Mr.

        Jan Józef Kasprzyk

        The Head of the Office for Veterans Affairs

        The President of the Council of the European Union and the Committee of Repressed Persons

Dear Minister,

Thank you for inviting me to the ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the death of Major Hieronim Dekutowski a.k.a. Zaporah - a figure forgotten or even erased from Polish history for years. Currently, he is being restored to the general memory of Poles. Major "Zapor" as well as other soldiers who faced the Soviet aggression should be honored and respected.

Hieronim Dekutowski did not agree to totalitarian power, to live in communist enslavement. Since 1944 he started an uneven fight with the Soviet occupant. The stake was the freedom and sovereignty of his Homeland, and the price was his life. His bravery and courage did not bring him the glory he deserved, but unspeakable suffering. Death came after months of ruthless and brutal interrogations, in a prison cell in Mokotow. The aim of the regime was to intimidate and enslave Polish society, to break the spirit of freedom and independence aspirations, to build a life without Christian and national values.

Today, we must do everything so that the ideas bought by suffering will forever be written in the consciousness of present and future generations. We must not commit the sin of forgetting, and our gratitude to those who defended the independence of the state should be written deep in our hearts.

I would like to thank you for restoring the memory of the Non-Combatant Soldiers, as well as for spreading the truth and knowledge about them.

Bowing my head I give them due honor.

Marek Kuchciński