function

diocesan priest

creed

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

diocese / province

Kamianets diocesemore on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2013.05.23]
Lutsk‐Zhytomyr diocese (aeque principaliter)more on
www.catholic-hierarchy.org
[access: 2021.12.19]

date and place
of death

08.1937

Roskoyma?today: Odessa obl., Ukraine

details of death

cause of death

extermination

perpetrators

Russians

sites and events

Forced exileClick to display the description, 11.08.1937 Russian genocideClick to display the description, Great Purge 1937Click to display the description

date and place
of birth

1875

Dubingiaitoday: Dubingiai eld., Molėtai dist., Utena Cou., Lithuania
more on
en.wikipedia.org
[access: 2022.06.29]

presbyter (holy orders)
ordination

1903

positions held

sites and events
descriptions

Forced exile: One of the standard Russian forms of repression. The prisoners were usually taken to a small village in the middle of nowhere — somewhere in Siberia, in far north or far east — dropped out of the train carriage or a cart, left out without means of subsistence or place to live. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.12.20])

11.08.1937 Russian genocide: On 11.08.1937 Russian leader Stalin decided and NKVD head, Nicholas Jeżow, signed a «Polish operation» executive order no 00485. 139,835 Poles living in Russia were thus sentenced summarily to death. According to the records of the „Memorial” International Association for Historical, Educational, Charitable and Defense of Human Rights (Rus. Международное историко‐просветительское, правозащитное и благотворительное общество „Мемориал”), specialising with historical research and promoting knowledge about the victims of Russian repressions — 111,091 were murdered. 28,744 were sentenced to deportation to concentration camps in Gulag. Altogether however more than 100,000 Poles were deported, mainly to Kazakhstan, Siberia, Kharkov and Dniepropetrovsk. According to some historians, the number of victims should be multiplied by at least two, because not only the named persons were murdered, but entire Polish families (the mere suspicion of Polish nationality was sufficient). Taking into account the fact that the given number does not include the genocide in eastern Russia (Siberia), the number of victims may be as high as 500,000 Poles. (more on: en.wikipedia.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2016.03.14])

Great Purge 1937: „Great Terror” (also «Great Purge», also called „Yezhovshchyna” after the name of the then head of the NKVD) — a Russian state action of political terror, planned and directed against millions of innocent victims — national minorities, wealthier peasants (kulaks), people considered opponents political, army officers, the greatest intensity of which took place from 09.1936 to 08.1938. It reached its peak starting in the summer of 1937, when Art. 58‐14 of the Penal Code about „counter‐revolutionary sabotage” was passed , which became the basis for the „legalization” of murders, and on 02.07.1937 when the highest authorities of Russia, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, issued a decree on the initiation of action against the kulaks. Next a number of executive orders of the NKVD followed, including No. 00439 of 25.07.1937, starting the liquidation of 25,000‐42,000 Germans living in Russia (mainly the so‐called Volga Germans); No. 00447 of 30.07.1937, beginning the liquidation of „anti‐Russian elements”, and No. 00485[2] of 11.08.1937, ordering the murder of 139,835 people of Polish nationality (the latter was the largest operation of this type — encompassed 12.5% of all those murdered during the «Great Purge», while Poles constituted 0.4% of the population). In the summer of 1937 Polish Catholic priests held in Solovetsky Islands, Anzer Island and ITL BelbaltLag were locked in prison cells (some in Sankt Petersburg). Next in a few kangaroo, murderous Russian trials (on 09.10.1937, 25.11.1937, among others) run by so‐called «NKVD Troika» all were sentenced to death. They were subsequently executed by a single shot to the back of the head. The murders took place either in Sankt Petersburg prison or directly in places of mass murder, e.g. Sandarmokh or Levashov Wilderness, where their bodies were dumped into the ditches. Other priests were arrested in the places they still ministered in and next murdered in local NKVD headquarters (e.g. in Minsk in Belarus), after equally genocidal trials run by aforementioned «NKVD Troika» kangaroo courts.

sources

personal:
archive.todayClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.12.20], biographies.library.nd.eduClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2014.12.20]
bibliographical:
„Fate of the Catholic clergy in USSR 1917‐1939. Martyrology”, Roman Dzwonkowski, SAC, ed. Science Society KUL, 2003, Lublin
„Parish priest of Lutsk–Żhytomyr 1801‐1920 and Kamyanets–Podilskyi 1869‐1919 dioceses”, Fr Waldemar Witold Żurek SDB, Lublin 2023
original images:
www.russiacristiana.orgClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2021.12.19], ipn.gov.plClick to attempt to display webpage
[access: 2019.02.02]