Polish general and military commander. He is notable for his command over a Polish unit in Siberia during the Russian Civil War, and the commander of the defence of Warsaw during the siege in 1939.
Walerian Czuma was born on December 24, 1890 in Niepołomice, to Jan (1860 - 1933) and Emilia (ca. 1864 - 1941), née Ptak. His father was a rafter on the Vistula River, but when the Czuma family moved to Czaniec in 1896, he took up farming on a 20-acre farm. Walerian graduated from elementary school in Kęty, and shortly after that the family faced another move. For in 1906, Jan purchased an eight-hectare plot of land with a brick house in Wadowice, on what later became Zygmunt Krasinski Street, stretching all the way to the Chocznia department. The area is still referred to by locals as Czuma or Czumówka.
Walerian had several siblings, but apart from him and his two younger brothers, the other children died while still in Niepołomice.
Władysław (1893 - 1968), was a 1914 graduate of the Wadowice Gymnasium and commander of the Wadowice Rifle Association. He participated in World War I, and as a Russian prisoner of war ended up in Siberia, where he fought in Adm. Kolchak's White Guard army. After returning to the now independent Republic, he served in the Polish Army. The outbreak of World War II found Lt. Col. Władysław Czuma in Silesia, where he worked on the staff of the Upper Silesian Brigade of National Defense. The turmoil of war took him through France to Great Britain, where he was commander of the Headquarters of the 3rd Cadre Rifle Brigade. After the war, he remained in exile. He died in October 1968 at Polish Home Penrhos, Pwllheli (North Wales) and was buried in Wrexham Cemetery. In 2004, his remains were moved to Warsaw's Powązki cemetery.
After moving to Wadowice, the future general and defender of Warsaw continued his education at the c.k. Higher Humanities Gymnasium, where he passed his matriculation exam in 1911. Even as a young high school student he was a restless spirit, overwhelmed by patriotic ideas, and co-organized the "Zarzewie" youth movement at school. To study he went to Vienna, where he studied at the Faculty of Agriculture of the local Hochschule für Bodenkultur (he completed 5 semesters).
Raised in a patriotic spirit, Walerian Czuma's generation awaited the outbreak of war as a great opportunity for Poland to regain its independence. Among the things that prepared the young patriots for battle was service in the Rifle Squad, which Walerian joined during his studies in Vienna in 1912. A year earlier, he did volunteer service in the Austrian 13th Infantry Regiment.
After the outbreak of the Great War, Ensign Walerian Czuma joined the Polish Legions. He first commanded a platoon, then a company, and in December 1915, promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, Czuma took command of the 9th Company of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Second Brigade of the Polish Legions. The brave, tenacious and extremely self-sacrificing officer was severely wounded in the battle for the so-called Polish Mountain near Kostiuchnowka (July 4, 1916), and spent nearly a year and a half receiving treatment in Kraków. After his convalescence, Czuma, already a Captain, returned to the front (January 1, 1918), taking command of the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Second Brigade, which had been fighting since 1916 as part of the Polish Positional Corps created by the Austrians. Shortly thereafter - on February 6 - the Central Powers signed a peace treaty with the Ukrainian People's Republic in Brest. Its terms were unacceptable to Poles - for the agreement provided for the surrender to Ukraine of lands to which the Republic, standing on the threshold of independence, claimed historical and ethnic rights. Upon hearing of these events, on the night of February 15-16, 1918, a significant part of the soldiers of the Second Brigade under the command of Col. Jozef Haller crossed the front near Rarańcza, joining the Polish II Corps, which was fighting alongside Russia. Capt. Walerian Czuma also crossed the front, thus beginning his five-year epic in Russia.
A revolution was raging in the tottering Czarist Empire. Volunteer military formations made up of various nationalities, including Poles, were being formed to fight against the Bolsheviks. On Haller's orders, Czuma was active in Moscow, organizing financial support for compatriots wishing to fight the Bolsheviks, and in the summer of 1918 he traveled to Siberia, where he directed the recruitment of volunteers for the 5th Polish Rifle Division (Siberian), which was being formed there. The struggle of the Polish unit in the Russian Civil War was extremely difficult. This was because its soldiers were securing the retreat of Adm. Kolchak's troops and the Czechoslovak Corps to the Far East. Constantly harassed by the Bolshevik plots, the division was forced to capitulate in early 1920. Col. Czuma had the opportunity to avoid captivity, but out of a sense of responsibility for his soldiers, he surrendered to the Bolsheviks. He was imprisoned in Krasnoyarsk and Omsk, and from November 1920 in Moscow's notorious Butyrki torture center. He returned to Poland in January 1922, by way of exchange for Soviet commissars taken prisoner during the Polish-Bolshevik war.
The heroism of the organizer and commander of the Polish troops in Siberia was appreciated by Haller, who requested that Colonel Czuma be awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross.
After a short convalescence, Walerian Czuma volunteered for service in the reborn Polish Army. He commanded the 19th Infantry Division in Vilnius (1922-1927), served as commander of the Vilnius fortified camp (1927-1928), and in February 1928 took command of the 5th Infantry Division in Lvov. Less than a year later, in January 1929, he was promoted to brigadier general. In February 1939, President Moscicki appointed him commander of the Border Guard.
"During the interwar period, whenever time allowed, the general visited his parents in Wadowice. When he arrived by train at the train station, a carriage was already waiting for him (this was taken care of by the command of the 12th infantry regiment), which carried him all the way to the intersection of Słowackiego and Krasinski streets, where his father was already waiting for Walerian. The general would get out of the carriage, kneel down, kiss his father's hand, and then get up... Embracing each other, father and son walked towards Czumówka "(R.A. Gajczak, Wadowice, miasto rodzinne Jana Pawła II, Warszawa 1986, s. 180).
After the outbreak of World War II, Brigadier General Walerian Czuma stayed in Warsaw. On September 3, the Warsaw Defense Command, headed by Czuma, was created from the Operational Command, which had remained in reserve until then. This was a critical moment - German armored units were already advancing toward the city from the direction of Piotrków. An experienced and seasoned officer like Czuma lived up to the hopes placed in him - he mastered the chaos and organized the defense of the capital.
He created successive infantry units, sapper companies, transport columns, and worked closely with President Stefan Starzyński, whom he appointed civilian commissar to the Warsaw Defense Command. His approach to the service and the duty entrusted to him to defend the capital is vividly evidenced by the words he said at a briefing to his officers - "There is no retreat from the occupied positions and we die on them" (A. Zawilski, Bitwy polskiego września, Krakow 2009, p. 341). The general personally took part in conducting artillery fire on the advancing German tanks from General Reinhardt's 1st Armored Division. Despite the heroic battle, on September 28, 1939. Warsaw capitulated. The commander of its defense had the opportunity to join the underground Polish Victory Service, which had been formed the day before, but Czuma opted for German captivity along with his comrades-in-arms.
He spent the entire war in prisoner of war camps. First in Murnau (Oflag VII A), then Johannisbrunn (Oflag VIII E) and Doessel (Oflag VI B). The latter camp was liberated by the Americans and in April 1945 they transported the officers imprisoned there to Paris and later to Nice.
The general never returned to Poland. Together with his brother Władysław, he remained in exile - first in France and then in Great Britain. Entering the Polish Corps of Assimilations and Deployments enabled him to find work at the Cobalder farm co-op near Peterborough. From 1956, the General lived at the Polish Home Penrhos, Pwllheli, North Wales, a center for ex-military personnel. He died on April 7, 1962, and his funeral took place four days later. He was buried in Wrexham Cemetery. The general's ashes, in accordance with his will, were brought to Poland on July 2, 2004 and buried in the Powazki cemetery.
Gen. Walerian Czuma was decorated many times. He was a Knight of the Order of Virtuti Militari three times: for his participation in the Siberian campaign (VM V class), for the defense of Warsaw (VM IV class) and posthumously (VM III class). Other decorations adorning his breast included: Polonia Restituta, the Cross of Independence with Swords, the Cross of Valor (awarded four times), the Golden Cross of Merit as well as the French Cross of the Legion of Honor and the Belgian Cross of Leopold.
A plaque in the general's honor, funded by the English Polish community and former comrades-in-arms, is located in St. Andrew Bobola Church in London.