(, "forest people") is an informal name applied to some anti-German partisan groups that operated in occupied

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, being a part of Polish resistance movement. The "forest people" groups comprised mostly people who for various reasons could not operate from the communities they lived in and had to retreat into the forests. Unlike most organized resistance groups, such as the

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) es ...

, the "forest people" formed a sort of

standing army A standing army is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers who may be either career soldiers or conscripts. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or ...

, as opposed to regular partisan units that gathered shortly before an operation and afterward returned to their homes.

After the 1939 fall of Poland

The first such groups formed in 1939, shortly after the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

. Membership comprised mostly marauders from the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stre ...

and other people who evaded arrest by the new

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

authorities. In March 1940 the partisan unit of the first guerrilla commander in the Second World War in Europe - Henryk Dobrzański "Hubal" - completely destroyed a

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions ...

of German infantry in a skirmish near the village of Huciska. A few days later in an ambush near the village of Szałasy it inflicted heavy casualties upon another German unit. To counter this threat the German authorities formed a special 1,000-strong anti-partisan unit of combined SS and Wehrmacht forces, including a

Panzer This article deals with the tanks (german: panzer) serving in the German Army (''Deutsches Heer'') throughout history, such as the World War I tanks of the Imperial German Army, the interwar and World War II tanks of the Nazi German Wehrma ...

group. Although Major Dobrzański's unit never exceeded 300 men, the Germans fielded at least 8,000 men in the area to secure it.

Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "pro ...

: ''Polish Hero Roman Rodziewicz Fate of a Hubal Soldier in Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Postwar England, Lexington Books, 2013,

Under German occupation 1939-1945

Although most of the groups accepted the overall command of ZWZ and then of the

, different realities made them remain largely independent. In early 1943 the strength of the ''leśni'' groups can be estimated at about 40 groups numbering in total 1,200 to 4,000 fighters, but the numbers grew significantly during

Operation Tempest file:Akcja_burza_1944.png, 210px, right Operation Tempest ( pl, akcja „Burza”, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home ...

in 1944. Roy Francis Leslie, ''The History of Poland Since 1863'', Cambridge University Press, 1983,
Google Print, p.234235

Uprisings, operations and battles

* Czortków Uprising *

Zamość Uprising The Zamość uprising comprised World War II partisan operations, 1942–1944, by the Polish resistance (primarily the Home Army and Peasant Battalions) against Germany's '' Generalplan-Ost'' forced expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region ...

Operation Wieniec Operation Wieniec ( pl, Akcja Wieniec, "Operation Garland") was a large-scale World War II anti-Nazi Home Army operation. It took place on the night of 7 to 8 October 1942, targeting rail infrastructure near Warsaw. Similar operations, aimed at d ...

Operation Arsenal The Operation Arsenal, code name: "Meksyk II" ( pl, Akcja pod Arsenałem) was the first major operation by the Gray Ranks, Polish Underground formation during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. It took place on March 26, 1943 in Warsaw. Its n ...

* Warsaw Ghetto Rising *

Operation Belt Operation Belt ( pl, Akcja Taśma) was one of the large-scale anti-Nazi Germany operations of the Armia Krajowa Kedyw during World War II. In August 1943, the headquarters of the Armia Krajowa ordered Kedyw to prepare an armed action against Ger ...

Operation Heads Operation Heads ( pl, Operacja Główki) was the code name for a series of assassinations of Nazi officials by the World War II Polish Resistance. Those targeted for assassination had been sentenced to death by Polish Underground Special Courts ...

Operation Bürkl Operation Bürkl (''operacja Bürkl''), or the special combat action Bürkl (''specjalna akcja bojowa Bürkl''), was an operation by the Polish resistance conducted on 7 September 1943. It was the second action of Operation Heads, a series of a ...

Operation Most III Operation Most III ( Polish for ''Bridge III'') or Operation Wildhorn III (in British documents) was a World War II operation in which Poland's ''Armia Krajowa'' provided the Allies with crucial intelligence on the German V-2 rocket. Ba ...

Operation Kutschera Operation Kutschera was the code name for the successful execution of Franz Kutschera, SS and Reich's Police Chief in German-occupied Warsaw, who was shot on 1 February 1944 by a combat sabotage unit of Kedyw of the Home Army (predecessor ...

Battle of Murowana Oszmianka The Battle of Murowana Oszmianka of 13–14 May 1944 was the largest clash between the Polish resistance movement organization Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) and the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF); a Lithuanian volunteer security for ...

Battle of Porytowe Wzgórze The Battle of Porytowe Wzgórze (Porytowe Hill) took place on June 14, 1944, between Polish and Russian partisans and Nazi German forces. It was the largest battle between underground anti-Nazi resistance and German occupation forces in occupied ...

Battle of Osuchy The Battle of Osuchy ( pl, Bitwa pod Osuchami; sometimes referred to as the Battle at Sopot River, pl, Bitwa nad Sopotem ) was one of the largest battles between the Polish resistance and Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, ...

Operation Ostra Brama , Second Polish Republic) , coordinates = , result = Failure of the operation , combatant1 = Polish Secret State (Armia Krajowa) , combatant2 = , combatant3 = , commander1 = Aleksander KrzyżanowskiAntoni Olechnowicz , comman ...

Lwów Uprising Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

* Attack on the NKVD Camp in Rembertów * Battle of Kuryłówka * Augustów chase 1945

After the 1939 fall of Poland

Under German occupation 1939-1945

Uprisings, operations and battles

Notes

See also