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29-690: The park is named after the Silent Unseen , the elite special-operations paratroopers of the Home Army of Poland during the World War II . The park was established on 24 May 2016. It included the Three Peaks Hill , an artificial hill made in the 1970s. Around the year 2000, there was built a dual slalom bike racing track, and in the following years were also added four-cross and dirt jumping track amenities. In 2015, were added

58-525: A Polish airborne force to be used in covert support operations. The force was to be employed solely in aid of a future uprising in occupied Poland. Their plan was never adopted, but on 20 September 1940 the Polish commander-in-chief , General Władysław Sikorski , ordered the creation of Section III of the Commander-in-Chief's Staff ( Oddział III Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza ). Section III's purpose

87-551: A Polish Army officer who had escaped to France after the invasion of Poland , drew up a report for the Polish Chief of Staff. Górski proposed creating a secret unit to maintain contact with the underground ZWZ , using a group of well-trained envoys. After his report was ignored, Górski resubmitted it several times. Finally the commander of the Polish Air Force , General Zając, replied that, while creation of such

116-495: A new, false identity. All soldiers who passed the training were sworn in as members of the Home Army . The first air-bridge operation took place on 15 February 1941. The Allied air commands carried out 483 air-bridge operations all together, losing 68 planes to crashes and enemy fire. Apart from the Silent Unseen themselves, some 630 tons of war materiel were delivered in special containers. In addition, agents delivered

145-530: A unit would be a good move, the Polish Air Force had no means of transport and no training facilities for such a unit. Górski and his colleague Maciej Kalenkiewicz continued studying the possibility of paratroops and special forces . After the capitulation of France , they managed to reach the United Kingdom. They studied documents on German paratroops and drafted a plan to create in exile

174-791: The Axis powers that were subsequently occupied by German forces, such as Finland and Hungary. Germany operated thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany . Following the 1934 purge of the SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later

203-612: The Nazi regime under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler . The German Wehrmacht occupied European territory: In 1941, around 280 million people in Europe, more than half the population, were governed by Germany or their allies and puppet states . It comprised an area of 3,300,000 km (1,300,000 sq mi). Outside of Europe, German forces controlled areas of North Africa , including Egypt , Libya , and Tunisia between 1940 and 1945. German military scientists established

232-766: The Red Army . Of 316 Cichociemni, 103 perished during the war: in combat with the Germans, executed by the Gestapo , or in crashes. A further nine were executed after the war by the Polish People's Republic ; the communist regime was hostile to the Cichociemni, considered to be British ideologised infiltrators. Ninety-one Cichociemni operatives took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The origins of

261-677: The Schatzgraber Weather Station as far north as Alexandra Land in Francis Joseph Land . Manned German weather stations also operated in North America included three in Greenland , Holzauge , Bassgeiger , and Edelweiss. German Kriegsmarine ships also operated in all oceans of the world throughout World War II. Several German-occupied countries initially entered World War II as Allies of

290-612: The United Kingdom or the Soviet Union . Some were forced to surrender before the outbreak of the war such as Czechoslovakia; others like Poland (invaded on 1 September 1939) were conquered in battle and then occupied . In some cases, the legitimate governments went into exile , in other cases the governments-in-exile were formed by their citizens in other Allied countries . Some countries occupied by Nazi Germany were officially neutral. Others were former members of

319-638: The Polish government. The most notable Silent Unseen included: Arrested and interrogated by the Security Service , he was released and escaped from Poland in 1946. Of 344 men transported to Poland, 113 were killed in action : Of 91 Silent Unseen who took part in the Warsaw Uprising , 18 were killed in action. The first book on the Silent Unseen was published in England in 1954. The Polish edition, Drogi cichociemnych: opowiadania zebrane i opracowane przez koło spadochroniarzy Armii Krajowej ,

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348-808: The Polish underground in occupied Poland, such as building-clearance and bridge-demolition. In 1944, training was also carried out in Brindisi , Italy, which had fallen to the Allies. Initially, the name was informal and was used mainly by soldiers who volunteered to parachute into Poland. However, from September 1941 the name became official and was used in all documents. It was applied to the secret Polish Headquarters training unit created to provide agents with necessary knowledge, money and equipment and to agents who were transported to Poland and other German-occupied countries . On 30 December 1939 Captain Jan Górski,

377-537: The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", " asocials ", and Jews. After the beginning of World War II , people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in

406-747: The Wehrmacht were targeted and detained in concentration camps. In Western Europe, arrests focused on resistance fighters and saboteurs, but in Eastern Europe arrests included mass roundups aimed at the implementation of Nazi population policy and the forced recruitment of workers. This led to a predominance of Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, who made up the majority of the population of some camps. The ethnicities of captured people were various other groups from other different nationalities were transferred to Auschwitz or sent to local concentration camps. The countries occupied included all, or most, of

435-601: The beginners track and in 2018, the pump track . There were hosted numerous mountain bike racing events. The park is located in the neighbourhood of Natolin , within the district of Ursynów , between Perkalowa Street, Belgradzka Strewt, Moczydłowska Street, and Gminna Street. It has the total area of around 17.82. The park includes the Three Peaks Hill , an artificial hill with the peak height of 133.9 m. It includes numerous mountain bike racing tracks for dual slalom , four-cross , dirt jumping , and pump track . There are organised numerous mountain bike racing events In

464-463: The camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. Most of the fatalities occurred during the second half of World War II, including at least 4.7 million Soviet prisoners who were registered as of January 1945. Following Allied military victories, the camps were gradually liberated in 1944 and 1945, although hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the death marches. After the expansion of Nazi Germany, people from countries occupied by

493-541: The first phase of training, all the volunteers were taught to use every kind of weapon (British, Polish, German, Russian and Italian weapons) and mines. In additional courses, the soldiers were trained in basic covert operations, topography, cryptography, and sharpshooting. They were also taught details of life in occupied Poland, from German-imposed laws to current fashions in occupied Warsaw. The fourth course included all kinds of covert operations, jujitsu , and shooting at invisible targets. The briefing course included learning

522-1488: The following nations or territories: [REDACTED] Bailiwick of Jersey 1 July 1940 – 9 May 1945 (Jersey) [REDACTED] Second Czechoslovak Republic [REDACTED] Third Czechoslovak Republic [REDACTED] German Zone of Protection in Slovakia [REDACTED] Free France [REDACTED] Provisional Government of the French Republic [REDACTED]   French Tunisia [REDACTED] Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France [REDACTED] Military Administration in France [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat of Belgium and Northern France [REDACTED] Civil Administration of Luxembourg [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat of Belgium and Northern France [REDACTED] German-occupied territory of Montenegro [REDACTED] Independent State of Croatia [REDACTED] Independent State of Macedonia Provisional Government of Lithuania 23 June 1941 – 5 August 1941 [REDACTED] General Government administration [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat Ostland [REDACTED] Reichskommissariat Ukraine [REDACTED] Government of National Salvation [REDACTED] Military Administration in

551-582: The following sums of money to the Home Army: Through 27 December 1944, 316 soldiers and 28 emissaries successfully parachuted into Poland. Additionally, 17 agents were dropped into Albania, France, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia. An unknown number of Poles (including the best known, Krystyna Skarbek ) were also parachuted into France by the British Special Operations Executive to start an underground movement among

580-520: The half-million-strong Polish minority . Though the Silent Unseen were organized in collaboration with SOE, it was largely independent. The Polish section of SOE was the only one which freely chose its own men and operated its own radio communications with an occupied country. Additionally, the identities of the Polish agents were known only to the Polish General Staff. Those transported to Poland included soldiers of all grades. The oldest

609-515: The name are obscure and may never be known with certainty. "Silent Unseen" probably related to how some soldiers seemingly disappeared from their line units overnight to volunteer for special operations service, and it also describes those "who appear silently where they are least expected, play havoc with the enemy and disappear whence they came, unnoticed, unseen." The Silent Unseen were trained initially in Scotland in preparation for missions for

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638-590: The paratroopers, known as the Silent Unseen Park , was established in 2016 in Warsaw . German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe (or Nazi-occupied Europe ) refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet governments , by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during World War II , administered by

667-793: The park, near Gminna Street are located two Scots pines , that have the statues of the natural monuments . It is also the location of the annual history picnic dedicated to the Silent Unseen soldiers. Silent Unseen The Silent Unseen ( Polish : Cichociemni , Polish pronunciation: [t͡ɕixɔˈt͡ɕɛmɲi] ) were elite special-operations paratroopers of the Polish Army in exile , created in Great Britain during World War II to operate in occupied Poland ( Cichociemni Spadochroniarze Armii Krajowej ). A total of 2,613 Polish Army soldiers volunteered for training by Polish and British SOE operatives. Only 606 people completed

696-731: The training and pass all the tests; of those, 579 qualified for airlift. The volunteers included 1 general, 112 staff officers, 894 officers, 592 non-commissioned officers (NCOs), 771 privates, 15 women, and 28 civilian emissaries of the Polish Government in Exile . The training established by the General Staff's Section VI ( Oddział VI Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza ) and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) comprised five courses: During

725-474: The training, and eventually 316 of them were secretly parachuted into occupied Poland. The first operation ("air bridge", as it was called) took place on 15 February 1941. This operation was conducted by Captain Józef Zabielski, Major Stanisław Krzymowski and political courier Czesław Raczkowski. After 27 December 1944 further operations were discontinued, as by then most of Poland had been occupied by

754-457: Was contingency planning for covert operations in Poland, air delivery of arms and supplies, and training of paratroops. Soon after, the General Staff's Section III began recruiting volunteers. Those selected left their erstwhile units in secret, silently and at night – hence, the perhaps at first facetious name, Cichociemni ("Silent Unseen"). Of 2,413 candidates, only 605 managed to complete

783-1178: Was 54 years old, the youngest was 20. As a rule, all volunteers were promoted one rank at the moment of their jump. In Poland the Silent Unseen were assigned mostly to special units of the ZWZ and Home Army . Most of them joined Wachlarz , Związek Odwetu and KeDyw . Many became important staff officers of the Polish Secret Army and took part in Operation Tempest and uprisings in Wilno , Lwów and Warsaw . The Silent Unseen assumed various duties in German-occupied Europe . Some 37 worked in intelligence, 50 were radio operators and emissaries, 24 were staff officers, 22 were airmen and airdrop coordinators, 11 were instructors of armored forces and instructors in anti-tank warfare at secret military schools, 3 were trained in forging documents, 169 were trained in covert operations and partisan warfare , and 28 were emissaries of

812-500: Was a Cichociemny ), was published in 2008. He was 94 years old when it first appeared in bookstores. In 2009 it was translated into English as Silent and Unseen: I was a WW II Special Ops Commando . On 4 August 1995, the Polish special-forces unit GROM adopted the name and traditions of the Cichociemni . Polish TV has produced a series, Czas honoru (Time of Honour), about the Silent Unseen. An urban park commemorating

841-588: Was published by Veritas; and an English edition, The Unseen and Silent: Adventures from the Underground Movement, Narrated by Paratroops of the Polish Home Army , was published by Sheed and Ward. The Polish edition was republished in England several times, last in 1973. A miniature version of Drogi cichociemnych was published in two volumes in communist Poland in 1985 by Kurs . General Stefan Bałuk 's memoir, Byłem Cichociemnym ( I

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