#Biographie - Pologne
Stanisław Kolasiński
Stanisław Kolasiński was a soldier of the Polish Army. After the Polish defeat in 1939 he went to France to join the Polish forces there. From France he moved to England where he received parachute training. In 1943 he returned to Poland as a Home Army commando.
Stanisław was born on 16 November 1916. He served with the Polish army and was wounded during the fighting in September 1939. Stanisław escaped from the hospital and then made his way to France to join the Polish forces there. As an officer of the 3rd Infantry Division, he took part in the defense of France.
After the defeat of France, Stanisław evacuated to Great Britan where he was given command of a platoon of the 5th company of the 1st rifle brigade. However, in September 1942, he volunteered for service in occupied Poland and was then sent to training to join the Cichociemni (The Silent Unseen): elite special operations paratroopers. The training was very demanding. Out of over 2,400 candidates, only a quarter were able to complete it.
Stanisław took the Home Army soldiers’ oath and on the night of 13 on 14 March 1943, he jumped into Poland. He was assigned to the subversion unit in Lwów. He took part in sabotage actions, liquidation of traitors and military actions against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This formation was a paramilitary and partisan organization founded in 1942 which fought against Soviet Army, Polish Underground State and Third Reich for an independent and nationalist Ukraine. Ukrainian Insurgent Soldiers were involved in massacres of polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943-44.
During Operation Tempest Stanisław was a company commander of the 19th Infantry Regiment of the Home Army. He was caught in a raid where the Germans arrested all the men in the village and sent them to camps in the heart of Germany. Stanisław was assigned to the Todt Organization near Hamburg and hadto perform forced labour. However, at the turn of April and May 1945, he escaped from the camp and made his way through the front line to the British positions.
After the war, he could not return to Poland. He worked as an upholsterer, and in 1951 he moved to West Germany. He worked officially as a store manager, but also worked for the CIA as a training manager in Munich and Haidelberg. Paratroopers were trained, who were to be directed to communist Poland, just as the “Silent Unseen” were directed during World War II.
He died on 19 November 1996, 8 days after he permanently returned to Poland.