Anders Army and Gen. Maczek's soldier dies at 91
Col. Jan Kudla, a soldier of Anders Army and Maczek's Division and a enduring fighter in the Polish post-war anti-communist underground, died in the night from Saturday to Sunday aged 91.
After the outbreak of World War Two Kudla found himself in the Soviet-occupied part of Poland and in 1940 was deported to the Soviet interior with his parents. In 1941 he enlisted in the then-forming Polish armed forces in the USSR and left the USSR with his unit in the following year.
Together with the Soviet-formed Polish force, known as Anders' Army after its commander General Wladyslaw Anders, he made his way to Iran and Palestine, where the force's commanders became known for turning a blind eye to thousands of desertions by the army's Jewish conscripts who left Anders Army to join Jewish military organisations fighting for independence of Israel. Among soldiers to have been granted an official release from the formation was Menachem Begin (born Mieczysław Biegun) - the founder of Likud party and the 6th PM of Israel.
In addition Anders Army in line with the Polish government in-exile helped civilians of Jewish descent, including soldiers families, groups of Jewish children and war orphans to escape Soviet repressions in USSR and travel safely to Palestine against British ban.
In 1942 Jan Kudla found himself in Glasgow, Scotland, where he joined the Polish 1st Armoured Division under General Stanislaw Maczek crucial in liberating France and Holland, subsequently seeing combat in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. General Maczek
In 1946 he was appointed head of the Freedom and Independence (WiN) organisation which battled against Poland's Soviet-imposed communist regime.
Arrested by communist police in 1951, Kudla received a 15-year prison term but was amnestied in 1956. In 1980 he was briefly involved in Poland's then-rising Solidarity Union, after the 1989 fall of the communist system he was active in veteran organisations.(PAP)
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