After five weeks spent in war-torn Ukraine, Dr. Łukasz Szleszkowski from the Department of Forensic Medicine at Wroclaw Medical University (WMU) returned to Poland on Saturday. Together with the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), he carried out exhumation works at the former Zboiska cemetery in Lviv. As a result, the remains of at least 31 Polish soldiers were recovered.
The trip was a continuation of search efforts that began in autumn 2019, when IPN located a burial site of Polish soldiers who had fallen during the defense of Lviv in September 1939. Among those who fought was the 10th Cavalry Brigade of Stanisław Maczek, later a general and commander of the famous 1st Armored Division.
In June of this year, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine authorized the Polish side to resume searches. During the works – conducted from 4 to 30 August – an interdisciplinary team from the IPN’s Office of Search and Identification, together with Dr. Szleszkowski, a forensic medicine specialist at WMU, uncovered two mass graves containing the remains of 31 individuals as well as numerous loose remains, probably belonging to several dozen more victims.
According to IPN, the large number of loose remains is explained by the fact that the soldiers were killed on the battlefield after heavy artillery shelling, which caused extensive bodily injuries. The graves were also partially destroyed by later burials. The final number of exhumed victims will be confirmed after further anthropological and genetic studies.
The team also discovered elements of military equipment and uniforms (such as buttons, belts, and gas masks) as well as personal belongings, including medallions, rosaries, and Polish coins. Significantly, 11 identity tags were recovered, providing data that will help establish the soldiers’ identities. This will make it possible to conduct genealogical research and secure comparative material for genetic testing from relatives of the fallen.
The cooperation between Wroclaw Medical University and IPN began many years ago. In the WMU Department of Forensic Medicine there is a large map with pins marking dozens of sites visited jointly by Dr. Szleszkowski and forensic anthropologist Dr. Agata Thannhäuser. During missions lasting from several days to several weeks, WMU experts performed not only forensic and anthropological analyses, but also the full range of tasks – from searches to the recovery of remains. Dr. Łukasz Szleszkowski speaks about the details
For 17 years, your duo – a forensic physician and a forensic anthropologist – has worked with IPN. You are the only such team in Poland, pioneers who then trained others in how to conduct exhumations.
Dr. Szleszkowski: Years of experience have certainly given us a lot. The works we carried out in Osobowice were the first of this scale in Poland. It was a valuable lesson that opened the door to further IPN-initiated exhumations. Today we already know how archaeologists work, how to support them, and above all – how not to interfere. Of course, there were trips, for example to Podkarpacie, when we searched for remains at a depth of 10 meters but unfortunately found nothing. That, too, was an important experience. Similarly in Switzerland, when I was asked to help locate the remains of Konstanty Rokicki, the Polish consul in Bern between 1939 and 1945, who saved Jews by issuing them South American passports, thus preventing them from being sent to ghettos. He saved around 500 families
And Georgia? It was you who were invited to support the search for victims of the regime.
Dr. Szleszkowski: That’s true. Georgia, with a history full of victims of the Georgian Uprising and the Great Terror of the 1930s, had for many years not undertaken fieldwork to find their burial sites. Their situation is more difficult, as all the archives were moved to Moscow, and they also lacked know-how. I gave two lectures there, sharing our experience, and was invited to a conference to present our methods of searching for unknown burial sites. We also carried out works when remains were found near a former open-pit mine – though it turned out to be an old cemetery. Later, we examined 30 victims of the Great Terror found near Batumi. At the summary conference, I had the chance to meet members of the independent Russian association Memorial, dedicated to studying communist crimes and defending human rights. In 2022 they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and in the same year they were forcibly dissolved by a Russian court.
Your work, beyond it’s humanitarian dimension, also has scientific value.
Dr. Szleszkowski: Already during the Osobowice works we showed that contrary to regulations, victims were executed by firing squad using the so-called “Katyn method” – a shot to the back of the head, not the heart. We published articles on this topic in international forensic science journals, which were later cited by other scholars studying crimes. We also teach at postgraduate courses in forensic archaeology, and I co-authored a textbook in this field.
You’ve mentioned Osobowice twice. Let us recall that IPN’s work on search and identification began precisely in Wrocław, a story told in the fact-based play Golgota Wrocławska. One of its co-authors is Dr. hab. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, now IPN’s Deputy President and head of the Office of Search and Identification.
Dr. Szleszkowski: That’s correct, and I highly recommend the play, as it shows the beginnings of the work we have been part of since 2008. It tells the story of a young teacher writing his doctoral thesis, who comes across letters written by prisoners – victims of the postwar communist system detained at the facility on Kleczkowska Street. Letters to families that were never sent, as their authors, accused on fabricated charges, were sentenced to death. I won’t give away the ending for those who haven’t seen it, but I’ll add that the teacher’s character was modeled on Prof. Szwagrzyk…
…who some 25 years ago came to the WMU Department of Forensic Medicine looking for traces of repressed prisoners buried at Osobowice Cemetery.
Dr. Szleszkowski: Yes, he contacted Dr. Jerzy Kawecki, knowing that sometimes prisoners’ bodies were transferred to anatomy teaching. He also wanted to examine our autopsy books for more information. This cooperation led to searches on prison fields from the late 1940s and 1950s, which, thanks to opposition and patriotic circles, had survived in Osobowice as one of the few preserved sites in Poland. In 2002, a book edited by Prof. Szwagrzyk was published: Sentenced to Death by the Military District Court in Wrocław 1946–1955, listing the names of political prisoners and with it, the idea of searching for them. The first exhumation took place a year later, and by 2012 around 500 remains were recovered, including 299 confirmed as prisoners through DNA analysis – some successfully identified.
Including Stefan Półrul. His story seems to have changed your perspective on victims’ remains?
Dr. Szleszkowski: Stefan Półrul was a sailor – the only representative of that profession executed at the time in Wrocław. When we found artifacts in the grave, including a metal button with an anchor, there was no doubt it was him. It was the first exhumation I participated in from start to finish – including the ceremonial burial in his hometown, during which he was rehabilitated. That was when I truly realized that this is not only forensic medicine. Every bone we recover belonged to a person with a story, a family, descendants living in uncertainty. Before the truth is revealed, they often face social judgment or suspicion. That was the case with Półrul, until it was publicly acknowledged that although he collected intelligence, it concerned Red Army officers. He was not a criminal, despite the legend. It reminded me of Jacek Soplica’s redemption in Pan Tadeusz, and it stayed with me. That was when I became deeply immersed in this work.
Later came the famous Łączka – section Ł at the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw – where IPN also invited you.
Dr. Szleszkowski: We exhumed around 300 remains, including soldiers of the Home Army. This drew wide attention, not only in Polish media but internationally. It would not have happened without Osobowice. We were the first – together with the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, IPN, and the Pomeranian Medical University – to show that it was worth taking the risk to recover victims from mass graves and return them to their families, who visited us in large numbers in Warsaw. I remember the son of Navy Commander Stanisław Mieszkowski coming to us daily. He had been unjustly sentenced to death in 1952 for treason, and four years later fully acquitted. We managed to identify his remains. In 2017 he was given a state funeral, posthumously promoted to rear admiral for his merits in defending the country. Today streets, a square in Kołobrzeg, and commemorative plaques bear his name. That was when I saw how, despite the passage of time, these stories remain alive – and that exhumations are a kind of mission.
Do you sometimes search in places that don’t suggest the presence of graves?
Dr. Szleszkowski: Yes – for example in Białystok, on private properties. We found the remains of prisoners executed in the local prison between 1945 and 1956. I also examined remains of soldiers of the Border Protection Corps (KOP) who fell in September 1939, initially buried near their guardhouse by locals, but later rediscovered by IPN archaeologists in a large cornfield in present-day Belarus.
Were all victims of repression killed in the same way – by execution?
Dr. Szleszkowski: Not always. In the case of the National Armed Forces unit led by Captain Henryk Flame, codename “Bartek,” we dealt with an exceptionally brutal UB and Soviet provocation. An agent infiltrated the unit, promising the soldiers safe transfer to the West. Instead, they ended up in Opole Silesia, where they were murdered. One group was blown up in Stary Grodków. At the former Luftwaffe airfield barracks, under the pretense of hospitality, they were given food and alcohol. According to case files, a UB doctor gave them sleeping pills, and then they were blown up – probably using anti-tank mines. Another group was murdered at the Scharfenberg estate near Dworzysko – attacked with grenades and shot while trying to escape. A third was blown up in Barut, today called the “Silesian Katyn.” Their bodies were never recovered, only bone fragments.
Such atrocities were unprecedented elsewhere in Poland – the victims were physically annihilated. We exhumed the remains of 30 individuals, literally in pieces. From a forensic perspective, this was a completely different case than classic executions – different injuries, different causes of death. It was unique even in studies of postwar repressions.
And just two days ago, you returned from Ukraine, where the war continues.
Dr. Szleszkowski: Yes. Those were very intense weeks. I will gladly tell more about our work and about life in Lviv today. But first, the emotions need to settle – and there were many on site.
Fot. Biuro Poszukiwań i Identyfikacji IPN oraz Tomasz Walów/UMW