The return of our town to Poland—complete, undisputed and final—can only be said to have taken place in May 1945, when the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Republic of Poland for District No. 36 in Bolesławiec arrived here with a group of Polish officials. This was the beginning of the Polish government administration. A Polish Army regiment was stationed here permanently, beginning the arduous period of economic reconstruction and the establishment of lasting foundations for Polish statehood. That is a separate and extensive subject.
During the fighting for Bolesławiec, the Second Polish Army marched in the wake of the First Army. It was sent from Western Pomerania toward Wrocław and was to be used in the fighting in that city. In the first days of April, this army, reinforced by the First Armored Corps and the Second Artillery Division, was regrouped once more. It was decided to direct the Eleventh Army and its accompanying tactical formations toward the Lusatian Neisse, where the Soviet Army was defending the river’s right bank. The Second Army was to relieve it; during the night of April 16–17, it launched an assault on the enemy, paying an extraordinarily high price amounting to 23% in killed and wounded.
The nighttime march from near Wrocław through Bolesławiec to the Lusatian Neisse was extremely arduous. The overnight stages covered approximately 40 km. Each soldier carried all his equipment and live ammunition. Snow continued to fall, alternating with rain, while powerful westerly headwinds blew. At dawn, regiments and divisions stopped for daytime rest, setting out again at dusk.
During the night of April 7–8, the Fifth Infantry Division passed through Bolesławiec, heading toward the Parowa area. At dawn on April 8, the Eighth Infantry Division halted for rest in front of Bolesławiec and partly in Bolesławice, so that the following night it could reach the Węgliniec area.
Immediately behind these infantry divisions, armored units of the First Armored Corps passed through Bolesławiec that same night. After reaching the area of the villages of Dobra and Kliczków, they stopped for the night. The Second Artillery Division followed the armored units through Bolesławiec and halted for rest—a daytime overnight stop—in the Zebrzydowa area.
The monument to the Second Polish Army standing beyond the bridge over the Bóbr commemorates its march and that of the accompanying tactical formations. Here, the routes diverged: some units marched toward Zebrzydowa, others toward Kliczków and Parowa. None of these units left a single soldier in Bolesławiec who saw the devastated, burned-out town. The march took place through the outskirts, since the center had been burned out and the streets were buried under the ruins of tenement buildings.
Only the First Armored Corps established its “second rear echelon” in the villages of Bożejowice and Rakowice. A field hospital (the Seventh Medical and Sanitary Battalion), bakeries, cattle slaughterhouses, warehouses and various repair workshops were set up in the school and in tents nearby. During the fighting—the so-called Battle of Bautzen—the First Armored Corps was cut off from Bolesławiec by enemy units and switched to logistical supplies from the rear of the Second Army and the Soviet armies. Only several dozen wounded arrived at the hospital. Several of them died here. Their bodies were placed in a mass grave, and many years later their ashes were laid to rest in the Zgorzelec cemetery. The First Armored Corps’ second rear echelon was dissolved at the end of May.
At the end of May 1945, the Second Army, the First Armored Corps and the Second Artillery Division also returned inland through Bolesławiec. Some divisions—nearly all returned along the same route—stopped in the Zgorzelec–Lubań–Lwówek area and were demobilized there. Only the Ninth Infantry Division marched on foot through Bolesławiec all the way to Opole. There, it was loaded onto trains and sent to the Rzeszów region to fight Ukrainian UPA units that were murdering people and burning Polish villages. The command of the Second Army also passed through the town, stopping here for several hours. Once again, no Polish soldier remained here. Only the stationing of the Thirteenth Cavalry Regiment at the end of May changed this.
Finally, a few words should be devoted to the graves of Polish Army soldiers located in Bolesławiec. In the new cemetery there is a mass grave containing 28 soldiers of the Second Army. They died tragically while passing through Bolesławiec: some while marching toward the Neisse, others on the return journey. Still others died while clearing settlements and fields of mines, as well as during exchanges of fire with Soviet patrols. I know of such cases. They were all buried separately in the old cemetery. They had birch crosses and plaques bearing their first and last names. When “putting the cemetery in order,” its administration ordered all the birch crosses with their plaques to be burned… replacing them with concrete crosses bearing the plaque “unknown Polish Army soldier.” When the cemetery was liquidated, their ashes were exhumed and placed in a tiny grave with a concrete slab… “28 unknown soldiers.” As it turned out during the exhumation, one of them had a porcelain doll in his rotting backpack; he had probably wanted to bring it home from the war for his little daughter… The doll was also placed in the new shared grave.
Several non-commissioned officers lie in graves in the Soviet cemetery on Willowa Street. Why they are there—no one knows. According to information from Mr. Kazimierz Pohibiełko, whose brother was killed there and buried there as a soldier of the Second Army, he died in a tragic accident near Lwówek while his regiment was traveling from the front back home. Did the others die in a similar way? Mr. Kazimierz P. transferred his brother to the grave of their father and mother. Since there was no Polish unit in Bolesławiec at that time, the bodies were taken to the large Soviet cemetery then under construction. But this is only a supposition.
Let us not forget these graves—the graves of Polish soldiers. Whatever we may wish to say about the soldiers of the First or Second Polish Army, the ranks of these armies were truly ours, Polish, made up of people who sometimes had endured the torment of Soviet deportations, while all were already experienced soldiers of the tragic September of 1939, and many had belonged to the Home Army. They believed that by fighting in this army they were bringing freedom to their homeland, and they spared no blood in that struggle. All of them—from privates to officers—were sincere Poles. Their patriotism and military effort constitute beautiful pages in the history of our homeland.