Operation B (Poland)
Operation B refers to the arrest of 199 Evangelical clergymen by the Ministry of Public Security in September 1950[1] in Poland.
The objective of this operation was to weaken Evangelical Protestantism in Poland by eliminating churches that did not have a regulated legal status with the state.
Between 1950 and 1953, the authorities conducted a series of actions targeting religious institutions, including the Catholic Church, Evangelical denominations accused of espionage and maintaining foreign contacts,[2] as well as Jehovah's Witnesses.
[6] In November 1946, the Ministry of Public Security started to investigate the leadership of the Union of Christ Churches, opening an agent case under the code name Fanatyk.
On 28 May 1949, the Warsaw Public Security Office opened an agent case under the code name Inżynier on the leadership of the United Evangelical Church.
[16] According to a memo prepared on October 2 for the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party by a Public Security Office officer, over 200 paid operatives with espionage and White Guardist backgrounds, representing sects created in the interwar period by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were arrested.
The pre-war Ministry of Internal Affairs allegedly established these "sects" to conduct intelligence and subversive activities against the Soviet Union and national liberation movements.
During the German occupation, these sects allegedly served the Gehlen Organization and conducted extensive anti-Soviet activities.
In the post-war period, activists from these sects, described as spies of Anglo-American imperialism,[18] were said to have established contacts with their command centers in the US and Sweden.
Other informants were rated poorly, accused of insincerity and reluctance to cooperate, and criticized for failing to report on the harmful activities of the sects despite having the means to do so.
[26] Clergy members were accused of conducting a broad anti-Soviet campaign, criticizing the people's government and production cooperatives.
[29] The investigation was conducted incompetently, and in a report dated 7 July 1951, Colonel Józef Różański informed General Roman Romkowski that not a single fundamental issue was clarified with the suspects.
[28] According to Ryszard Michalak [pl], everyone signed a declaration stating they had no grievances against the Office of Public Security before being released from detention.
[32] Ludwik Szenderowski was sentenced to 9 years in prison based on Szymon Biliński's reports and extensive contacts with co-religionists in the United States, especially Piotr Deyneka.
[46] However, these communities did not cease their activities, partly due to the principle of "universal priesthood", meaning the laity took over church responsibilities.
For example, in the Białystok Voivodeship, it was assessed that the arrests changed nothing, yet many believers transferred to other churches, and fewer people were baptized.
[47] According to Jan Mironczuk [pl], who studies the history of Polish Evangelicalism in the 20th century, the arrests halted the functioning of the churches for several months, and it was not until the spring of 1951 that religious life began to return to the repressed "sects".
[60] During the Polish People's Republic, the arrests were known almost exclusively within the United Evangelical Church community, with knowledge about them passed on orally.
[61] Publications from that era referred to them as a time of trial, citing external causes, independent causes, and painful experiences.
After the fall of communism, these events were used to build a narrative of martyrdom, arguing that the Evangelical community was persecuted during the rule of the Polish United Workers' Party.
Tomasz Terlikowski [pl], writing for Newsweek, used it as an argument that the United Evangelical Church was monitored by the security services, as the arrested were offered cooperation.
[63] On 27 March 2007, the Senate of the Christian Theological Academy, opposing the lustration law of 18 October 2006 and the ideologization of social life, referenced the persecution of minority churches during the Polish People's Republic era.
