Podziemie niepodległościowe na terenie Małopolski po 1945 roku

THE INDEPENDENCE UNDERGROUND IN MAŁOPOLSKA AFTER 1945. OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE AND THE STATE OF RESEARCH The activity of the Polish Independence Underground after the end of World War II has been the subject of interest of historians and regionalists at least since the mid-1990s. Also in Małopolska, over the last three decades, research has been carried out on the central structures of the Underground, the methods of fighting it by the Soviets and the communist secret police, as well as on the activities of partisan units in its territory. So far, historians have focused, following the example of other regions, on the most important independence organization operating in the country, that is the „Wolność i Niezawisłość” Association, and the iconic commanders of post-war partisans. At the same time, none of the largest units of the Underground in Małopolska („Ogień”, „Salwa” or „Mściciel”) has had a separate, exhaustive monograph. There is also no detailed study of what was happening in Kraków and its vicinity in 1945, i.e. the process of transforming the war-time military underground into structures whose axis of activity would be the fight against the Soviets and the polish communists. Another milestone in future research must also be the ultimate separation of real partisan units from ordinary criminal groups, which, using the atmosphere of temporariness and the availability of weapons, were a real plague at the end of World War II and in the first post-war years. Some of these issues are currently being reexamined in connection with the search for the graves of the victims of Soviet totalitarianism and the need to accurately recreate the fate of people murdered by communists.