Biology laboratory. File photoMOSCOW, Apr 22Back in the 1920s, Poland began its own development of bacteriological weapons and advanced so much in them that the Japanese military came to Warsaw to learn from the experience of infecting people, this should now be widely discussed on the basis of new documents from Russian archives, a military microbiologist, chief specialist of the 27th Scientific Center of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, retired colonel Mikhail Supotnitsky. «Recently, published archival documents about the monstrous crimes of the Japanese military who developed and tested bacteriological weapons have become known. In 1949, a trial took place in Khabarovsk, at which some of them were convicted. But few people know that after the Khabarovsk trial, the Warsaw trial of Polish developers of bacteriological weapons was being prepared,» Supotnitsky said.Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin WeaponsThe need to open archivesPoland was engaged in research in the field of bacteriological weapons back in the 1920s, the source said. wanted to create the conditions for its monopoly ownership,” said Supotnitsky. publications in Poland,” added the expert. an evidence base was being collected, and these documents should be kept in our various archives. to raise this important topic, it is necessary to dig it out. Including, in connection with the topic of biological laboratories in Ukraine,» the agency interlocutor added. «The Poles portray themselves as white and fluffy, but this is not at all the case,» Supotnitsky emphasized. According to him, the Poles do not care about cruelty. «For example, being in a Polish concentration camp was even worse than being in a German concentration camp,» the expert said.April 14, 17:13 InfographicBiological weapons: pathogens, proliferation and bansPolish «innovations» in bioweaponsEarlier, Supotnitsky, in his monograph «Biological Warfare», cited key facts from the history of Poland's development of its own bacteriological weapons. This information is taken from documents published at different times. At the initiative of the II Department of the Polish General Staff (military intelligence), in the early 1930s, a secret laboratory was organized in Warsaw at the Military Institute for Gas Protection, which studied the damaging effects of dangerous bacteria and bacterial toxins . The laboratory was headed by biologist Alfons Ostrovsky. In 1933 Dr. Jan Golba became the head of the laboratory. The laboratory was supervised by Captain Ignacy Harsky. Initially, Polish military bacteriologists investigated the damaging properties of the pathogens of plague, cholera, dysentery and glanders, as well as botulinum toxin (they called it «sausage poison»). After World War II, during interrogations at the Warsaw Security Office, Ostrovsky testified that botulinum toxin had been tested on humans and caused death.The microbiologist told how the United States could use birds against RussiaLaboratory worker Janina Genbarska-Mierzvinska developed a method for storing microbe cultures using the so-called freeze-drying. An equally «innovative» achievement was the production of botulinum toxin in the form of a powder. They also succeeded in scaling up the method of reproduction of the bacteria that cause typhoid fever. Then the II Division of the General Staff decided to increase funding for scientific research in the field of biological weapons. In 1935, the Separate Technical Directorate (Samodzielny Referat Techniczny, SRT) was organized in Warsaw. Captain Kharsky became its first chief. The SRT worked on increasing the virulence of various bacteria and developing methods for infecting people, animals, food and water with these microbes. Harbin (it included units for the development of Japanese biological and chemical weapons, including Detachment No. 731, where inhuman experiments were carried out on people). The Japanese military was then presented with Polish developments on infecting people during military operations with pathogens of typhoid fever, typhus, dysentery, anthrax and glanders.Military microbiologist: US practiced biological warfare in UkraineExperiments at the Brest FortressTo speed up the development of bioweapons, the Polish military built a larger laboratory in the Brest Fortress in 1937, equipped with a sealed chamber, in which aerobiological experiments could be carried out on animals. After the first successful experiments on animals, experiments on people began to be carried out there (in the Brest Fortress, in particular, there was a prison for political figures opposed to the Pilsudski regime). In September 1939, units of the Red Army entered Brest as part of the Liberation Campaign, bacteriologists managed to escape from the city. Golba and Ostrovsky reached France. Genbarska Mierzvinska remained in Poland. Later, Golba managed to move to the UK, where his report on Polish developments was transferred to the Porton Down Chemical and Biological Weapons Research Center. Golba and Ostrovsky returned to Poland after the war. In 1951, together with Genbarska-Mierzvinska, as well as the head of the SRT mechanical workshops, Jan Kobus, they were arrested to be presented before a tribunal in Warsaw. It was planned to conduct a major trial of a large group of SRT workers, including in absentia those of them who had taken refuge in the US and the UK. The court was supposed to show the public the essence of the Polish variety of fascism — «Pilsudchyna», its methods of action in the field of domestic and foreign policy. But after the death of Stalin, the planned Warsaw trial did not take place, and only four people were convicted — Golba, Ostrovsky, Genbarska-Mezhvinskaya and Kobus. They received from 4 to 13 years in prison, but were released early under an amnesty. creation of bioweapons
