Karol Chmiel (1911–1951) was born on 17 April 1911 in the village of Zagorzyce (now in Ropczyce-Sędziszów County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship) to the peasant family of Antoni and Katarzyna née Charchut. He graduated from high school in Dębica, and was admitted to the prestigious Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where he studied law. After graduation, in 1935, Chmiel settled in Wojslaw, a village near Mielec; his wife Irena Suchodolska was a school principal, and he worked for the Town Hall in Mielec. World War II At the beginning of the Polish September Campaign, Chmiel tried to escape east, to the area of Lwów, where his wife's family owned an estate. Unable to do so, they returned to the village of Zagorzyce, with their three-year-old son, Jerzy. On 6 January 1940 Chmiel's wife died, after delivering their second son, Zbigniew. After this, the boys were looked after by Irena's mother and her sisters. As early as January 1940, Chmiel became a member of Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej, with the nom de guerre "Los". From January 1941, he was commandant of a platoon in Zagorzyce, which was part of Dębica's District of ZWZ (later: Polish Home Army). Promoted to colonel, in 1943 he decided to move to Bataliony Chłopskie (BCh), becoming in early 1944 the commandant of BCh's Dębica District. He participated in Operation Tempest activities in the area of Dębica, being a member of the local headquarters of the anti-German resistance. Some time in 1944, Chmiel drove a captured German car, but he forgot to display a Polish flag on it, and was peppered with bullets by Home Army soldiers. Shot 13 times, he was severely wounded, but managed to survive. Nevertheless, he became partly disabled. After the war After 1945, Chmiel settled in Kraków, where he opened a grocery store and bought a house in Swoszowice, a village in the suburbs. He was an active member of the Polish People's Party (PSL), and secretly a member of the anti-Communist organization, Wolnosc i Niezawislosc (WiN). In 1947, he became a member of WiN's headquarters and political adviser to Łukasz Ciepliński as well as a liaison between Cieplinski and the PSL's Stanislaw Mikolajczyk. At the request of Cieplinski, Chmiel, together with Stefan Rostworowski, created a "Memorial to the United Nations". This document publicised crimes committed by the Soviet and Polish secret services on members of the disbanded Home Army and anti-Communist activists. Reportedly, WiN was