The widow of a respected Wolfson College don is facing extradition to her native Poland on charges she engineered the wrongful execution of a wartime hero more than fifty years ago.
Helena Wolinska-Brus, now 88 and a resident of North Oxford, joined the Polish communist movement in 1939 after escaping the Warsaw ghetto in the Nazi-occupation era. As a magistrate in the post-war Soviet regime, she headed the 1953 prosecution of Gen. Emil Fieldorf, a wartime resistance leader. Allegedly, his refusal to collaborate with the new regime led to the fabrication of false evidence accusing him of killing Soviet soldiers and communist anti-Nazi fighters.
Fieldorf, whose body has never been found, was posthumously pardoned after the overthrow of the Soviet regime.
The campaign against Mrs Wolinska is being led by Fieldorf’s daughter, Maria, who called the former prosecutor "one of those careerists who are the pillars of any dictatorship." Maria learned from a rabbi that her father had been kept in solitary confinement for 23 months: “He had been starved and harassed and was under constant interrogation,” she said. “It was a terrible experience and I vowed to repay them.”
Mrs Wolinska is also accused of arranging for the false arrests of 24 others as part of a campaign to quell anti-Soviet resistance.
Two previous attempts at extraditing Mrs Wolinska, made in 1999 and 2001, were refused by British authorities because of Mrs Wolinska’s age. Poland’s recent admission to the EU now means, however, that a Warsaw military tribunal was allowed to issue the warrant for Mrs Wolinska without permission from British courts.
Responsibility for making the arrest would lie with the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), who were unable to comment on the case. If convicted, Mrs Wolinska could spend up to 10 years in prison.
Speaking from her home in Bardwell Road, Mrs Wolinska called the case “political,” complaining that she has been made a scapegoat for a trial in which she denies involvement. “I am the only one alive. I can't even call witnesses if I'd like to have them because everyone is dead," she said. “I do not know why the whole business is coming up again. This is an old case.”
Wolinska-Brus has lived in England since 1972 and is now a British citizen. Her husband, Wlodzimierz Brus, was Emeritus Professor of Russian and East European studies and fellow of Wolfson College. He died in August.
