For the seventh time, they met at their congress. For the third time, they came to Bolesławiec. They had never before been hosted at a military unit. The soldiers provided the meeting room, took care of the appropriate setting, presented combat equipment and organized recreation.The National Congress of the Association of “Łagiernicy” – Home Army Soldiers was opened by its president, engineer Henryk Sobolewski, in the presence of Senator of the Jelenia Góra region Dr Edmund Maliński and the command of the missile unit. Colonel Stanisław Chwojnicki conveyed wishes for a fruitful discussion from the garrison commander, Colonel Tadeusz Żuchowski, and the entire brigade personnel.After hearing the Main Board’s report on its activities over the past year and holding a substantive discussion, it was decided to submit two demands to the state authorities. They concerned entering into talks with the successor to the former USSR about compensating those Poles who, in the past, had been sentenced to many years in prison and labor camps for their activities in the Home Army, and establishing a state decoration—the Cross of Victims of the Gulag—for victims of Soviet prisons and labor camps.Among the several topics raised during the proceedings, the firm position of the “Łagiernicy” on how to treat fellow countrymen responsible for the wrongs and crimes they had suffered drew attention, although it was far from any accusation of seeking vengeance. They are convinced that the government’s efforts to limit the officially privileged social and material position of their tormentors—while their victims too often live in poverty and destitution—have a chance of succeeding. They want a fair judgment. Almost all those gathered were outraged by the attitude of that part of the “youngest generation of fighters for a free and independent Poland” which derives material benefits from having been interned or deprived of liberty during martial law. They look upon these people with pity and disgust. They believe that a person who says “that he fought and suffered for the Fatherland, while at the same time holding out his hand for compensation from the treasury of a nation that did him no wrong, cannot consider himself a patriot.”The “Łagiernicy” Association is not large. There are fewer than three hundred of them. This group also includes residents of Bolesławiec. At the Congress, we saw, among others, the couples Julia and Adolf Fmiliańczyk, Genowefa and Kazimierz Sołkiewicz, and Maria Dawidowicz and Julian Jermakowicz—the latter a former career non-commissioned officer who once served in the garrison’s units.“Łagiernicy” are exceptionally modest people. They do not demand orders or decorations. They thank Providence that faith in it enabled them to overcome the adversities of fate in an inhuman land. They are glad that they lived to see the moment when their rightful place was restored in the society of which they are a part. At the end of the Congress, during Holy Mass celebrated by Prelate Władysław Rączka, they prayed for the souls of those whose cruel fate left them in Vorkuta, Kolyma, Norilsk, Ukhta, Karaganda, Magadan… and for those who returned to the bosom of the Fatherland but did not live to see it… and went on eternal guard.As they said goodbye to their female and male colleagues, they promised themselves another meeting. In a year.Meanwhile, the brigade soldiers—all of them, without exception—as well as gentlemen engineer Kazimierz Pohibiełko, an honorary member of the “Association,” and Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Włodzimierz Kowalski, president of ZKRPiBWP, can be satisfied with a job well done.