The Stowbtsy-Naliboki Group was a partisan unit of the Home Army organized in the Stowbtsy District in the Eastern Borderlands, fighting from 1943 to 1945 in the Nowogródek Voivodeship, during the Warsaw Uprising, and in the Piotrków and Kielce regions.
The Stowbtsy-Naliboki Group originated from the Polish Partisan Unit organized in June 1943 at the . In its initial months, the unit engaged in intensive combat against the Germans, cooperating with Soviet partisans. However, in December 1943, the Soviets deceitfully abducted the battalion command and disarmed most of its subunits. Second Lieutenant Adolf Pilch, codenamed Góra/Dolina, took command of the remnants and, with his superiors' consent, temporarily truced with the Germans. This decision allowed the regrouping and rebuilding of the unit, continuing the fight against the Soviets until the end of June 1944.
In the summer of 1944, the group withdrew from the Naliboki forest and, maneuvering between the shattered German units on the Eastern Front, reached the vicinity of Warsaw. As part of the Kampinos Group, the Naliboki soldiers participated in the Warsaw Uprising, defending Żoliborz and the "Independent Republic of Kampinos." After the defeat at Jaktorów, Dolina and some surviving soldiers crossed the Pilica river and continued fighting the occupier until January 1945.
The Stowbtsy-Naliboki Group was one of the longest-lasting Polish partisan units and the only one to undertake such an extensive combat trail. During its existence, it fought over 230 battles and skirmishes against the Germans, Soviet partisans, and German-collaborating formations. The unit was thrice decimated but managed to regroup each time and continue the fight. Over 19 months, more than 1,950 soldiers passed through the ranks of the group, with around 800 falling in battle or being murdered.
Origins During the period of the Second Polish Republic, the Stowbtsy District was part of the Nowogródek Voivodeship and was located directly along the state border with the Soviet Union. The Neman river flowed through the district, with the Naliboki forest extending along both of its banks. Dense forests particularly covered the eastern and central parts of the district. Poles made up 52.9% of the district's population, while the second-largest ethnic group were Belarusians (39.1%). After the September 1939 defeat, the Stowbtsy district, along with the rest of the eastern territories, came under Soviet occupation. The first cells of the Polish resistance movement emerged in this area as early as autumn 1939. These were mostly grassroots efforts, usually initiated by Polish youth or the intelligentsia. Many of these organizations were dismantled by the NKVD, but some managed to survive until June 1941. Additionally, in early spring 1940, a partisan unit under the command of Corporal Leonard Dąbrowski (a Border Protection Corps officer and resident of Ivyanyets) was formed in the Naliboki forest. In June 1940, Dąbrowski was killed in a battle with a Soviet sweep operation, and his unit was dispersed. However, small groups of surviving partisans continued to fight in the following months, with at least one group enduring until the end of the first Soviet occupation.
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Stowbtsy District was incorporated into the newly created Reichskommissariat Ostland. Supported by Belarusian Auxiliary Police, the Germans exterminated most of the local Jews and imposed ruthless terror on the Polish population. Meanwhile, the Naliboki forest became a refuge for Red Army soldiers who had escaped from German camps or avoided capture after the defeat in the Battle of Białystok–Minsk, as well as for Jews who had fled from nearby ghettos. At the turn of 1942 and 1943, Soviet officers and commissars who had been transferred from behind the front lines began transforming these scattered groups of survivors into regular partisan units. Major General Vasily Y. Chernyshev, codenamed Platon, led the Baranovichi Partisan Group, while Grigory A. Sidorok, codenamed Dubov (the district secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Ivyanyets), was the commander of the Ivyanyets inter-district center. By late September 1943, the Baranovichi Group numbered 8,795 partisans, and ten months later, this number had grown to nearly 25,000. The Soviet partisans significantly harassed the local population, mass-requisitioning food, clothing, and other property. Often, these "economic operations" took the form of outright robbery, accompanied by beatings, murders, and rapes of women. The Jewish units of Bielski partisans and Symcha Zorin were particularly ruthless in looting the peasants.
Shortly after the start of the German occupation, the structures of the Union of Armed Struggle (renamed the Home Army in February 1942) began to form in the territories of the former Nowogródek Voivodeship. As early as November 1941, the command of the appointed Second Lieutenant Aleksander Warakomski, codenamed Świr, as the commander of the Stowbtsy District (codenamed Słup). Świr quickly established contact with the officers and non-commissioned officers of the Polish Armed Forces living in the area. His close collaborator became Reserve Lieutenant Kacper Miłaszewski, codenamed Lewald, one of the leaders of the local Polish community, who also enjoyed relative trust from the Soviet partisans.
Initially, the activities of the Słup District focused on accumulating supplies of weapons and ammunition and infiltrating the local structures of the Belarusian police and administration. The initiative to organize a Polish partisan unit likely emerged in December 1942 but initially did not gain the approval of the Nowogródek District leadership. Over time, factors such as the increasing number of exposed soldiers and the voluntary or forced enlistment of Polish youth into the ranks of the Soviet partisans contributed to a change in the district command's position. They realized that without creating a Polish armed force, it would be impossible to protect the local population from looting and excesses by the formally allied Soviet units. The massacre of the residents of the village of Naliboki by Soviet partisans on the night of 7/8 May 1943 particularly galvanized the decision to organize a partisan unit.
On 3 June 1943, the first recruitment into the ranks of the Polish unit took place at the Kul estate deep in the Naliboki forest. On that day, 44 volunteers reported, becoming the nucleus of the future Stowbtsy-Naliboki Group. The local Home Army leadership initially planned for Second Lieutenant Witold Pełczyński, codenamed Dźwig, to command the unit. However, he was wounded by an accidental grenade explosion on the first day. In these circumstances, Lieutenant Kacper Miłaszewski, codenamed Lewald, took command. News of the formation of the Polish unit quickly spread among the local population. Despite accepting only armed and uniformed volunteers, the unit's strength grew to 130 soldiers within ten days. Shortly afterward, a dozen or so volunteer cavalrymen joined the unit under the leadership of Warrant Officer , codenamed Noc, enabling the formation of a mounted patrol.
Given that the Naliboki forest was controlled by a large Soviet partisan group, the formation of a Polish unit would not have been possible without first regulating mutual relations. Initially, the allies demanded that Soviet officers command the unit. They eventually dropped this demand but maintained several other far-reaching conditions, including a prohibition on the unit maintaining contacts with Polish leadership centres in Warsaw and London, a ban on recruiting Poles not from the Nowogródek Voivodeship, tactical subordination of the unit to Soviet command, and the freedom to spread communist propaganda among the soldiers. With the Nowogródek District command's consent, Polish negotiators accepted all Soviet conditions without intending to adhere to them in practice. Furthermore, the Polish delegates effectively concealed their organizational affiliation, leaving the Soviet command unaware until September 1943 that the unit was part of the Home Army and believing it had been formed solely by local Poles.
The details of the cooperation were agreed upon a few days after the unit's formation. The Naliboki forest was divided into Polish and Soviet sectors, where partisans from the other side could not move without valid passes. It was agreed that Polish and Soviet partisans would procure supplies respectively on the western and eastern sides of the 1939 border. The Soviet side promised to agitate the Polish population residing or sheltering in their controlled area to join the Polish unit. Even the unit's name became a matter of negotiation, as the Soviets demanded it be named after Wanda Wasilewska or Felix Dzerzhinsky. Ultimately, they settled on the compromise name Tadeusz Kościuszko Polish Partisan Unit.
Name of the group The partisan group of the Home Army formed based on the Słup District was called the Stowbtsy Group. The name Stowbtsy-Naliboki Group, which is most frequently found in the literature, emerged only after the war and was not used during the unit's existence.
In the Nowogródek structures of the Home Army, the group was usually referred to as the Polish Partisan Unit. In official district documents, the codenames battalion from 'Słup''' or battalion no. 330 were also used. In correspondence with the Soviet partisans, the agreed-upon name Tadeusz Kościuszko Polish Partisan Unit or simply Tadeusz Kościuszko Battalion was used.
During the fighting in the Naliboki forest, soldiers of the Stowbtsy Group were commonly referred to as legionnaires. This term was used by the Germans, Soviet partisans, and the local Polish and Belarusian population. After the war, referring to the pseudonym of the group's most famous commander, Lieutenant Adolf Pilch, codenamed Dolina, the informal name Doliniacy was also used.
Fighting in Naliboki forest
Ivyanyets Uprising
A few days after the formation of the unit, the Polish command decided to launch an attack on Ivyanyets. This town, elevated during the occupation to the status of a raion capital, was defended by a strong garrison consisting of between 500 and 700 Germans and Belarusian policemen. The aim of the attack was to free the arrested members of the local resistance network and pre-empt a similar Soviet action. After obtaining approval from the district command, the operation was scheduled for 22 June 1943. However, Polish intelligence soon learned that the Germans had ordered a mass conscription into the and a requisition of horses for the German army on June 19. This presented an excellent opportunity to covertly smuggle armed partisans into the town, leading to the decision to advance the operation by three days. The Polish plans envisaged attacking Ivyanyets both from within and from the outside.
The attack on Ivyanyets, historically known as the Ivyanyets Uprising, began at noon on June 19. In the first phase of the operation, the Polish partisans cut off telephone communication and easily took control of the post office and the economic office. The Belarusian policemen, many of whom were covert members of the Home Army, surrendered relatively quickly. The German gendarmes, however, put up fierce resistance for over two hours, which was only broken by setting the gendarmerie building on fire. Meanwhile, Polish partisans managed to effectively engage two companies of the Luftwaffe stationed in barracks by the Wołma river. Ivyanyets remained free for nearly 18 hours, with Polish soldiers evacuating the town at 6:00 AM on June 20.