Władysław Anders in the NKVD prison. Wikimedia Commons

“When we take part in battles, the impact of our army should not be a symbol but should serve the goal for which we are fighting all over the world – the fight for Poland”. This was the idea that General Władysław Anders professed.

As commander of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, the Polish Army in the East, and later the Polish II Corps, he showed that a Polish soldier, even when fighting outside the country, always fights with the white eagle in his heart.

He was born on 11 August 1892 in Błonie. In 1913, he began his service in the Tsarist army, which he continued in independent Poland, quickly climbing the career ladder. By 1934, he was already a brigadier general.

Soon after the Soviets attacked Poland on 17 September 1939, he was taken prisoner by them. Initially incarcerated in a prison in Lviv, he was then transferred to Lubyanka  in Moscow, where they tried unsuccessfully to “persuade” him to cooperate with the USSR.

After the signing of the so-called Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, he emerged from prison on crutches – battered and emaciated. Despite this, General Władysław Sikorski appointed him commander of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR. In 1942, the Polish Army, already numbering more than 100,000 men, was evacuated to the Middle East. There, after the merger of all Polish units, the Polish II Corps was soon formed. Under the command of the General, the soldiers of the Corps took part in the Italian campaign, including the victorious Battle of Monte Cassino.

After the end of World War II, General Anders remained in the United Kingdom. In 1945, he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, and from 1946 to 1954 he held the position of Inspector General of the Armed Forces. He died in London on 12 May 1970.