The date of unveiling the memorial plaque - 17 September - is no accident. The author of a monograph about NIK underlined that during the Second World War it was the Soviet occupation zone that was the most dangerous for the NIK employees. This is where every educated Polish person, particularly a central- or a local government official, a Polish Army officer or a police officer, was considered an enemy of ”the state of workers and peasants”.
NIK President Marian Banaś welcomes guests attending the celebration of unveiling the memorial plaque of NIK
Works on the memorial plaque were scheduled for several years. The entire documentation of the fate of NIK employees during the war had to be reviewed, starting from 1919 when the Supreme Office of State Audit was founded.
The memorial plaque reveals the names of 11 Soviet victims and 4 German victims. There are also names of the places where the NIK employees lost their lives: the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Katyn, Kharkov, the Warsaw Uprising, and others.
The memorial plaque of NIK
The memorial plaque of NIK brings back the memory of Kazimierz Piłsudski, the younger brother of the Head of State Józef Piłsudski, who established the Supreme Office of State Audit by signing a decree in February 1919. Kazimierz Piłsudski, advisor to NIK President, arrested by the Soviets, went through two Moscow prisons. He was released in 1941 but did not have enough strength to plan his return. He died in Bukhara.
Adam Gręplowski, PhD from the NIK Branch in Cracow was arrested by Gestapo in 1942 in Cracow. He died in the same year in Auschwitz. Ms Teresa Gręplowska, the daughter of Mr Gręplowski, connected with the event participants from the NIK Branch in Cracow.
The plaque also features the name of Stanisław Peszyński, head of the conspiratorial ”NIK” in Warsaw, a member of the Conspiratorial Bar Council, who was murdered by the Germans in 1944.
On 17 September 2020, 81 years after the Soviet aggression against Poland, numerous events were held nationwide to honour the heroes who defended our home country at that time.
NIK President Marian Banaś attended a special mass at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army and also - on behalf of the management and employees of NIK - laid a wreath at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East.
