Polish WWII veteran Lieutenant Edward Ciupak, former AK fighter, dies at 97

Lieutenant Edward Ciupak, nicknamed “Mały”, died on 5 July 2026 at the age of 97 in the village of Nasutowo, Białogard County, Poland. Born on 14 December 1928 in Wólka Ratajska, he joined the underground Armia Krajowa at 15, later fighting with Major Hieronim Dekutowski’s “Zapory” unit and becoming the last surviving subordinate of that commander.

After the Red Army entered Poland, Ciupak avoided arrest but was detained in 1947, sentenced to 15 years by a Lublin court, and spent time in several communist prisons, accumulating 14 years of imprisonment. He was arrested again in 1962 for aiding a fellow dissident and sentenced to five more years. Over his life he received numerous state decorations, including the Officer’s and Knight’s Crosses of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Pro Bono Poloniae medal. The local community and deputy mayor Dominik Kołodziejski mourned his passing, calling him a symbol of steadfast patriotism and one of the last veterans of Poland’s resilient post‑war generation.