There are characters who stay in the shadow of past for years – not due to the fact that their actions were little important, but due to the fact that they are spoken of besides rarely. 1 specified individual was Janina Przywożniak, nicknamed “Jaga” – a young female from Podkarpacia, a liaison and paramedic of the national underground, murdered brutally by a UB officer.
She was 22 years old and 7 months pregnant. present her name slow returns to memory – not only as a symbol of integrity, but besides as a tragic price which many Poles paid after the war.
Janina was born on 22 June 1922 in Kurylówka, a tiny village in the region of Lezajsk. She was from the Oleszkiewicz household – she was 1 of 5 children. Despite her young age, during the Nazi business she became active in a conspiracy activity. She was a liaison and paramedic of the National Military Organization, 1 of the 3 main conspiracy formations formed on the initiative of the National Party.
From the beginning, it attracted people with a strong sense of national identity and independence. Its activity was powerfully present in southeastern areas – Podkarpacie was 1 of the most crucial operational regions. It was in these realities of the conspiracy fight that Janin met Franciszek Przywożniak, ps. “Father Jan”, who was an officer of the WP reserve and an active organizer of NOW structures in the region of Łódź, Biłgoraj and Niska.
On January 11, 1944, they married – a symbolic combination of 2 people who combined their lives and fates with the resistance. The swearing-in was the commander of the NOW forest troops, which were later merged with the National Army. He distinguished himself by independence, charisma and uncompromisingness – and Janina became his closest co-worker, supporting the underground's activities both as a liaison and as a guardian of the injured.
When the Germans were defeated by the Red Army, many Poles hoped for relief. But soldiers of the National Military Organization – like another independency organizations – rapidly realized that the second came in place of 1 occupation. The swearing-in continued to operate erstwhile the front moved west – on the contrary, it became 1 of the commanders of the armed national underground, fighting communist terror.
NOW has evolved into conspiracy structures continuing to fight for free Poland. To folk power they were “bandits”. For the local population – frequently the last hope for justice and security. Francis Vashniak commanded troops that defended the villages against repression, liquidated the confiscators and fought UB. Janina – although expecting a kid – was inactive close to operational activities, supported her husband's branch, shared with him the conditions of forest life and hiding.
On the night of 29 to 30 March 1945, Janina was arrested by safety officials, acting together with the russian NKVD. She was 7 months pregnant. She was taken to an interrogation in Niska. According to witnesses, she was beaten and tortured all night. The next day she was taken to the household Kurylówka and there, in cold blood, shot by Andrzej Machaj, a UB officer.
The device weapon was shot in the back. Without trial, without court, without the slightest effort to keep the appearance of legality. Witnesses were the villagers – many of them inactive pass on this communicative as a informing and painful memory.
Janina was buried in her native land, in the cemetery in Tarnawiec – present part of Kurylówka. Her death remained unpunished for a long time. Machaj was killed in the summertime of 1945 by an underground unit, during an attack on the Civic Militia station in Kamien. It was a form of bottom-up justice—the only 1 possible at the time.
Over the years, the communicative of “Jaga” has been silenced. It was only in 2020 that she was posthumously promoted to lieutenant, and her sculpture went to the Monument of the Cursed Soldiers in Mielec in August 2021.
Today, Janina the Swearer is increasingly mentioned – not only as a local hero, but as a symbol of sacrifice and courage. Her character reminds that the opposition is not only large names from textbooks, but besides young women from tiny villages who risked everything – not for their careers, but for their sense of work and loyalty.
In Podkarpacie her memory lives – in Kurylówka, Tarnawiec, Nisk. Its past is restored in past lessons, in local initiatives, in patriotic environments. And the memory of the National Military Organization, which she was part of, besides regains the right place – as a formation that, regardless of political disputes, had 1 goal: free Poland.
Joanna Biernacka
