Home Army

In February 1942, when the Home Army was formed from the Armed Resistance, it numbered around 100,000 members.[5] Less than a year later, at the start of 1943, it had reached a strength of around 200,000.[5] In the summer of 1944, when Operation Tempest began, the Home Army reached its highest membership:[5] estimates of membership in the first half and summer of 1944 range from 200,000,[8]^: 234 through 300,000,[10] 380,000[5] and 400,000[11] to 450,000–500,000,[12] though most estimates average at about 400,000; the strength estimates vary due to the constant integration of other resistance organisations into the Home Army, and that while the number of members was high and that of sympathizers was even higher, the number of armed members participating in operations at any given time was smaller—as little as one per cent in 1943, and as many as five to ten per cent in 1944[11]—due to an insufficient number of weapons.[5][13][8]^: 234

Home Army numbers in 1944 included a cadre of over 10,000–11,000 officers, 7,500 officers-in-training (singular: podchorąży) and 88,000 non-commissioned officers (NCOs).[5] The officer cadre was formed from prewar officers and NCOs, graduates of underground courses, and elite operatives usually parachuted in from the West (the Silent Unseen).[5] The basic organizational unit was the platoon, numbering 35–50 people, with an unmobilized skeleton version of 16–25; in February 1944, the Home Army had 6,287 regular and 2,613 skeleton platoons operational.[5] Such numbers made the Home Army not only the largest Polish resistance movement, but one of the two largest in World War II Europe.[lower-alpha 1] Casualties during the war are estimated at 34,000[10] to 100,000,[5] plus some 20,000[10]–50,000[5] after the war (casualties and imprisonment).

The Home Army was intended to be a mass organisation that was founded by a core of prewar officers.[5] Home Army soldiers fell into three groups. The first two consisted of "full-time members": undercover operatives, living mostly in urban settings under false identities (most senior Home Army officers belonged to this group); and uniformed (to a certain extent) partisans, living in forested regions (leśni, or "forest people"), who openly fought the Germans (the forest people are estimated at some 40 groups, numbering 1,200–4,000 persons in early 1943, but their numbers grew substantially during Operation Tempest).[8]^{: 234–235} The third, largest group were "part-time members": sympathisers who led "double lives" under their real names in their real homes, received no payment for their services, and stayed in touch with their undercover unit commanders but were seldom mustered for operations, as the Home Army planned to use them only during a planned nationwide rising.[8]^{: 234–235}

The Home Army was intended to be representative of the Polish nation, and its members were recruited from most parties and social classes.[8]^{: 235–236} Its growth was largely based on integrating scores of smaller resistance organisations into its ranks; most of the other Polish underground armed organizations were incorporated into the Home Army, though they retained varying degrees of autonomy.[2] The largest organization that merged into the Home Army was the leftist Peasants' Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie) around 1943–1944,[14] and parts of the National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne) became subordinate to the Home Army.[15] In turn, individual Home Army units varied substantially in their political outlooks, notably in their attitudes toward ethnic minorities and toward the Soviets.[8]^{: 235–236} The largest group that completely refused to join the Home Army was the pro-Soviet, communist People's Army (Armia Ludowa), which numbered 30,000 people at its height in 1944.[16]

Young Radosław Group soldiers, 2 September 1944, a month into the Warsaw Uprising. They had just marched several hours through Warsaw sewers.

Home Army ranks included a number of female operatives.[17] Most women worked in the communications branch, where many held leadership roles or served as couriers.[18] Approximately a seventh to a tenth of the Home Army insurgents were female.[19][18][20]

Notable women in the Home Army included Elżbieta Zawacka, an underground courier who was sometimes called the only female Cichociemna.[21] Grażyna Lipińska organised an intelligence network in German-occupied Belarus in 1942–1944.[22][23] Janina Karasiówna and Emilia Malessa were high-ranking officers described as "holding top posts" within the communication branch of the organisation.[18] Wanda Kraszewska-Ancerewicz headed the distribution branch.[18] Several all-female units existed within the AK structures, including Dysk, an entirely female sabotage unit led by Wanda Gertz, who carried out assassinations of female Gestapo informants in addition to sabotage.[18][24] During the Warsaw Uprising, two all-female units were created—a demolition unit and a sewer system unit.[19]

Many women participated in the Warsaw Uprising, particularly as medics or scouts;[25][26][19] they were estimated to form about 75% of the insurgent medical personnel.[20] By the end of the uprising, there were about 5,000 female casualties among the insurgents, with over 2,000 female soldiers taken captive; the latter number reported in contemporary press caused a "European sensation".[18]

The Home Army was divided geographically into regional branches or areas (obszar),[1] which were subdivided into subregions or subareas (podokręg) or independent areas (okręgi samodzielne). There were 89 inspectorates (inspektorat) and 280 (as of early 1944) districts (obwód) as smaller organisational units.[5] Overall, the Home Army regional structure largely resembled Poland's interwar administration division, with an okręg being similar to a voivodeship (see Administrative division of Second Polish Republic).[5]

There were three to five areas: Warsaw (Obszar Warszawski, with some sources differentiating between left- and right-bank areas – Obszar Warszawski prawo- i lewobrzeżny), Western (Obszar Zachodni, in the Pomerania and Poznań regions), and Southeastern (Obszar Południowo-Wschodni, in the Lwów area); sources vary on whether there was a Northeastern Area (centered in Białystok – Obszar Białystocki) or whether Białystok was classified as an independent area (Okręg samodzielny Białystok).[31]

In 1943 the Home Army began recreating the organization of the prewar Polish Army, its various units now being designated as platoons, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, and operational groups.[5]

Der Klabautermann (an Operation N magazine), 3 January 1943 issue, satirizing Nazi terror and genocide. From the right, emerging from the "III" (Roman numeral three", of the "Third Reich"): Himmler, Hitler, and Death.

The Home Army supplied valuable intelligence to the Allies; 48 per cent of all reports received by the British secret services from continental Europe between 1939 and 1945 came from Polish sources.[32] The total number of those reports is estimated at 80,000, and 85 per cent of them were deemed to be high quality or better.[33] The Polish intelligence network grew rapidly; near the end of the war, it had over 1,600 registered agents.[32]

The Western Allies had limited intelligence assets in Central and Eastern Europe. The extensive in-place Polish intelligence network proved a major resource; between the French capitulation and other Allied networks that were undeveloped at the time, it was even described as "the only [A]llied intelligence assets on the Continent".[34][35][32] According to Marek Ney-Krwawicz, for the Western Allies, the intelligence provided by the Home Army was considered to be the best source of information on the Eastern Front.[36]

Home Army intelligence provided the Allies with information on German concentration camps and the Holocaust in Poland (including the first reports on this subject received by the Allies[37][38]), German submarine operations, and, most famously, the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket.[1][36] In one Project Big Ben mission (Operation Wildhorn III;[39] Polish cryptonym, Most III, "Bridge III"), a stripped-for-lightness RAF twin-engine Dakota flew from Brindisi, Italy, to an abandoned German airfield in Poland to pick up intelligence prepared by Polish aircraft-designer Antoni Kocjan, including 100 lb (45 kg) of V-2 rocket wreckage from a Peenemünde launch, a Special Report 1/R, no. 242, photographs, eight key V-2 parts, and drawings of the wreckage.[40] Polish agents also provided reports on the German war production, morale, and troop movements.[32] The Polish intelligence network extended beyond Poland and even beyond Europe: for example, the intelligence network organized by Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski in North Africa has been described as "the only [A]llied ... network in North Africa".[32] The Polish network even had two agents in the German high command itself.[32]

The researchers who produced the first Polish–British in-depth monograph on Home Army intelligence (Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee, 2005) described contributions of Polish intelligence to the Allied victory as "disproportionally large"[41] and argued that "the work performed by Home Army intelligence undoubtedly supported the Allied armed effort much more effectively than subversive and guerilla activities".[42]

1944 Polish Home Army propaganda poster reading "Poles to arms!"

The Home Army also conducted psychological warfare. Its Operation N created the illusion of a German movement opposing Adolf Hitler within Germany itself.[1]

The Home Army published a weekly Biuletyn Informacyjny (Information Bulletin), with a top circulation (on 25 November 1943) of 50,000 copies.[43][44]

Sabotage was coordinated by the Union of Retaliation and later by Wachlarz and Kedyw units.[2]

Major Home Army military and sabotage operations included:

• the Zamość Rising of 1942–43, with the Home Army sabotaging German plans to expel Poles under Generalplan Ost[2]
• the protection of the Polish population from the massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943–44[2]
• Operation Garland, in 1942, sabotaging German rail transport[2]
• Operation Belt in 1943, a series of attacks on German border outposts on the frontier between the General Government and the territories annexed by Germany
• Operation Jula, in 1944, another rail-sabotage operation[2]
• most notably Operation Tempest; in 1944, a series of nationwide risings which aimed primarily to seize control of cities and areas where German forces were preparing defenses against the Soviet Red Army, so that Polish underground civil authorities could take power before the arrival of Soviet forces.[45]

"To arms!" Home Army poster during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising

The largest and best-known of the Operation Tempest battles, the Warsaw Uprising, constituted an attempt to liberate Poland's capital and began on 1 August 1944. Polish forces took control of substantial parts of the city and resisted the German-led forces until 2 October (a total of 63 days). With the Poles receiving no aid from the approaching Red Army, the Germans eventually defeated the insurrectionists and burned the city, quelling the Uprising on 2 October 1944.[1] Other major Home Army city risings included Operation Ostra Brama in Wilno and the Lwów Uprising. The Home Army also prepared for a rising in Kraków but aborted due to various circumstances. While the Home Army managed to liberate a number of places from German control—for example, the Lublin area, where regional structures were able to set up a functioning government—they ultimately failed to secure sufficient territory to enable the government-in-exile to return to Poland due to Soviet hostility.[1][2][45]

The Home Army also sabotaged German rail- and road-transports to the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union.[46] Richard J. Crampton estimated that an eighth of all German transports to the Eastern Front were destroyed or substantially delayed due to Home Army operations.[46]

German poster listing 100 Polish hostages executed in reprisal for assassinations of German police and SS by a Polish "terrorist organization in the service of the English", Warsaw, 2 October 1943

The Polish Resistance carried out dozens of attacks on German commanders in Poland, the largest series being that codenamed "Operation Heads". Dozens of additional assassinations were carried out, the best-known being:

• Operation Bürkl—Franz Bürkl, SS-Oberscharführer, Gestapo officer, and commandant of the Pawiak prison, assassinated 7 September 1943.[49]
• Operation Kutschera—Franz Kutschera, SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor of Ordnungspolizei; SS and Police Leader of the Warsaw District, assassinated 1 February 1944.[50]

Home Army members' attitudes toward Jews varied widely from unit to unit,[57][58][59] and the topic remains controversial.[60] The Home Army answered to the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile, where some Jews served in leadership positions (e.g. Ignacy Schwarzbart and Szmul Zygielbojm),[61] though there were no Jewish representatives in the Government Delegation for Poland.[62]^{: 110–114} Traditionally, Polish historiography has presented the Home Army interactions with Jews in a positive light, while Jewish historiography has been mostly negative; most Jewish authors attribute the Home Army's hostility to endemic antisemitism in Poland.[63] More recent scholarship has presented a mixed, ambivalent view of Home Army–Jewish relations. Both "profoundly disturbing acts of violence as well as extraordinary acts of aid and compassion" have been reported, though the majority of Holocaust survivors in an analysis by Joshua D. Zimmerman reported negative interactions with the Home Army.[64]

Members of the Home Army that were named Righteous Among the Nations include Jan Karski,[65] Aleksander Kamiński,[66] Stefan Korboński,[67] Henryk Woliński,[68] Jan Żabiński,[69] Władysław Bartoszewski,[70] Mieczysław Fogg,[71] Henryk Iwański,[72] and Jan Dobraczyński.[73]

Gęsiówka-liberation memorial plaque, in Polish, Hebrew, and English

A Jewish partisan detachment served in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising,[74][75] and another in Hanaczów.[76][77] The Home Army provided training and supplies to the Warsaw Ghetto's Jewish Combat Organization.[76] Thousands of Jews joined, or claimed to join, the Home Army in order to survive in hiding, but Jews serving in the Home Army were the exception rather than the rule. Most could not pass as ethnic Poles and would have faced deadly consequences if discovered.[78][79]^: 275

In February 1942, the Home Army Operational Command's Office of Information and Propaganda set up a Section for Jewish Affairs, directed by Henryk Woliński.[80] This section collected data about the situation of the Jewish population, drafted reports, and sent information to London. It also centralized contacts between Polish and Jewish military organizations. The Home Army also supported the Relief Council for Jews in Poland (Żegota) as well as the formation of Jewish resistance organizations.[81][82]

From 1940 onward, the Home Army courier Jan Karski delivered the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust to the Western powers, after having personally visited the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi concentration camp.[62]^{: 110–114}[83][38][37] Another crucial role was played by Witold Pilecki, who was the only person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz (where he would spend three and a half years) to organize a resistance on the inside and to gather information on the atrocities occurring there to inform the Western Allies about the fate of the Jewish population.[84] Home Army reports from March 1943 described crimes committed by the Germans against the Jewish populace. AK commander General Stefan Rowecki estimated that 640,000 people had perished in Auschwitz between 1940 and March 1943, including 66,000 ethnic Poles and 540,000 Jews from various countries (this figure was revised later to 500,000).[85] The Home Army started carrying out death sentences for szmalcowniks in Warsaw in the summer of 1943.[86]

Antony Polonsky observed that "the attitude of the military underground to the genocide is both more complex and more controversial [than its approach towards szmalcowniks]. Throughout the period when it was being carried out, the Home Army was preoccupied with preparing for ... [the moment when] Nazi rule in Poland collapsed. It was determined to avoid premature military action and to conserve its strength (and weapons) for the crucial confrontation that, it was assumed, would determine the fate of Poland. ... [However,] to the Home Army, the Jews were not a part of 'our nation' and ... action to defend them was not to be taken if it endangered [the Home Army's] other objectives." He added that "it is probably unrealistic to have expected the Home Army—which was neither as well armed nor as well organized as its propaganda claimed—to have been able to do much to aid the Jews. The fact remains that its leadership did not want to do so."[87]^: 68 Rowecki's attitudes shifted in the following months as the brutal reality of the Holocaust became more apparent, and the Polish public support for the Jewish resistance increased. Rowecki was willing to provide Jewish fighters with aid and resources when it contributed to "the greater war effort", but had concluded that providing large quantities of supplies to the Jewish resistance would be futile. This reasoning was the norm among the Allies, who believed that the Holocaust could only be halted by a significant military action.[62]^{: 110–122}

The Home Army provided the Warsaw Ghetto with firearms, ammunition, and explosives,[88] but only after it was convinced of the eagerness of the Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) to fight,[87]^: 67 and after Władysław Sikorski's intervention on the Organization's behalf.[89] Zimmerman describes the supplies as "limited but real".[62]^: 121-122 Jewish fighters of the Jewish Military Union (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW) received from the Home Army, among other things, 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades.[90] Some supplies were also provided to the ŻOB, but less than to ŻZW with whom the Home Army had closer ties and ideological similarities.[91] Antoni Chruściel, commander of the Home Army in Warsaw, ordered the entire armory of the Wola district transferred to the ghetto.[92] In January 1943 the Home Army delivered a larger shipment of 50 pistols, 50 hand grenades, and several kilograms of explosives, along with a number of smaller shipments that carried a total of 70 pistols, 10 rifles, 2 hand machine guns, 1 light machine gun, ammunition, and over 150 kilograms of explosives.[92][93] The number of supplies provided to the ghetto resistance has been sometimes described as insufficient, as the Home Army faced a number of dilemmas which forced it to provide no more than limited assistance to the Jewish resistance, such as supply shortages and the inability to arm its own troops, the view (shared by most of the Jewish resistance) that any wide-scale uprising in 1943 would be premature and futile, and the difficulty of coordinating with the internally divided Jewish resistance, coupled with the pro-Soviet attitude of the ŻOB.[94][92] During the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Home Army units tried to blow up the Ghetto wall twice, carried out diversionary actions outside the Ghetto walls, and attacked German sentries sporadically near the Ghetto walls.[95][96] According to Marian Fuks, the Ghetto uprising would not have been possible without supplies from the Polish Home Army.[97][92]

A year later, during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the Zośka Battalion liberated hundreds of Jewish inmates from the Gęsiówka section of the Warsaw concentration camp.[79]^: 275

1943 Information Bulletin article on Kedyw execution of szmalcownik Jan Grabiec, who had blackmailed residents of villages that hid Jews

Because it was the largest Polish resistance organization, the Home Army's attitude towards Jewish fugitives often determined their fate.[63] According to Antony Polonsky the Home Army saw Jewish fugitives as security risks.[87]^: 66 At the same time, AK's "paper mills" supplied forged identification documents to many Jewish fugitives, enabling them to pass as Poles.[79]^: 275 Home Army published a leaflet in 1943 stating that "Every Pole is obligated to help those in hiding. Those who refuse them aid will be punished on the basis of...treason to the Polish Nation".[98] Nevertheless, Jewish historians have asserted that the main cause for the low survival rates of escaping Jews was the antisemitism of the Polish population.[99]

Attitudes towards Jews in the Home Army were mixed.[59] A few AK units actively hunted down Jews,[100]^: 238[101] and in particular two district commanders in the northeast of Poland (Władysław Liniarski of Białystok and Janusz Szlaski of Nowogródek) openly and routinely persecuted Jewish partisans and fugitives;[102] however, these were the only two provinces, out of seventeen, where such orders were issued by provincial commanders.[103] The extent of such behaviors in the Home Army overall has been disputed;[104]^: 88–90[105] Tadeusz Piotrowski wrote that the bulk of the Home Army's antisemitic behavior can be ascribed to a small minority of members,[104]^: 88–90 often affiliated with the far-right National Democracy (ND, or Endecja) party, whose National Armed Forces organization was mostly integrated into the Home Army in 1944.[106]^: 17[106]^: 45 Adam Puławski has suggested that some of these incidents are better understood in the context of the Polish–Soviet conflict, as some of the Soviet-affiliated partisan units that AK units attacked or was attacked by had a sizable Jewish presence.[76] In general, AK units in the east were more likely to be hostile towards Jewish partisans, who in turn were more closely associated with the Soviet underground, while AK units in the west were more helpful towards the Jews. The Home Army had a more favorable attitude towards Jewish civilians and was more hesitant or hostile towards independent Jewish partisans, whom it suspected of pro-Soviet sympathies.[107] General Rowecki believed that antisemitic attitudes in eastern Poland were related to Jewish involvement with Soviet partisans.[108] Some AK units were friendly to Jews,[109] and in Hanaczów Home Army officers hid and protected an entire 250-person Jewish community, and supplied a Jewish Home Army platoon.[110] The Home Army leadership punished a number of perpetrators of antisemitic violence in its ranks, in some cases sentencing them to death.[104]^: 88–90

Most of the underground press was sympathetic towards Jews,[85] and the Home Army's Bureau of Information and Propaganda was led by operatives who were pro-Jewish and represented the liberal wing of Home Army;[85] however, the bureau's anti-communist sub-division, created as a response to communist propaganda, was led by operatives who held strong anti-communist and anti-Jewish views, including the Żydokomuna stereotype.[111][85] The perceived association between Jews and communists was actively reinforced by Operation Antyk, whose initial reports "tended to conflate communists with Jews, dangerously disseminating the notion that Jewish loyalties were to Soviet Russia and communism rather than to Poland", and which repeated the notion that antisemitism was a "useful tool in the struggle against Soviet Russia".[112]

Aleksander Krzyżanowski, Wilno-region Home Army commander

Although the Lithuanian and Polish resistance movements had common enemies—Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—they began working together only in 1944–1945, after the Soviet reoccupation, when both fought the Soviet occupiers.[113] The main obstacle to unity was a long-standing territorial dispute over the Vilnius Region.[114]

The Lithuanian Activist Front (Lietuvos Aktyvistų Frontas, or LAF)[104]^: 163 had cooperated with Nazi operations against Poles during the German occupation. In autumn 1943, the Home Army performed retaliatory operations against the Nazis' Lithuanian supporters, mainly the Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft battalions, the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, and the Lithuanian Secret Police,[115] killing hundreds of mostly Lithuanian policemen and other collaborators during the first half of 1944. In response, the Lithuanian Sonderkommando, who had already killed hundreds of Polish civilians since 1941 (particularly the Ponary massacre),[104]^{: 168–169} intensified their operations against the Poles.

In April 1944, the Home Army in the Vilnius Region attempted to open negotiations with Povilas Plechavičius, commander of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, and proposed a non-aggression pact and cooperation against Nazi Germany.[116] The Lithuanian side refused and demanded that the Poles either leave the Vilnius region (disputed between Poles and Lithuanians) or subordinate themselves to the Lithuanians' struggle against the Soviets.[116] In the May 1944 Battle of Murowana Oszmianka, the Home Army dealt a substantial blow to the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force,[104]^{: 165–166}[117] which resulted in a low-level civil war between anti-Nazi Poles and pro-Nazi Lithuanians that was encouraged by the German authorities;[115] it culminated with the June 1944 massacres of Polish and Lithuanian civilians in the villages of Glitiškės (Glinciszki) and Dubingiai (Dubinki) respectively.[104]^{: 168–169}

Postwar assessments of the Home Army's activities in Lithuania have been controversial. In 1993, the Home Army's activities there were investigated by a special Lithuanian government commission. Only in recent years have Polish and Lithuanian historians been able to approach consensus, though still differing in their interpretations of many events.[118][119]

Volhynia self-defense centers organized with Home Army help, 1943

In the Southeastern part of occupied Polish territories, there have been long-standing tensions between the Polish and Ukrainian populations. Poland's plans to restore its prewar borders were opposed by the Ukrainians, and some Ukrainian groups' collaboration with Nazi Germany had discredited their partisans as potential Polish allies.[120] While the Polish government-in-exile considered tentative plans about providing a limited autonomy for Ukrainians, in 1942 the staff of the Home Army of Lviv recommended deporting 1–1.5 million Ukrainians to the Soviet Union and settling the remainder in other parts of Poland once the war ended.[121] The situation escalated the next year when the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Українська повстанська армія, Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiya, UPA), a Ukrainian nationalist force and the military arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Організація Українських Націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya Ukrayins'kykh Natsionalistiv, OUN),[122] directed most of its attacks against Poles and Jews.[123] Stepan Bandera, one of UPA's leaders, and his followers concluded that the war would end in the exhaustion of both Germany and the Soviet Union, leaving only the Poles—who laid claim to East Galicia (viewed by the Ukrainians as western Ukraine, and by the Poles as Kresy)—as a significant force, and therefore the Poles had to be weakened before the war's end.[120]

The OUN decided to attack Polish civilians, who constituted about a third of the population of the disputed territories.[120] It equated Ukrainian independence with ethnic homogeneity, which meant the Polish presence had to be completely removed.[120] By February 1943 the OUN began a deliberate campaign of killing Polish civilians.[120] In massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, beginning in the spring of 1943, 100,000 Poles were killed.[124][125][126] OUN forces targeted Polish villages, which prompted the formation of Polish self-defense units (e.g., the Przebraże Defence) and fights between the Home Army and the OUN.[120][127][128] The Germans encouraged both sides against each other; Erich Koch said: "We have to do everything possible so that a Pole, when meeting a Ukrainian, will be ready to kill him, and conversely, a Ukrainian will be ready to kill the Pole." A German commissioner from Sarny, when local Poles complained about massacres, answered: "You want Sikorski, the Ukrainians want Bandera. Fight each other."[129] On 10 July 1943, Zygmunt Rumel was sent to talk with local Ukrainians with the goal of ending the massacres; the mission was unsuccessful, and the Banderites killed the Polish delegation.[130] On 20 July that year the Home Army command decided to establish partisan units in Volhynia. Several formations were created, most notably, in January 1944, the 27th Home Army Infantry Division. Between January and March 1944, the division fought 16 major battles with the UPA, expanding its operational base and securing Polish forces against the main attack.[131] One of the largest battles between the Home Army and the UPA took place in Hanaczów, where local self-defence forces managed to fend off two attacks.[132] In March 1944 the Home Army also carried out reprisal attack against UPA in the village of Sahryń, remembered as "Sahryń massacre", ended in ethnic cleansing operations in which about 700 Ukrainian civilians were killed.[133]

The Polish government-in-exile in London was taken by surprise; it did not expect Ukrainian anti-Polish actions of such magnitude.[120] There is no evidence that the Polish government-in-exile contemplated a general policy of revenge against the Ukrainians, but local Poles, including Home Army commanders, engaged in retaliatory actions.[120] Polish partisans attacked the OUN, assassinated Ukrainian commanders, and carried out operations against Ukrainian villages.[120] Retaliatory operations aimed at intimidating the Ukrainian population contributed to increased support for the UPA.[134] The Home Army command tried to limit operations against Ukrainian civilians to a minimum.[135] According to Grzegorz Motyka, the Polish operations resulted in 10,000 to 15,000 Ukrainian deaths in 1943–47,[136] including 8,000-10,000 on territory of post-war Poland.[137][138] From February to April 1945, mainly in Rzeszowszczyzna (the Rzeszów area), Polish units (including affiliates of the Home Army) carried out retaliatory attacks in which about 3,000 Ukrainians were killed; one of the most infamous ones is known as the Pawłokoma massacre.[139][140]

By mid-1944, most of the disputed regions were occupied by the Soviet Red Army. Polish partisans disbanded or went underground, as did most Ukrainian partisans. Both the Poles and the Ukrainians would increasingly concentrate on the Soviets as their primary enemy – and both would ultimately fail.[120]