Dog Tags in the Collection of the Katyn Museum

So-called dog tags were a standard element of a soldier’s equipment, used to identify individuals in the event of death or injury. The 1931 pattern military dog tags were among the most important items discovered during the exhumations of victims of the Katyń massacre. The information stamped on them — such as name, surname, religion, year of birth and military details — made it possible to confirm that the bodies found in the mass graves were those of the victims of the Katyn crime.

The collection of the Katyń Museum includes nearly seventy dog tags. Most were found in Kharkiv. Individual items originate from burial sites in Bykivnia (including the tag belonging to Józef Naglik) and Mednoye (the tag of Stanisław van der Coghen). Several were also recovered from a deposit pit in Katyń (these belonged to Reserve Second Lieutenant Czesław Zaleski, Reserve Lieutenant Jan S. Kulwieć, Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Włodzimierz Dobrowolski, and Reserve Second Lieutenant Bolesław Wolski).

The relatively small number of dog tags recovered during exhumations is striking. This is largely because many of those murdered were reserve officers, not all of whom had been issued with identification tags before the outbreak of the war. As items confirming identity, dog tags were often deliberately destroyed or concealed by their owners to hinder identification by the Soviet authorities. Some were also likely confiscated by NKVD officers during searches conducted in the camps.