During its 47th session, the Polish Seym passed a resolution commemorating the 75th anniversary of the conspiratorial organ National Armed Forces. During today's session, it also passed a bill allowing the Veterans to be exempted from paying for their stay in social welfare homes.

In a letter to Jan Józef Kasprzyk, head of the Office for Veterans and Victims of Repression, Sejm Speaker Marek Kuchciński wrote:

            The ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the creation of the National Armed Forces is an opportunity to recall the activities of one of the three largest military organizations of the Polish Underground State. It is also an expression of respect for the people who undertook the effort to fight for the independence of the Fatherland. It is also a proof of our memory of those who were ready to pay the highest price for the freedom and independence of Poland.

            Soldiers of the National Armed Forces have been commemorated and honored only after decades of oblivion. Their fight against the Germans and the Soviets, their armed resistance and underground activity against the communist regime made attempts to erase their merits from the pages of history. The lives of many soldiers of the National Armed Forces, the Disclosed Soldiers, were marked by brutal persecution, repression and harassment.

Therefore, it is precisely in such moments, when we go back in time to those people and those events, that we want to do everything so that the ideas and values paid for with suffering and life become permanently embedded in the consciousness of present and future generations. For memory is the glue of our national identity, and the steadfast attitude of the defenders of the sovereign Republic, who in times of terror and enslavement gave splendid proof of bravery and courage, is our common heritage and deserves our highest respect.

            Therefore, I join you in these solemn moments, remembering the heroism of the soldiers of the National Armed Forces and paying them due homage.

            Honor and glory to the heroes!

Photo by Marta Olejnik