Franciszek ŻELAZOWSKI

Brother of Adam and Michalina née Osińska, born April 8, 1906 in Poles, poviat węgrowski. Graduate of the Junior High School. B. Prusa in Siedlce (1925), SPPiech. (1926) and SPInż. in Warsaw (1930). Appointed second lieutenant with the elder August 15, 1928, cf. senior. January 1, 1932. He served in the 1st Sapper Battalion. Leg. He graduated from OSTopograf., assigned to WIG as a triangulator, n.d.

L.S. 1138; MKat., 3389/A.

Por. geogr. Franciszek ŻELAZOWSKI s. Adama i Michaliny z Osińskich, ur. 8 IV 1906 w Polakach, pow. węgrowski. Absolwent Gimnazjum im. B. Prusa w Siedlcach (1925), SPPiech. (1926) i SPInż. w Warszawie (1930). Mianowany ppor. ze starsz. 15 VIII 1928, por. ze starsz. 1 I 1932. Służył w 1 baonie sap. Leg. Ukończył OSTopograf., przydzielony do WIG jako triangulator, bdd.

L.S. 1138; MKat., 3389/A.

ABOUT THIS MONUMENT

In 1940, 18 km (11 mi) from Smolensk, the Katyn Massacre occurred, in which some 22,000 Polish POWs were murdered by the NKVD. At this time Boris Menshagin was mayor of Smolensk, with his deputy Boris Bazilevsky. Both of them would be key witnesses in the Nuremberg Trials over the massacre. It was in Katyń, in 1943, where their buried corpses were discovered, which gave rise to coining this term. In the early 1990s, this concept was no longer understood as a specific place, taking on a symbolic meaning. It was confirmed the NKVD shot prisoners from the camps in Starobelsk and Ostashkov. The resolution of the Political Bureau of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) of 5 March 1940 was also disclosed. It implied that the murder of prisoners of war was part of a broader extermination campaign, which also affected thousands of civilian Polish citizens imprisoned in NKVD prisons after the USSR aggression of 17 September 1939. Given the new facts, the term "Katyn massacre" began to mean the murder of nearly 22,000 Polish citizens (14,700 prisoners of war and 7,300 prisoners), based on the March resolution of the Soviet Politburo. Some of these victims physical remains were re-interred elsewhere at later days post exhumation and identification. On March 5, 1940, a note to Joseph Stalin from Beria saw the members of the Soviet Politburo — Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov, Anastas Mikoyan and Beria — signed an order for the execution of "nationalists and counter-revolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in western Ukraine and Belarus. This execution became known as the Katyn massacre, where 22,000 perished

https://ipn.gov.pl/en/digital-resources/articles/7850,The-Katyn-Massacre.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_prisoners-of-war_in_the_Soviet_Union_after_1939

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

https://polishgreatness.blogspot.com/2012/04/katyn-massacre-soviet-nkvd-killing.html?m=1

Some of the Victims by name:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Victims_of_Katyn_massacre_by_name

https://ukraina.nid.pl/en/kharkiv-cemetery-of-victims-of-totalitarianism-destroyed-by-russian-attack/