Jerzy Zakulski

Second lieutenant Jerzy Zakulski (28 June 1911 – 31 July 1947) was an attorney in interwar Poland, and World War II member of the National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) in German-occupied Poland. He was sentenced to death and executed by Stalinist officials in Soviet-controlled postwar Poland, on charges of being an enemy spy.

Biography Jerzy Zakulski was born to a family of a high-school teacher, Ludwik Zakulski. The Zakulskis settled in Kraków, at St. Kinga Street 7 in the district of Podgórze. Jerzy enrolled at the Jagiellonian University and graduated with a degree in law in 1936. Two years later he passed the bar. On 1 September 1939 Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. Zakulski was conscripted into the Polish Army with the reserve military rank of Podporucznik (lieutenant) and took part in the September campaign. Some 15,000 Jews were removed from their homes in the district of Kazimierz – the main spiritual and cultural centre of Kraków Jewry – and crammed into an area of Podgórze previously inhabited by 3,000 people.

Just before the liquidation of the Ghetto in the course of the murderous Operation Reinhard in Kraków under Holocaust perpetrator Amon Göth, Maria Błeszyńska Bernstein escaped from there at night with her three-year-old daughter. They were rescued by Jerzy Zakulski. collecting data on the Soviet crime wave and looting of the city. He was betrayed and captured by the security forces a year later along with several others. His trial began on 29 May 1947 in Warsaw and concluded after two weeks on 16 June 1947.