12 July | Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Augustów Roundup - Instytut Pileckiego

12 July is celebrated as the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Augustów Roundup. The roundup began 81 years ago on this day – on 12 July 1945, two months after the end of the Second World War.

On 12 July 2026, commemoration of the Victims of this crime was held at the Augustów branch of the Pilecki Institute – the Augustów Roundup Memorial House.

Marek Dudziński read the letter from the President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki. – Today, as the President of Poland, I want to honor the victims and to offer my heartfelt thanks to all those who guarded the memory about the Augustów Roundup throughout the communist era and demanded the truth, even though it was being silenced and suppressed. Thanks to your perseverance, this truth has been preserved for our entire nation – the President wrote.

The Pilecki Institute’s Deputy Director for Public History, Łukasz Mieszkowski, read the letter from the Minister of National Defense Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. – The residents of the Suwałki and Augustów regions who were murdered or went missing as a result of the Roundup have been restored to their rightful place in our collective identity. Their loyalty to the Homeland, their courage in the face of ruthless terror and the price they paid for wishing for a free Poland oblige us to firmly preserve the truth about this crime. May this remembrance be a lasting commitment to protect the free and independent Republic of Poland – the Minister wrote.

Acting Director of the Pilecki Institute, Karol Madaj, encouraged recalling and praying for the victims of the Augustów Roundup. – We can discover threads that bind us to the victims. I encourage you to commit one name to memory and to leave this ceremony with that name in mind. As long as we remember them, they live on [in us] – he said. – By statute, the Pilecki Institute devotes its efforts to the victims of German Nazism and Soviet Communism, as well as of crimes motivated by nationalism. Today we commemorate the victims of the Augustów Roundup, but let us also remember Piaśnica, Palmiry, Jedwabne, Volhynia, Treblinka, Auschwitz and Katyń.

A letter from the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Stefan Krajewski was also read out.

[Letters prepared for the 81st anniversary of the Augustów Roundup can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.]

The guests at the ceremony included the families of the Victims of the Augustów Roundup and numerous other guests, including Marek Dudziński – representative of the President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki; a representative of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development; Voivode of the Podlaskie Voivodeship Jacek Brzozowski; Member of the Board of the Podlaskie Voivodeship Assembly Bogdan Dyjuk; and an activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus and journalist Andrzej Poczobut.

Present at the ceremony were also the representatives of local government authorities, heads of rural communities and councilors from local communes, the clergy, the Polish Army, uniformed services, the State Forests, scouting organizations, and cultural institutions, as well as the President of the Home Army Historical Club in Augustów Danuta Kaszlej and the President of the Augustów Branch of the World Association of Home Army Soldiers Zbigniew Kaszlej.

The Augustów Roundup – the largest crime against the Polish nation after the Second World War

The Augustów Roundup began on 12 July 1945 – two months after the end of the Second World War. Thousands of Soviet soldiers, supported by subunits of the 1st Praga Infantry Regiment of the Polish People’s Army and functionaries of the Security Office and the Citizens’ Militia, carried out mass arrests of residents of the region. Dozens of villages were cordoned off by troops, while the Augustów Forest was combed sector by sector. Arrests also took place in the Sokółka and Grajewo districts, the northwestern part of the Grodno region, and the neighboring Lithuanian territories of the Lazdijai and Druskininkai districts.

This large-scale operation was led by the command of the Soviet 50th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front. Officers of the SMERSH military counter-intelligence organization also played an important part in the roundup. The Polish communist authorities were not informed of the objectives and the activities connected with the operation. Those suspected of cooperating with or supporting the Polish pro-independence resistance (Home Army/Civic Home Army) were placed in filtration points, where their fates were decided by the SMERSH functionaries. Many arrestees were brutally interrogated and tortured in order to force them to confess to contacts with the partisans or to name other persons involved in underground activities. In total, the Soviets detained some 7,000 people. We now know with certainty that at least 600 of the region’s residents were murdered in late July 1945. Both the scene of the crime and the burial site remain unknown. The Augustów Roundup constitutes the largest crime committed against the Polish nation after the Second World War.

In July 1945, thousands of Soviet soldiers, supported by units of the 1st Praga Infantry Regiment of the Polish People’s Army and functionaries of the Security Office and the Citizens’ Militia, carried out mass arrests of residents of the region.

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