In January and February 1946, units of the PAS Special Forces burned down the villages of Zaleszany, Wólka Wygonowska, Zanie, Szpaki, and Końcowizna.

The Commission interviewed a total of 169 persons,[4] and analysed all documents and testimonies dating back to the 1949 show trial of Polish cursed soldiers: Captain Romuald Rajs of the PAS Special Forces, and his co-conspirator and deputy, Lieutenant Kazimierz Chmielowski from NZW.

[9] The annexation of eastern half of the Second Polish Republic by Joseph Stalin was ratified by the new communist authorities in postwar Poland on 16 August 1945,[12] which was followed by mass expulsions of Poles and Belarusians across the new borders.

[13] Mayor Zygmunt Szendzielarz refused to surrender; and recreated the already disassembled Polish 5th Wilno Brigade of Home Army in order to oppose the Soviet occupation of Podlachia (Podlasie) and the Białystok region.

[17] The process of unification of smaller underground units in the area of Wysokie Mazowieckie County, commanded by Kazimierz Chmielowski ("Rekin"; meaning "Shark", in Polish) until December 1945, resulted in the gathering of the largest anti-Soviet partisan group in the region.

[18] By the end of 1945, the NZW III Białystok consolidated most of the local anti-communist underground by absorbing into its own command scattered units of NSZ and NOW.

Their assaults included destruction of MO outposts and Communist Party bureaus, ambushes on special units of UBP, KBW, WP and NKWD; as well as various retaliatory actions.

[23] On 27 January 1946 the battalion entered Łozice village and approached a gathering of horse-drawn vehicles organized by the local authorities in need of conscripted labour.

[17] Rajs ordered the attack on Hajnówka where the Polish communist militia as well as some Red Army soldiers returning to the USSR, were stationing.

The farmers with horse-drawn carriages remained with the battalion throughout January as means of transportation even though several failed attempts were made by PAS NZW to replace them with new carriers.

[17] Contrary to opinions disseminated by politicized media in today's Belarus,[6][26] the single criterion used by PAS NZW in the selection of carriages was their durability and strength; it was not the alleged faith of the actual coachmen, nor their purported Belarusian roots, as revealed by research conducted by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.

During a routine document check by the partisans, a Red Army soldier and NKVD informer, Aleksander Zielinko was identified, serving as Communist Party secretary in nearby Suchowolce.

[29] According to official report released in 2005 by the Institute of National Remembrance, all hostages kept in Sacharczuk's house ran out to safety and survived; they were not persecuted, but the PAS NZW set a number of buildings on fire, and 16 people died in Zaleszany while attempting to hide from the soldiers.

[32] On the following day of 30 January 1946 the command of NZW PAS Brigade arrived in Krasna Wieś village where they arranged the exchange of horse-drawn carriers.

[34][35] The subsequent 2005 investigation by IPN revealed – based on new evidence – that purported eye-witness of the massacre, Prokop Iwacik, lied in his postwar testimonies, because he could not have possibly been there.

[37] Rajs, who had already received information in Hajnówka, that ethnic Belarusians who lived in Szpaki–Zanie served as Volksdeutsche under Nazi Germany,[38] gave an order for the "pacification" of the two villages.

[41] The NZW PAS unit consisting of three platoons of about 30 men led by "Rekin" (Chmielowski), "Wiarus", and "Bitny" (J. Boguszewski), was sent to Szpaki–Zanie on 2 February 1946.

[43] Notably, as many as five alleged pacification actions by "Rekin" were fabricated by the UB interrogators, since the village of Mostek never existed in the Bielsk County as revealed by the IPN investigation.

They were tried in a show trial held at the Białystok movie theatre "Ton",[15] and charged with membership in AK and NZW aiming to overthrow the communist government of Poland, coupled with armed assaults on the Polish Army and the Red Army, the assassination of MO functionaries, attacks on the UB security outposts, the railway guard, as well as assassination of civilians during forced requisitions of property, and possession of assault weapons.

[26] Some journalists have commented that Polish nationalists attempt to rehabilitate Romuald Rajs as a part of promotion of suppression and continuous abuse of Human Rights, by the right-wing governments, of the Kaczynski brothers.

[6] A thriller by Polish novelist, Katarzyna Bonda [pl] – who has Belarusian roots – titled Okularnik ("Specky"), part of her detective series about a fictional profiler Sasza Załuska in today's Poland, is inspired by the 1946 Massacres of villages in Podlachia.

[56] In 2021, Polish President Andrzej Duda prayed, laid flowers and knelt at the memorial to the victims of the massacre in Zaleszany, after he was invited to visit by local Belarusian residents.