With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Oxford don's wife 'sent war hero to his death'

The elderly widow of a renowned Oxford don is the unlikely recipient of a European arrest warrant alleging that she sent a war hero to his death during the Stalinist era show trials more than half a century ago.

Helena Wolinska, 88, a former Polish prosecutor who has lived in England since 1972, is accused of fabricating evidence against Gen Emil Fieldorf, a member of the Polish resistance during the Second World War.

Mrs Wolinska, well known in the cosy academic circles of north Oxford, is said in her former guise as a Soviet magistrate to have masterminded his wrongful arrest and execution in 1953.

Since the overthrow of the communist regime, Gen Fieldorf has been posthumously pardoned and the authorities are chasing those responsible for the alleged miscarriage of justice.

They claim that Mrs Wolinska, now a British citizen, was an enthusiastic member of the communist justice system which carried out the post-war purges against anyone seen as a threat to the Soviet leadership.

[She denies the charge.]
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)