The Polish independence underground was the most dangerous, and therefore the most important, enemy the communists had to annihilate just after the end of the Second World War. Despite the involvement of enormous security-military resources, including the use of special detachments of the notorious NKVD, the Polish underground persisted and fought heroically from 1944 until roughly 1947-1948. Then, after the falsified elections to the so-called Legislative Sejm that took place in January 1947, the mass resistance of the Polish underground came to a definitive end. Very many nationwide organisations were broken up. In addition, many underground activists and soldiers decided at that time to reveal themselves. This was possible because, in February 1947, the leadership of the communist Polish Workers’ Party headed by Bolesław Bierut, who was ruling Poland at the time, announced an amnesty. Of course, the Reds did not do this out of the 'goodness of their hearts’. They did so because they hoped to reduce, at least in part, the number of underground groups and organisations. And indeed – their plan succeeded. More than fifty thousand soldiers benefited from the amnesty at the time, active among others in the Conspiratorial Polish Army, the National Military Union, the Home Army Resistance Movement or the largest post-war underground organisation, the Freedom and Independence Association (Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość). These people were exhausted, both physically and mentally, by many years of persistence in the underground and shattered after the rigged elections.
Despite the above-described „successes”, the armed arm of the PPR, the Ministry of Public Security, on whose shoulders rested first and foremost the fight against Polish patriots, knew that the underground had not been completely destroyed. In many regions of Poland, there were still several thousand „foresters” fighting with weapons in their hands, who belonged to small but nevertheless existing regional underground organisations. Moreover, despite the large exodus of people, Łukasz Ciepliński, pseud. „Pług”, organised another Board of the „WiN” Association, which operated and led the organisation almost until the end of 1947. In addition, soldiers with nationalist views, affiliated, among others, with District „XVI” of the NZW – Warsaw, which operated in northern Mazovia, also drew blood from the communists.
In a word, remnants of the underground were still fighting in both central and almost all of eastern Poland. Despite the fact that all these groups initially numbered around one and a half thousand people (with each month their numbers dwindled), it was extremely important that they were representatives of a free Poland. The Poland that many Poles dreamed of and for which the Home Army fought during the Second World War.
From 1948 onwards, the underground was becoming less and less numerous. The main reason for this state of affairs was the operations of the secret police, which in the following years hit the Polish underground in spots, but extremely accurately and effectively. Through such actions, successive organisations were smashed, soldiers were murdered in raids, or detained and sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment.
For example, in 1950, Adam Kusz, pseud. „Kłos”, the commander of the Pogotow Special Action of the National Military Union of the Rzeszów District, was killed in a fight with an UB operative group. In the following year, Jan Leonowicz, pseud. „Burt”, who commanded the Winow partisans in the Zamojszczyzna region, lost his life in similar circumstances. In 1952, Stanisław Cieślewski a.k.a. „Lipiec”, the former commander of the Łomża Home Army District, also died, as did the then most important commander of the Poakowski underground, Captain Kazimierz Kamieński a.k.a. „Huzar”, who was arrested. The latter was executed on 11 October 1953, by the verdict of the communist „court”. Apart from them, Major Jan Tabortowski a.k.a. „Bruzda”, died at the hands of the militia, when the MBP was already collapsing. One of the last „foresters” who still lasted a few years at the post was Jozef Franczak a.k.a. „Laluś”.
This soldier was a peer of Polish independence, i.e. he was born in 1918 in a small village – Kozice Górne, south of Lublin. In 1939, as a professional corporal following the Non-Commissioned Officer School of the Gendarmerie in Grudziądz, he took part in the Polish Defence War. At that time, he fought in the Borderlands. There he was taken prisoner by the Soviets, from whom he escaped and became a member of the Union of Armed Struggle – Home Army in the Lublin region.
In 1944, when the Red Army began to occupy Poland, Franczak was conscripted into the so-called People’s Polish Army. He eventually escaped from his unit and hid in various regions of Poland for some time. Eventually, however, he returned to the Lublin region and enlisted in a unit commanded by the legendary partisan, silent and dark Major Hieronim Dekutowski, pseudonym „Zapora”, and his direct commander was the equally legendary Captain Zdzisław Broński „Uskok”.
At that time, Franczak became a commander of one of three patrols operating on the border of the Lublin and Krasnostawa poviats. The „Laluś” unit very rarely fought armed fights, because of too few soldiers. Nevertheless, it collected information on, for example, the most zealous Security Office and PPR functionaries. In May 1948, as a result of an ambush, Franczak lost his unit and went into hiding. More than six months later, he survived another shooting at his friend’s grocery shop. Ultimately, he did not resume the activities of the group he commanded, as his immediate commander, „Uskok”, was killed in 1949 and the communists murdered „Zapora”.
For several dozen subsequent months, „Laluś” continued to remain in hiding, staying in various corners of the Lublin region. In 1953, he tried to enter the unit commanded by Stanisław Kuchcewicz, pseud. „Wiktor”. After one unsuccessful action, the group broke up, as Kuchcewicz was shot dead during it. In view of the above, Franczak decided to remain in hiding. Thanks to a network, or rather a network of helpers, which was estimated by the Security Service at over two hundred people, he managed to survive for another decade. Nevertheless, the Security Service did not stop searching for this partisan, carrying out an operation codenamed „Fire”.
Eventually, the SB tracked down „Laluś” through his fiancée’s nephew, Stanisław Mazur. This man was broken and went to cooperate with the communist repressive apparatus. It was also thanks to him that on 21 October 1963. Franczak was cornered at the house of Wacław Becia in Majdan Kozice Górne, where he was staying. It all happened a few minutes before 4 p.m. „Laluś” even noticed a manhunt approaching and tried to run away, but after running about three hundred metres, he was shot dead.
His body was dumped in an unnamed grave in the municipal cemetery on Unicka Street in Lublin. In 1983, the family managed to find the place of Franczak’s mortal remains, which were moved to the family tomb in the cemetery in Piaski.
