National Armed Forces

[1] At the end of the war, some units and structures of this organization cooperated with the Nazis and Gestapo (as in the case of the Holy Cross Mountains Brigade and Hubert Jura)[2][3][1][4] and committed crimes motivated by antisemitism.

At its maximum strength in 1943–44, the NSZ reached between 70,000 and 75,000 members, making it the third-largest organization of the Polish resistance (after the Home Army (AK) and the Bataliony Chlopskie).

The loss of independence and the continuation of Jewish presence in Poland are both an equal danger of slow death for the Poles.We may condemn the Germans for their bestial methods but we must not forget that Jewry was always and will remain a destructive element in our state organism.

[14] In Warsaw, the National Armed Forces killed Jerzy Makowiecki and Ludwik Widerszal, two Polish Home Army officers of Jewish origin.

[16][17] According to sociologist Tadeusz Piotrowski, these attacks later "became more focused on individual Jews who were placed in highly visible positions of authority in the PRL [People's Republic of Poland]".

[12] According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Polish Jews who had sought shelter among ethnic Poles after escaping from ghettos were directly murdered by the National Armed Forces.

The National Armed Forces did have Jews in its ranks, including Calel Perechodnik, Wiktor Natanson, Captain Roman Born-Bornstein (chief physician of the Chrobry II unit), Jerzy Zmidygier-Konopka, Feliks Pisarewski-Parry, Eljahu (Aleksander) Szandcer (nom de guerre Dzik), Dr. Kaminski, a physician who served in an NSZ unit led by Captain Władysław Kolaciński (nom de guerre Zbik), Major Stanisław Ostwind-Zuzga, and others.

[20][21] In January 1945, the National Armed Forces Holy Cross Mountains Brigade (Brygada Świętokrzyska) retreated before the advancing Red Army and, after negotiating a ceasefire with the Germans, moved into the Nazi-controlled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

In the fall of 1946, 100-200 soldiers of an NSZ unit under the command of Henryk Flame, nom de guerre "Bartek," were lured into a trap and massacred by communist military and police forces.

In 1992, acknowledging its contribution to the fight for Poland's sovereignty, Polish authorities recognized National Armed Forces underground soldiers as war veterans.

NSZ soldiers were rehabilitated, including some controversial ones, for instance, Mieczysław Pazderski, who in 1945 murdered almost 200 Ukrainian villagers in Wierzchowina, and who was awarded two medals by Polish president Lech Wałęsa.