Jan Bończa-Pióro is one of the nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia taken captive by the Soviet Union after its attack on Poland on 17 September 1939, made prisoners of war and then murdered in cold blood in April and May 1940 by the NKVD in a planned holocaust. In all, the NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps.

2LT Jan Bończa-Pióro, Polish citizen, was the son of Janina Bończa-Pióro née Siwek and Feliks Bończa-Pióro. He studied architecture at the Warsaw School of Economics. He was the chairman of the Welecja company.

REFERENCES

For a list of "The Victims of the Katyń Massacre who were Murdered in Kharkov", see:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofiary_zbrodni_katyńskiej_–_zamordowani_w_Charkowie

For a biogram of Bończa-Pióro see:

Jędrzej Tucholski (ed.). Charków. Księga Cmentarna Polskiego Cmentarza Wojennego (Kharkov. The Cemetery List of the Polish War Cemetery). Warszawa, 2003. ISBN 83-916663-5-2. (in Polish)

http://ksiegicmentarne.muzeumkatynskie.pl/wpis/4639

For a broader description of how the unmarked burial site was discovered by children what they found there, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piatykhatky,_Kharkiv_Oblast

For the honours prison guard Mitrofan Vasilievich Syromiatnikov received from Beria for his part in murdering the Polish officers, see:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrofan_Syromiatnikow

For a description of the life of the Polish prisoners at the Starobielsk Camp see:

Czapski Józef. "Wspomnienia starobielskie" (in Polish); for a French translation see: Souvenirs de Starobielsk. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. Les Éditions Noir sur Blanc. Montricher 1987

For a short documentary on the holocaust of the Polish officers and its historical background and its cover-up see:

"Katyn - WWII's Forgotten Massacre" by Mark Felton, 2021:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2djnWw751s

Written by Ivonna Nowicka, 2023