In remembrance of Home Army (AK) soldiers killed at Surkonty August 21, 1944 by Soviet Interior Ministry (NKVD) troops.
Вечная памяць салдатам Арміі Краёвай забытых сіламі НКВС 21 жніўня 1944 г. у Суркантах.
Honor i pamięć Żołnierzom AK podległym w walce z NKWD w Surkontach 21 sierpnia 1944.
The Home Army (AK, Armia Krajowa in Polish), formed in 1942, was the principal anti-German resistance movement in occupied Poland, which included western Belarusian, western Ukrainian, and Lithuanian lands. The AK, which fought valiantly against the Germans, was the military arm of the Polish government in exile in London, and thus a priori considered a hostile force by Stalin and the Soviet regime. Today the AK is honored in Poland and other western countries. Belarusian authorities have not prevented local groups from placing monuments to the AK in cemeteries and churches but, in a continuation of Soviet ideology, the official Belarusian stance remains negative.
In pushing the Germans out and re-occupying Belarusian and Lithuanian lands in 1944, the Soviets began in July to try to disarm, and then to imprison and kill, AK units. Surviving AK units retreated westward, pursued by Soviet Interior Ministry (NKVD) troops. On August 21, 1944 NKVD troops attacked a unit of retreating AK soldiers at Surkonty in what is today the Voranava District in northwestern Belarus. Eighteen AK soldiers, including the unit’s commander Maciej Kalenkiewicz (“Kotwicz”), died in the course of the five-hour battle; 17 wounded were then bayoneted by the NKVD troops. Surkonty was the first open battle between Soviets and the AK and proved to the AK leadership that the Soviets were as implacable enemies as the Germans.
Thanks to patient and persistent Polish efforts after 1989, the soldiers’ remains, which had lain in unmarked, untended graves for almost half a century, were exhumed in 1991 and reburied in a small cemetery, now sheltered by trees which have grown up since the re-interment.
AK Cemetery in Surkonty 2014.
Могілкі салдатаў АК у Суркантах 2014 г.
Cmentarz AK w Surkontach 2014.
