The Home Army is back

MARCIN WASZCZUK (pictured) is ready for action. Dressed in camouflage fatigues with a Polish flag on the shoulder, the heavyset 41-year-old is the head of Strzelec, one of Poland’s largest paramilitary organisations, and he wants to be prepared in case of a Russian attack. His office sits in a notable location: the PAST office block, one of Warsaw’s few pre-war skyscrapers. During the 1944 Warsaw uprising, fighters from Poland’s Home Army, the largest partisan force in Europe, battled for 18 bloody days to seize the building from German troops, and held on until the two-month-long uprising was finally crushed.

Now Mr Waszczuk wants to draw on Poland’s history of guerrilla warfare to cope with the challenges of an increasingly unpredictable Russia. “We are the continuation of the Home Army,” he says. The goal is to form light infantry units scattered around the country able to continue the fight “if there is an invasion and the Polish military is destroyed".