Antoni Olechnowicz

Antoni Olechnowicz (1905-1951) was a Polish military officer. A Lieutenant Colonel of the Polish Army, he took part in the September Campaign. Arrested by the Soviets, he escaped and returned to his native Vilna, where he soon joined the Polish underground: the Service for Poland's Victory, the Union of Armed Struggle and finally the Home Army. He took part in the Operation Ostra Brama as commanding officer of the East group attacking the city of Vilna from the direction of Nowa Wilejka and Belmont.

After the success of the operation and the arrest of most of the commanders of the Polish forces by the Soviet NKVD, Olechnowicz was one of the few officers to evade capture and assumed the role of the new commanding officer of the Vilna Home Army Area. In the summer of 1945 he evacuated his headquarters to Central Poland. Arrested by the communist authorities, he was sentenced to death in a show trial and buried in an unmarked grave.

During his service in the underground, he used a variety of noms de guerre, including "Meteor", "Kurkowski", "Pohorecki", "Lawicz", "Krzysztof", "Roman Wrzeski" and "Kurcewicz".

Antoni Olechnowicz was born 13 June 1905 in Marguciszki, a small hamlet near Święciany (modern Švenčionys) in what is now Lithuania. He graduated from a local gymnasium in Nowa Wilejka in 1926 and immediately afterwards joined the Polish Army. A graduate from the Infantry Officers' School, on 15 August 1929 he was promoted to the rank of Second lieutenant and attached to the Vilna-based 5th Legions Infantry Regiment. A promising NCO, in 1935 he was allowed to join the Higher War School and in 1937 he was promoted to the rank of Captain and attached to the headquarters of the 20th Infantry Division.

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