to Poland with an order to join the underground. During the transfer, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Germans in a prison in Sanok, from where he managed to escape. 

Ciepliński took up the post of commander of the Rzeszów District of the Union for Armed Struggle (ZWZ), and after a year became head of the Rzeszów Inspectorate of the ZWZ/Home Army (AK). With his squad, he took part in Operation Tempest, participating in the liberation of Rzeszów. He did not lay down his arms at the request of the Soviet troops, remaining in conspiracy. 

At the beginning of 1945. Ciepliński was assigned to the headquarters of the Kraków District of the Home Army.  There, he was involved in the creation of new underground structures within the NIE organisation, and then the Delegation of the Armed Forces at Home. He then joined the nascent Freedom and Independence Association (WiN), where he became Chairman of the Kraków District of this underground organisation, and as early as December 1945, Commander of the Southern Area of WiN. 

In January 1947, he became the head of the IV WiN Headquarters, which he led until his arrest on 28 November 1947. Ciepliński was imprisoned in Warsaw, where he underwent a long and brutal investigation conducted by communist security officers, ending with a trial and sentence to death on 14 October 1950. He was executed together with the other members of the WiN Board IV on 1 March 1951.  

Since 2011, each 1 March is celebrated in Poland as the National Day of Remembrance of the Cursed Soldiers.