CONTINUED STRUGGLE FOR POLAND ABROAD

  Following the defeat of Poland, officers and soldiers of the Polish army, air force and navy were either 1) captured by the Germans and sent to prisoner of war (POW) camps in Germany, or 2) were captured by the Soviets who imprisoned the officers in POW camps while the soldiers and non-commissioned officers were distributed throughout the vast Soviet Gulag system. Many officers and soldiers managed to escape into Romania, Hungary and Lithuania where they were interned. Since these countries were neutral and friendly to Poland, particularly Romania and Hungary, it was not impossible to avoid internment. With the help of Polish embassies and consulates in these countries, thousands obtained passports and then traveled via Yugoslavia and Italy (not yet at war against the Allies) to France. There were also some officers and soldiers who managed to discard Polish military uniforms and succeeded in avoiding capture by either the Germans or the Soviets. Many later joined the underground movement. Finally, there were those like Captain Dobrzański-Hubal mentioned earlier who did not accept defeat; in small groups, they carried on armed resistance against the Germans, still wearing their Polish military uniforms.

Poland, as a state, never surrendered to the Germans or Russians. Indeed, on September 30, 1939, in accordance with the Polish Constitution, Polish President Ignacy Mościcki, who was interned in Romania, resigned and nominated Władysław Raczkiewicz (who at that time was in Paris) to the post of Polish president. At the same time, the Polish government also interned in Romania resigned. This permitted the new Polish president to entrust the formation of a new government to General Władysław Sikorski who was in France at the time. A new government was formed with General Sikorski as prime minister and commander in chief, thus maintaining continuity of the Polish State and Polish participation in the war. The Government in Exile, which moved to England after the fall of France, functioned in London throughout the war and beyond. When it lost accreditation in England, France, the United States and in other countries - which recognized instead the communist puppet regime imposed on Poland by the Soviets after the war - the Government in Exile continued its struggle against communism until 1990, when the Soviet Union disintegrated and Poland regained its freedom. In the same year, fifty years after the formation of the Polish Government in Exile, a ceremony was held in the rebuilt Royal Palace in Warsaw and President in Exile Kaczorowski handed over the Polish State insignia to Lech Walęsa, the democratically elected president of Poland; the insignia had been kept by the Polish Government in Exile in London while Poland was under foreign occupations by the Germans and Soviets.