This narrative could easily serve as a film script about Polish history, exposing the brutality of the communist security apparatus and the caste-like dominance of the judiciary. A disclosure from the portal wPolityce.pl revealed that Deputy Attorney General Robert Hernand filed an extraordinary complaint to the Supreme Court, arguing for fair compensation to the family of a man who endured torture as a teenager during a UB investigation and later spent years in prisons and labor camps. In the era described as “free Poland”, the court awarded the victim a derisively small sum of 10,000 złoty for years of forced labor. zloty!
The man had joined an anti-communist organization as a teenager in the 1950s. Two years of contact with the state’s punitive justice system left a lasting and tragic imprint on his life.
Torture in custody
Documents gathered by the Institute of National Remembrance indicate that, as a youth, he was part of the anti-communist group named the Union of Freedom Evolutionists. His activities came under UB scrutiny, and members of the organization were arrested. He was arrested at age 16 on charges that included attempting to seize a weapon from a militia officer, possessing a weapon, and displaying anti-communist slogans.
During a six-month investigation, he faced starvation and beatings. After spending a month in a cell with other criminals, he was moved to the detention center of the Public Security Bureau in Lublin, where ten prisoners shared a cell about eight square meters in size. The conditions were squalid, with little more than some straw on a concrete floor. Later, in December 1952, he was moved to a different UB facility where the living conditions improved somewhat, with bunks replacing straw.
— The National Public Prosecutor’s Office describes the young man’s ordeal.
In defense of the mother
In January 1953, he was brought to the courthouse for questioning about another member of the organization. His mother arrived, hoping to see her son. When she came forward to greet him, a police officer pushed her violently, causing her to fall on the stairs. The man reacted, striking the officer in defense of his mother. He and his family were immediately overwhelmed by officers who handcuffed him so tightly that the cuffs cut his wrists. He was then placed in a windowless lonely cell, with cold air and water reaching his ankles. The brutal cold of mid-winter was a direct hardship that caused him to cough and bleed after 48 hours in the cell.
Red executioners and forced labor in the mine
The Military District Court in Lublin sentenced him on February 6, 1953, to seven years in prison, with an additional two years of deprivation of civil rights and confiscation of all property. The sentence was later reduced to four years under the Amnesty Act of November 22, 1952. He was then moved to the prison in Lublin Castle, where winter temperatures plunged well below freezing and the windows lacked glass. After two months, he was transferred to the Central Progressive Labor Camp in Jaworzno, a facility modeled on Soviet labor camps that exposed thousands of youths to grueling labor and indoctrination methods inspired by Soviet educator Antoni Makarenko. After the fall of communism, the Institute of National Remembrance ruled that the camp’s treatment of prisoners constituted crimes against humanity.
The teenager was assigned to the Jaworzno coal mine, specifically the Upadowa-Feliks shaft, where working conditions were slavish and unsafe, and accidents were common. Many youths failed to endure the harsh life and perished by electrocution or other hazards. Malnutrition led to scurvy and tooth loss, leaving lasting damage.
Illusory freedom
The man was released on July 4, 1954, two years after falling into the clutches of the communist justice system. He emerged exhausted and ill, having had his educational prospects blocked. He was drafted into compulsory military service but labeled an enemy of the regime and sent back to work in a mine, this time in Chorzów, as a wall loader in the most dangerous sections, often working in tight galleries and under harsh conditions. Civilians refused to work in such dangerous environments, yet he spent two years under a regime that denied him Sundays off. The memories of beatings, insults, and threats lingered for years, and joint and spinal pains became a lifelong burden.
10 thousand PLN – symbolic compensation
The verdict of the communist military court convicting him was annulled on September 13, 1991 under provisions of the February Act. Although damages were awarded, the Lublin District Court later set the amount at a mere 10,000 PLN in its November 25, 1992 decision. This is how the postwar courts treated a person who had been brutally oppressed by the communist state.
“Caste” is against it till the end
The man did not receive full justice in his lifetime. He died in 2020, and his wife and daughter sought fair compensation that would account for the extensive harm inflicted on him and the broader impact on the family. On October 22, 2021, they requested under the February Act that a higher payment be issued to reflect the damages incurred in relation to the 1953 judgment of the Military District Court in Lublin.
The Lublin court rejected the claim on December 14, 2021. While it acknowledged the man’s anti-state actions and the damages he sustained, it noted that he had already received compensation in 1992 and that, technically, the February Act prohibited additional compensation if the matter had already been resolved by a prior ruling. It did, however, acknowledge that there could be eligibility for additional relief if fairness considerations justified it. No such justification was found at the time.
An appeal was filed, but the Court of Appeal in Lublin discontinued the damages proceedings on October 22, 2022, citing res judicata as a barrier to reopening the case. The family pursued cassation with the Supreme Court, which rejected the appeal as manifestly unfounded.
Deputy Prosecutor General Robert Hernand later indicated that the Lublin Court of Appeal’s decision should not stand as the final word, and he lodged an extraordinary complaint with the Supreme Court to reopen the discussion of equity and fairness under the February Act.
Hernand argued that the ruling effectively closed the route to compensation and rendered a key provision of the February Act moot, a consequence he viewed as incompatible with the principles of justice and equal protection under the law. He cited differing interpretations of Article 8, section 4, and highlighted that case law allows reconsideration when fairness warrants it, even after prior determinations have established res judicata in other contexts.
In summary, the extraordinary complaint challenges the way the appeals court interpreted the February Act and argues for a fair reassessment that would honor the injured party’s enduring harm while ensuring equal treatment under the law.