function

diocesan priest

creed

Latin (Roman Catholic) Church RCmore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.09.21]

diocese / province

Vilnius archdiocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.19]

date and place
of death

1950

(Russia territory)today: Russia
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.08.05]

alt. dates and places
of death

06.1941

Kuropatyforest complex
today: on the border of Minsk, Barauliany ssov., Minsk dist., Minsk city reg., Belarus
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2023.01.18]
Minsktoday: Minsk city reg., Belarus
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2020.07.31]
on Minsk‐Chervyen roadtoday: Minsk reg., Belarus
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.07.16]

details of death

alt. details of death

cause of death

extermination

perpetrators

Russians

sites and events

GulagClick to display the description, Minsk‐Chervyen „death march”Click to display the description, 06.1941 massacres (NKVD)Click to display the description, KuropatyClick to display the description, MinskClick to display the description, Baranavichy (prison)Click to display the description, SlonimClick to display the description, Ribbentrop‐MolotovClick to display the description, Pius XI's encyclicalsClick to display the description

date and place
of birth

12.08.1898

Kleshnyakitoday: Vasilishki ssov., Shchuchyn dist., Grodno reg., Belarus
more on
be.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.01.06]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

04.04.1931 (Vilnius cathedralmore on
pl.wikipedia.org
[access: 2014.11.14])

positions held

others related
in death

CUDNIKClick to display biography Stanislav, RADWAŃSKIClick to display biography Joseph John, SZUMOWSKIClick to display biography Marian Richard

sites and events
descriptions

Gulag: The acronym Gulag comes from the Rus. Главное управление исправительно‐трудовых лагерей и колоний (Eng. Main Board of Correctional Labor Camps). The network of Russian concentration camps for slave labor was formally established by the decision of the highest Russian authorities on 27.06.1929. Control was taken over by the OGPU, the predecessor of the genocidal NKVD (from 1934) and the MGB (from 1946). Individual gulags (camps) were often established in remote, sparsely populated areas, where industrial or transport facilities important for the Russian state were built. They were modeled on the first „great construction of communism”, the White Sea‐Baltic Canal (1931‐1932), and Naftali Frenkel, of Jewish origin, is considered the creator of the system of using forced slave labor within the Gulag. He went down in history as the author of the principle „We have to squeeze everything out of the prisoner in the first three months — then nothing is there for us”. He was to be the creator, according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, of the so‐called „Boiler system”, i.e. the dependence of food rations on working out a certain percentage of the norm. The term ZEK — prisoner — i.e. Rus. заключенный‐каналоармец (Eng. canal soldier) — was coined in the ITL BelBaltLag managed by him, and was adopted to mean a prisoner in Russian slave labor camps. Up to 12 mln prisoners were held in Gulag camps at one time, i.e. c. 5% of Russia's population. In his book „The Gulag Archipelago”, Solzhenitsyn estimated that c. 60 mln people were killed in the Gulag until 1956. Formally dissolved on 20.01.1960. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2024.04.08])

Minsk‐Chervyen „death march”: After German attack on 22.06.1941 of their erstwhile ally, Russians, the latter on 24.06.1941 started evacuation of two prisons in Minsk where many Poles, members of Polish clandestine resistance Armed Struggle Union ZWZ organization (part of future Polish Clandestine State), among others — Lithuanians, Belarusians — were held. Some of the prisoners — altogether a dozen or so thousands — were murdered in Minsk itself. The rest were marched in groups along the road towards Mogilev (c. 200 km). The murderers started from the outset — Russians shot with guns those deemed week. The bodies were left in ditches by the roadside. Chervyen (c. 60 km from Minsk) the column of prisoners — then only c. 2,000 strong — reached after 4 days. There, in a nearby forest, Russians murdered another few hundred of them. Only few dozen survived — thanks to German aerial bombing raid that forced Russians to flee. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2018.09.02])

06.1941 massacres (NKVD): After German attack of Russian‐occupied Polish territory and following that of Russia itself, before a panic escape, Russians murdered — in accordance with the genocidal order issued on 24.06.1941 by the Russian interior minister Lawrence Beria to murder all prisoners (formally „sentenced” for „counter‐revolutionary activities”, „anti‐Russian acts”, sabotage and diversion, and political prisoners „in custody”), held in NKVD‐run prisons in Russian occupied Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — c. 40,000‐50,000 prisoners. In addition Russians murdered many thousands of victims arrested after German attack regarding them as „enemies of people” — those victims were not even entered into prisons’ registers. Most of them were murdered in massacres in the prisons themselves, the others during so‐called „death marches” when the prisoners were driven out east. After Russians departure and start of German occupation a number of spontaneous pogroms of Jews took place. Many Jews collaborated with Russians and were regarded as co‐responsible for prison massacres. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19])

Kuropaty: In 1940 Russians executed prob. in Minsk on 17 Lenin Str. and buried in Kuropaty n. Minsk unknown number of Poles (POWs). On the so‐called „Belarusian Katyn list” — confirmed by the so‐called „disposal letters” sent in 04‐05.1940 by the 1st Special Department of the NKVD in Moscow regarding the transport of Polish prisoners of war to places of execution: 9 of these lists concern prisoners from Belarus — 3,870 names were recorded (according to some sources 4,465) and the prisoners were brought from NKVD prisons, among others from Brest (c. 1,500 people), Pinsk (c. 500), Baranavichy (c. 450). This was a fulfillment of Russian Commie‐Nazi government decision — Political Bureau of the Russian Commie‐Nazi party of 05.03.1940 — to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and individuals held in Russian POW camps following Ribbentrop‐Molotov German‐Russian accord and annexation of half of Poland into Russia, confirmed by the order No.00350 of the head of the NKVD, Mr Lavrentyi Beria, on the „discharge of NKVD prisons” in Ukraine and Belarus. There are indications — i.e. 4 so‐called „NKVD‐Gestapo Methodical Conferences” of 1939‐1940: in Brześć on Bug, Przemyśl, Zakopane and Cracow — of close collaboration between Germans and Russians in realization of plans of total extermination of Polish nation, its elites in particular — decision that prob. was confirmed during meeting of socialist leaders of Germany: Mr Heinrich Himmler, and Russia: Mr Lavrentyi Beria, in another German leader’s hunting lodge: Mr Hermann Göring, in Rominty in Romincka Forest in East Prussia. Kuropaty is the place of death of up to 250,000 of victims (1937‐1941). To this day, neither the Russians nor the Belarusians have released detailed protocols of this genocide in their possession. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.17], pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.10])

Minsk: Russian prison. In 1937 site of mass murders perpetrated by the Russians during a „Great Purge”. After Russian invasion of Poland in 09.1939 and start of the World War II place of incarceration of many Poles, In 06.1941, under attack by Germans, Russians murdered there a group of Polish prisoner kept in Central and co‐called American prisons in Mińsk. The rest were driven towards Chervyen in a „death march” (10,000‐20,000 prisoners perished), into Russia. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.17])

Baranavichy (prison): Prison in 1939‐1941 run by Russians and in 1941‐1944 by Germans. (more on: pl.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.08.17])

Slonim: Prison in 1939‐1941 run by Russians and in 1941‐1944 by Germans.

Ribbentrop‐Molotov: Genocidal Russian‐German alliance pact between Russian leader Joseph Stalin and German leader Adolf Hitler signed on 23.08.1939 in Moscow by respective foreign ministers, Mr. Vyacheslav Molotov for Russia and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany. The pact sanctioned and was the direct cause of joint Russian and German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the World War II in 09.1939. In a political sense, the pact was an attempt to restore the status quo ante before 1914, with one exception, namely the „commercial” exchange of the so‐called „Kingdom of Poland”, which in 1914 was part of the Russian Empire, fore Eastern Galicia (today's western Ukraine), in 1914 belonging to the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. Galicia, including Lviv, was to be taken over by the Russians, the „Kingdom of Poland” — under the name of the General Governorate — Germany. The resultant „war was one of the greatest calamities and dramas of humanity in history, for two atheistic and anti‐Christian ideologies — national and international socialism — rejected God and His fifth Decalogue commandment: Thou shall not kill!” (Abp Stanislav Gądecki, 01.09.2019). The decisions taken — backed up by the betrayal of the formal allies of Poland, France and Germany, which on 12.09.1939, at a joint conference in Abbeville, decided not to provide aid to attacked Poland and not to take military action against Germany (a clear breach of treaty obligations with Poland) — were on 28.09.1939 slightly altered and made more precise when a treaty on „German‐Russian boundaries and friendship” was agreed by the same murderous signatories. One of its findings was establishment of spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and in consequence IV partition of Poland. In one of its secret annexes agreed, that: „the Signatories will not tolerate on its respective territories any Polish propaganda that affects the territory of the other Side. On their respective territories they will suppress all such propaganda and inform each other of the measures taken to accomplish it”. The agreements resulted in a series of meeting between two genocidal organization representing both sides — German Gestapo and Russian NKVD when coordination of efforts to exterminate Polish intelligentsia and Polish leading classes (in Germany called «Intelligenzaktion», in Russia took the form of Katyń massacres) where discussed. Resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, including thousands of priests presented here, and tens of millions of ordinary people,. The results of this Russian‐German pact lasted till 1989 and are still in evidence even today. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2015.09.30])

Pius XI's encyclicals: Facing the creation of two totalitarian systems in Europe, which seemed to compete with each other, though there were more similarities than contradictions between them, Pope Pius XI issued in 03.1937 (within 5 days) two encyclicals. In the „Mit brennender Sorge” (Eng. „With Burning Concern”) published on 14.03.1938, condemned the national socialism prevailing in Germany. The Pope wrote: „Whoever, following the old Germanic‐pre‐Christian beliefs, puts various impersonal fate in the place of a personal God, denies the wisdom of God and Providence […], whoever exalts earthly values: race or nation, or state, or state system, representatives of state power or other fundamental values of human society, […] and makes them the highest standard of all values, including religious ones, and idolizes them, this one […] is far from true faith in God and from a worldview corresponding to such faith”. On 19.03.1937, published „Divini Redemptoris” (Eng. „Divine Redeemer”), in which criticized Russian communism, dialectical materialism and the class struggle theory. The Pope wrote: „Communism deprives man of freedom, and therefore the spiritual basis of all life norms. It deprives the human person of all his dignity and any moral support with which he could resist the onslaught of blind passions […] This is the new gospel that Bolshevik and godless communism preaches as a message of salvation and redemption of humanity”… Pius XI demanded that the established human law be subjected to the natural law of God , recommended the implementation of the ideal of a Christian state and society, and called on Catholics to resist. Two years later, National Socialist Germany and Communist Russia came together and started World War II. (more on: www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28], www.vatican.vaClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2023.05.28])

sources

personal:
www.cprdip.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.17], www.archibial.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2013.01.17], www.bialystok.opoka.org.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.11.28], biographies.library.nd.eduClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.05.09]
bibliographical:
„Vilnius archdiocese clergy martyrology 1939‐1945”, Fr Thaddeus Krahel, Białystok, 2017
original images:
ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02]