drama tells how Communist secret police rounded up gay men in 1980s ...

drama tells how Communist secret police rounded up gay men in 1980s ...
Netflix drama tells how Communist secret police rounded up gay men in 1980s ...

The shocking story of a secret police operation to track down all gay men in Communist Poland is to be retold in a new Netflix film.

Due for release next month, the Polish-language Operation Hyacinth is based on a plan of the same name (Akcja Hyacint in Polish) which led to information being collected on at least 11,000 gay men in the 1980s.  

Set in the period, the drama itself follows the story of a police officer trying to track down a serial killer targeting the gay community.

But in the sinister real-life events launched on the 15th of November 1985, thousands of men were arrested, files created, fingerprints taken and 'confessions' confirming their homosexuality forcibly signed.

One of the operation's victims, Waldemar Zboralski, had been chairman of the gay rights group the Warsaw Homosexual Movement. He later fled to the UK and became the first gay Polish man to get married. 

Although homosexuality stopped being a criminal offence in Poland in 1932, the Communist authorities put homosexual communities under observation from the mid-1960s believing their sexual orientation to be a social pathology.

But it was not until Operation Hyacinth that personal data and police files started being collated on a nationwide scale, with police using the hunt for the serial killer - as well as the need to combat the newly-emergent AIDS virus - as justification. 

After being arrested, men were forced to sign statements declaring that they were gay and, shockingly, that they were 'not interested' in children.  

Zboralski in 2009

The shocking story of a secret police operation to track down all gay men in Communist Poland is to be retold in a new Netflix film. Waldemar Zboralski, chairman of the Warsaw Homosexual Movement, was one of the victims of Operation Hyacinth. He later fled to the UK. He is seen above in 2009 

Secret police from the feared SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa) and their cohorts in an organisation known as the Civil Militia (MO) rounded up and arrested 'suspects' in schools, universities, workplaces, and railway stations all over Poland. 

Those arrested were given folders called 'Gay cards' and the information was stored in secret police files called a 'pink briefcase.'

They were then forced to sign statements saying: 'I hereby declare that I [name and surname] have been homosexual from birth. I have had many partners in my life, all of them adult. I am not interested in minors.'

Detainees were also blackmailed into denouncing other homosexual men, as well as describing the techniques of sexual intercourse.

Initiated by Poland's minister of internal affairs, Czeslaw Kiszczak, the Communist authorities justified the operation by saying they were trying to fight AIDS and combat sex crimes including prostitution.

Due for release next month, the Polish-language Operation Hyacinth is based on the plan of the same name (Akcja Hyacint in Polish) which led to information being collected on at least 11,000 gay men in the 1980s

Due for release next month, the Polish-language Operation Hyacinth is based on the plan of the same name (Akcja Hyacint in Polish) which led to information being collected on at least 11,000 gay men in the 1980s 

Secret police from the feared SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa) and their cohorts in an organisation known as the Civil Militia (MO) rounded up and arrested 'suspects' in schools, universities, workplaces, and railway stations all over Poland. Above: Secret police arresting a suspect

Secret police from the feared SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa) and their cohorts in an organisation known as the Civil Militia (MO) rounded up and arrested 'suspects' in schools, universities, workplaces, and railway stations all over Poland. Above: Secret police arresting a suspect

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