3. Blanka Kaczorowska: The Polish Resistance Fighter turner Nazi informant and communist Collaborator
Blanka Kaczorowska betrayed her homeland not once but twice: firstly to the Nazis and later to Communist Russia. However, she began her covert activities with the best of intentions. In 1942, she joined the Polish Home Army, the main organized force of resistance in Poland. Operating under the codename “Sroka,” Kaczorowska became a member of an underground group operating in Warsaw, under the command of her then-husband, Ludwik Kalkstein.
However, the Nazi’s captured the couple and Kalkstein, and Kaczorowska turned. Together, they were responsible for the betrayal of at least fourteen underground officers to the Gestapo, including the Commander of the Home Army, General Stefan Grot-Rowecki in June 1943. On March 25, 1944, a special military court of the Home Army sentenced Kaczorowska in her absence to death for her treason. However, they never attempted to carry out the sentence because she was pregnant. Kaczorowska remained under German protection until the end of the war. Then she disappeared.
She re-emerged in Warsaw in 1948 as a student of art history. Here, Wlodzimierz Sokorski, a polish communist official who was the Soviet appointed Minister of Culture and Art took Kaczorowska under his wing. Sokorski was responsible for implementing Stalinist doctrine in Poland during some of the darkest post-war days and strictly controlled the media. Under his auspices, Kaczorowska became a Master of Art History and took up a post in the State Institute of Folk Art and Folklore Research.
Eventually, however, her past caught up with her. In 1952, she was arrested and tried for her wartime activities and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Kaczorowska only served five years. She was released in 1958 and promptly became a collaborator again, this time for the communist Polish Security services. She remained in this position in 1971 when she left for France where she remained until her death.