• Home
• People
• Helena Wolińska-Brus

Helena Wolińska-Brus

Lt. Col. Helena Wolińska-Brus (1919 – 26 November 2008), born Fajga Mindla Danielak, was a military prosecutor in postwar Poland with the rank of lieutenant-colonel (podpułkownik), involved in Stalinist regime show trials of the 1950s. She has been implicated in the arrest and execution of many Polish anti-Nazi resistance fighters including key figures in Poland's wartime Home Army. Post-communist Poland sought the extradition of Wolińska-Brus from the United Kingdom on three separate occasions between 1999 and 2008. The official charges against her were initiated by the Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates both Nazi and Communist crimes committed in Poland between the years 1939 and 1989.Wolińska-Brus was accused of being an "accessory to a court murder," which is classified as a Stalinist crime and a crime of genocide, and is punishable by up to ten years in prison. She was also accused of organising the unlawful arrest, investigation and trial of Poland's wartime general Emil August Fieldorf, a legendary commander of the underground Polish Home Army during World War II. Fieldorf was executed on 24 February 1953, following a show-trial, and buried in a secret location - his family were never shown the body. A 1956 report commissioned during Poland's period of de-Stalinization concluded that Wolińska-Brus had violated the rule of law by her involvement in biased investigations and had also staged questionable trials that frequently resulted in executions.