Bronisław Bohatyrewicz



Bronisław Bohatyrewicz of Ostoja Coat of Arms, 1870–1940) was a Polish military commander and a general of the Polish Army. Murdered during the Katyn massacre, Bohatyrewicz was one of the two Generals whose bodies were identified during the 1943 exhumation.

Born February 24 or April 24, 1870 (sources differ) in Grodno in a noble family being part of the Clan of Ostoja, Bohatyrewicz joined the Imperial Russian Army, where he received officers training. In September 1918 he joined the Polish Army. He started as the commanding officer of Belarusian self-defence units in Grodno during the opening stages of the Russian Civil War and then the Polish-Bolshevik War. Successful in the battle of Grodno, in 1919 he became the commander of the Polish 81st Infantry Regiment. After the war he continued his career in the army and received further training in the Higher War School in Warsaw. Between 1923 and 1926 he commanded the infantry units of the Polish 18th Infantry Division and the following year he was promoted to the rank of generał brygady and retired from active duty.

After the Polish Defensive War of 1939 Bohatyrewicz was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in Kozelsk in the Soviet Union. He was murdered in Katyn in the spring of 1940, aged seventy, during the Katyń massacre.

Honours and awards

 * Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari
 * Cross of Valour - four times
 * Silver Cross of Merit
 * Merit Cross for Forces in Central Lithuanian