Biali Kurierzy
| White Couriers | |
|---|---|
| Biali Kurierzy | |
A plaque dedicated to the White Courier Stanisław Gerula, in Waltham Forest | |
| Active | October 1939 |
| Disbanded | July 1940 |
| Countries | |
| Allegiance | Polish Underground State |
| Branch | Grey Ranks |
| Role | Evacuation of Poles from the occupied kresy |
| Size | 30 |
| Engagements | WWII |
| Part of a series on the |
| Polish Underground State |
|---|
White Couriers (Polish: Biali Kurierzy) was a group of around 20-30 Polish boy scouts and former soldiers of the Polish Army, most of whom had been associated with the interbellum sports club Junak Drohobycz. It existed between October 1939 and July 1940, when it was broken up by the Soviet NKVD. The task of the White Couriers was to smuggle people from the Soviet-occupied southeastern part of the former Second Polish Republic, to the Hungarian region of Carpathian Ruthenia and further to Budapest. The White Couriers were part of the Grey Ranks, a wartime codename for the underground Polish Scouting Association.
Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, eastern Poland, known as the Kresy, was annexed by the Soviet Union. The Soviets immediately began a campaign of large-scale mass terror, with hundreds of thousands of people deported to Siberia. The terror was mostly aimed at Polish professionals and their entire families.