Armia Krajowa: Encyclopedia II - Armia Krajowa - Relations with Lithuanians

Armia Krajowa - Relations with Lithuanians

Relations between Lithuanians and Poles were strained during most of the interwar period due to conflicts over the Vilnius region and Suvalkai region, where there was a large Lithuanian minority. During the war these conflicts resurfaced as Armia Krajowa's ideal of a Polish state included the Vilnius region.

On June 23, 1944, AK committed a massacre of Lithuanian civilians^{[citation needed]}, at Dubingiai where 27 Lithuanian civilians, including women and children were murdered. Some Lithuanian authors suggest a higher number of victims (Juozas Lebionka claims 100, some other Lithuanian historians make claims as high as 200). The scale of other possible killings is also a subject of disagreement. One estimate by a Lithuanian investigator Rimas Bružas is that about 500 Lithuanian civilans were killed by Poles during the war. Estimates of Juozas Lebionka suggest even a higher number of 1000^{[citation needed]}. Polish historians claim that the massacre at Dubingiai was unique. This view is supported by AK documents that were recently found in Bernardines monastery in Vilnius, which consist of AK reports of actions between 1943 and 1944. It seems probable that the killings were not planned, and were rather more related to a general dislike of Lithuanians by some people in the AK ranks. This was supposedly further provoked by actions of some Lithuanian military units which were fighting against AK and who in turn were accused of murdering Polish civilians. Therefore some of the alleged AK actions might have been direct retaliation to the actions of Lithuanian groups, the police, or other Lithuanian Nazi collaborators. The same may have applied vice-versa - some of actions of the Lithuanian groups were done as a retalliation for AK actions^{[citation needed]}. Because of these reasons, the AK, despite of its record in saving Poles of Vilnius, are considered to be a controversial organisation in today's Lithuania in a manner somewhat similar to the view of the Soviet partisans.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Relations with Lithuanians", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki