World War II
With his unit he took part in the 1939 September Campaign. His unit was attached to the Wilno Cavalry Brigade under General Władysław Anders, part of the Prusy Army. After retreating from northern Poland, the forces of Gen. Anders fought their way towards the city of Lwów and the Romanian Bridgehead. However, in the area of Lublin Szendzielarz's unit was surrounded and suffered heavy losses. Soon afterwards Szendzielarz was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets, but he managed to escape to Lwów, where he lived for a short period under a false name. He tried to cross the Hungarian border to escape from Poland and reach the Polish Army being formed in France, but he failed and finally moved with his family to Wilno.
In Wilno, Szendzielarz started working on various posts under false names. In mid-1943 he joined the Home Army under the nom de guerre Łupaszko, and in August he started organizing his own partisan group in the forests surrounding the city. Soon the unit was joined by local volunteers and the remnants of a unit of Antoni Burzyński "Kmicic", destroyed by Soviet Partisans and the Wehrmacht. By September, the unit was 700 men strong and was officially named the V Vilnian Home Army Brigade (V Wileńska Brygada Armii Krajowej).
Łupaszko's unit fought against the German army and SS units in the area of southern Wilno Voivodeship, but was also frequently attacked by the Soviet Partisans paradropped in the area by the Red Army. In April 1944, Zygmunt Szendzielarz was arrested by the Lithuanian police and handed over to the Gestapo. Łupaszko was free in the same month under circumstances that remain unclear. In reprisal actions his brigade captured several dozen German officials and sent several threatening letters to Gestapo but it remains unknown if and how these contributed to his release.
Read more about this topic: Zygmunt Szendzielarz
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