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General Michael (Rola) Zymierski (top row, center), commander of the Polish communist Armia Ludowa, poses with a partisan unit in the Parczew Forest. The partisan unit includes the Jewish physician, Michael Temchin (bottom right).

Photograph | Photograph Number: 01281A
General Michael (Rola) Zymierski (top row, center), commander of the Polish communist Armia Ludowa, poses with a partisan unit in the Parczew Forest. The partisan unit includes the Jewish physician, Michael Temchin (bottom right).

General Michael (Rola) Zymierski (top row, center), commander of the Polish communist Armia Ludowa, poses with a partisan unit in the Parczew Forest. The partisan unit includes the Jewish physician, Michael Temchin (bottom right).

Date
1944
Locale
[Parczew Forest; Lublin] Poland
Photo Designation
RESISTANCE & PARTISANS -- Poland/USSR -- Jewish Resistance: Partisan Units -- General Government
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Michael Temchin

About This Photograph

Event History
The People's Army (Armia Ludowa, known as the People's Guard, or Gwardia Ludowa, before January 1944). was one of the two main military organizations of the Polish underground that operated in German-occupied Poland. The other major organization was the Polish Home Army (AK or Armia Krajowa). The People's Guard was formed in January 1942 by the Polish Worker's Party (PPR or Polska Partia Robotnicza) and functioned in the General Government and the areas annexed to the Reich. After the formation of the communist-sponsored Polish National Council in January 1944, the People's Guard became the People's Army under the command of General Michal Zymierski (known as Rola). By the summer of 1944 the People's Army had some 34,000 members. In 1943 and 1944 units of the army carried out thousands of military and sabotage actions, many of them attacks on German transport and communications facilities. Several units of Jewish partisans eventually joined the ranks of the People's Army, including Yehiel Grynszpan's partisan band in the Parczew Forest. The People's Guard provided a small quantity of arms to Jewish fighters during the Warsaw ghetto uprising and undertook some holding operations outside the ghetto walls. In July 1944 the People's Army merged with the new Polish communist Berling Army that had formed in the Soviet Union under the command of General Zygmunt Berling. The Berling Army became the Polish army of the new Soviet-dominated Polish government after the German defeat.

[Source: Guttman, Israel (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. "Gwardia Ludowa," MacMillan, 1990.]

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Michael Temchin
 
Record last modified: 1997-05-28 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1070393