{"id":60683,"date":"2025-09-03T19:20:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=60683"},"modified":"2025-09-05T20:45:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:45:51","slug":"danuta-siedzikowna-inka-a-young-woman-shot-by-communists-after-resisting-nazism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/09\/03\/danuta-siedzikowna-inka-a-young-woman-shot-by-communists-after-resisting-nazism\/","title":{"rendered":"Danuta Siedzik\u00f3wna 'Inka', a young woman shot by communists after resisting nazism"},"content":{"rendered":"

On September 3, 1928, Danuta Helena Siedzik\u00f3wna was born in the small village of Guszczewin, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland.<\/p>\n

A silenced history: the communist repression against Poles who fought Nazism<\/a><\/rel>
\nPilecki: The man who unveiled the Holocaust and ended up executed by the communists<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

Danuta was the daughter of Wac\u0142aw Siedzik, a forester, and Eugenia Tymi\u0144ska. She had two sisters: Wies\u0142awa and Irena. Four days after Danuta turned 11, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland<\/strong>, triggering the outbreak of World War II. A few days later, on September 17, the USSR invaded eastern Poland<\/strong>, as part of a strategy previously agreed upon with the Germans in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Danuta in a photo taken when she was a child (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

The war tore Danuta's family apart. Her father was deported to the Gulag by the Soviets on February 10, 1940<\/strong>, later joining General W\u0142adys\u0142aw Anders's Second Polish Corps alongside other Poles deported by Stalin. Wac\u0142aw Siedzik died in Tehran on June 6, 1943. Her mother enlisted in the<\/strong> Armia Krajowa<\/a> (AK, Home Army), the main Polish resistance organization against nazi Germany, and was arrested by the Gestapo in November 1942 and shot in September 1943<\/strong> in a forest near Bia\u0142ystok.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Danuta in a photo taken in 1942 (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

After their mother was murdered, Danuta and her sister Wies\u0142awa joined the Armia Krajowa in December 1943<\/strong>, training as nurses. After the end of the war, like other members of the AK, Danuta suffered the repression of the communist dictatorship imposed by Stalin in Poland against members of the resistance loyal to the Polish government in exile<\/strong>, who made up the vast majority of the Polish insurgents who had fought against the Germans.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
The most famous portrait of Danuta, a photo taken during World War II (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

In June 1945, she was arrested by agents of the NKVD,<\/strong> Stalin's secret police. Her comrades in the AK managed to free her in an operation led by Stanis\u0142aw Wo\u0142onciej \"Konus\" of the 5th AK Brigade in Vilnius, commanded by the legendary Colonel Zygmunt Szendzielarz \"\u0141upaszka\"<\/a>, one of the great heroes of the Polish resistance against Nazism and Communism. Danuta joined this unit of the Armia Krajowa, adopting the pseudonym \"Inka\".<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Danuta (center, wearing an armband with a red cross) with soldiers of the 2nd and 4th squadrons of the 5th Brigade of the Armia Krakowa in Vilnius in the summer of 1945 (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

In late June 1946, the AK sent Danuta to obtain medicine in the city of Gdansk, in northern Poland. Agents of the communist dictatorship arrested her on July 20, 1946<\/strong>, and held her in the city's prison as a special prisoner. Danuta was tortured by her captors but did not betray her comrades in the AK.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Danuta (left, with a headscarf) with some members of the 5th Brigade of the Armia Krajowa in Stoczek in September 1945. In the center of the photo, with a moustache, we see the famous Colonel Zygmunt Szendzielarz \"\u0141upaszka\", commander of that brigade (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

After failing to obtain the information they were seeking, the communists subjected Danuta to a sham trial in which the witnesses against her<\/strong>, members of the Citizens' Militia (UB, the police organized by the communist dictatorship), contradicted each other. One of the witnesses even admitted that Danuta had provided him with medical care<\/strong> despite being an enemy. It was to no avail. On August 3, 1946, a court-martial presided over by Adam Gajewski sentenced her to death despite her age of 17, even though the minimum age for capital punishment was 18. Danuta was shot on August 28, 1946.<\/strong> According to a witness, her last words were: \"Niech \u017cyje Polska! Niech \u017cyje \u0141upaszko!\"<\/strong> (Long live Poland! Long live \u0141upaszka!).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Danuta (right wearing a red cross armband) with members of the 5th Vilnius Brigade of the Armia Krajowa (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

In the following decades, Danuta was vilified by the communist dictatorship, which portrayed her as a sadistic bandit<\/strong>, a propaganda campaign directed by the anti-democratic regime imposed by Stalin in Poland against all members of the Polish resistance who did not submit to Moscow. After the fall of communism, Danuta was rehabilitated on June 10, 1991<\/strong>, by the Gdansk Provincial Court. Like other Polish patriots murdered by the communists, Danuta's burial site after her execution was never identified<\/strong>, but it was finally discovered in 2015.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Danuta's grave, right, at the Gdansk Garrison Cemetery during a memorial service on August 28, 2021, the anniversary of her birth (Photo: Instytut Pami\u0119ci Narodowej<\/a>).<\/div>\n

A state funeral was held for Danuta in Gda\u0144sk on 28 August 2016<\/strong>, with a mass in the city's cathedral presided over by Metropolitan Archbishop S\u0142awoj Leszek G\u0142\u00f3d\u017a. She is buried at the Gda\u0144sk Garrison Cemetery. Today, Danuta is considered a heroine in her country and a victim of a totalitarian regime, communism,<\/strong> which did not \"liberate\" Poland from Nazism, but subjected it to a second, bloody occupation.<\/p>\n

Cze\u015b\u0107 jej pami\u0119ci!<\/big2>
\nHonor to her memory!<\/p>\n

---<\/p>\n

Main photo: Miko\u0142aj Kaczmarek - Kolor Historii<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 3, 1928, Danuta Helena Siedzik\u00f3wna was born in the small village of Guszczewin, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10375],"tags":[25223,6868,10444,13876,25221,25225,10994,10872,10370,336,25222,10389,9735],"class_list":["post-60683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-adam-gajewski","tag-armia-krajowa","tag-communism","tag-cursed-soldiers","tag-danuta-siedzikowna-inka","tag-gdansk-garrison-cemetery","tag-gdansk","tag-national-socialism","tag-poland","tag-slawoj-leszek-glodz","tag-stanislaw-wolonciej-konus","tag-world-war-ii","tag-zygmunt-szendzielarz-lupaszka"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-12 02:25:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}