Start of the sale:
Tuesday, 8 November 2011 at 13:14
Item n°149781058
Sale ends:
Thursday, 26 September 2024 at 19:06
Jozef Mackiewicz (April 1, 1902 – January 31, 1985) was a Polish-Lithuanian writer and commentator. He staunchly opposed communism, referring to himself as \"anticommunist by nationality\".
Jozef Mackiewicz was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire on 1st of April 1902 to a Polish family from Polish-Lithuanian gentry. In 1907 his family moved back to Vilnius (Wilno) (from 1918 till 1945 in Poland, now in Lithuania). Mackiewicz studied natural sciences and before World War II he worked as a journalist for Slowo (The Word), a newspaper published in Vilnius, then within Poland´s borders. On 17 of September 1939 Soviet troops invaded eastern Poland (Kresy) and gave Wilno to independent Lithuania. Between October 1939 and May 1940 he was a publisher and editor-in-chief of the Gazeta Codzienna, a Polish language daily in Lithuanian-controlled Vilnius. In his articles Mackiewicz attempted to initiate a dialogue between Lithuanians and Poles. After the annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, he worked as a labourer. In 1942, he witnessed a of massacre of Jews by the Germans in Ponary, which he described in his book Nie trzeba glosno mowic (“One Is Not Supposed to Speak Aloud”). At the end of 1942 / beginning of 1943 he was sentenced to death by the Home Army for his work at Gazeta Codzienna and Goniec Codzienny. Sentence was then cancelled by the Home Army . In June 1943, with consent of the Polish government-in-exile, he assisted in the first excavations of the mass graves of the Polish soldiers killed by Soviet NKVD in Katyn in 1940. Mackiewicz left Poland with his wife in 1945, never to return, and died in exile in Munich, in 1985.
THIS PROPAGANDA STAMP SET WAS ISSUED BY THE POLISH UNDERGROUND SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT AS A DIVERSIFICATION STATEMENT AGAINST MARTIAL LAW WHICH HAD BEEN DECLARED BY THE COMMUNIST AUTHORITIES IN POLAND. IT IS A VERY RARE AND COLLECTABLE ITEM . THE UNDERGROUND MEMBERS WHO ISSUED THIS STAMP RISKED A LOT, BECAUSE IF CAUGHT THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED WITHOUT TRIAL.
THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO OWN A UNIQUE PIECE OF HISTORY. IT IS A MUST FOR EVERY SERIOUS HISTORIAN AND COLLECTOR OF THIS PERIOD AND WILL MAKE AN INTERESTING ADDITION TO YOUR COLLECTION.
General Wojciech Jaruzelski announced the introduction of martial law in a speech first broadcast on radio and television at 6:00 am on December 13, 1981. In order to isolate members of the opposition (from the Solidarity movement), 52 internment centers were created. A total of 10,132 internment orders were issued against 9,736 people during the period of martial law.
KATYN
The Katyn Forest Massacre, was a war crime mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the Soviet secret police NKVD under the orders of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Politburo in April–May 1940.The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, the most commonly cited number being 21,768. The victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkov prisons and elsewhere. About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, 6,000 police officers, with the rest being Polish intelligentsia arrested for allegedly being \"intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests.\"
Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943.The revelation led to the end of diplomatic relations between Moscow and the London based Polish government-in-exile. The Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the perpetration of the killings by the NKVD.
The modern Polish investigation of the killings covered not only the massacre at Katyn forest, but also the other mass murders in surrounding areas. Polish organisations, such as the Katyn Committee and the Federation of Katyn Families, consider the victims murdered at the locations other than Katyn as part of the overall massacre.
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