Quote:
New Netflix drama tells how Communist secret police used homophobic serial killer as an excuse to round up thousands of gay men and force them to sign sinister confessions in 1980s Poland
- Upcoming drama Operation Hyacinth is based on a plan of the same name
- It led to information being collected on at least 11,000 gay men in the 1980s
- Gay men were arrested and forced to sign declarations confirming sexuality
- Police used serial killer hunt and the need to tackle AIDS virus as justification
By ED WIGHT and HARRY HOWARD, History Correspondent For Mailonline
Published: 17:13, 21 September 2021 | Updated: 17:17, 21 September 2021
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 . . .
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Operation Hyacinth (Polish: Akcja "Hiacynt") was a secret mass operation of the Polish communist police, carried out in the years 1985–87. Its purpose was to create national database of all Polish homosexuals and people who were in touch with them,[1] and it resulted in the registration of around 11,000 people . . .
The Operation
Operation Hyacinth, upon order of Minister of Internal Affairs Czesław Kiszczak, began on November 15, 1985. On that morning, in different colleges, factories and offices across Poland, functionaries of the SB arrested numerous persons suspected of being homosexual or of having connections with homosexual groups.[2] Those arrested had special files entitled Karta homoseksualisty (Card of a homosexual) and some of them were talked into signing a statement:
I (first name and last name) have been a homosexual since birth. I have had multiple partners in my life, all of them were adult. I am not interested in minors . . .
