Police Badges

More than 6,000 police officers were murdered in the Katyn massacre. The majority of them were killed in Kalinin and buried in mass graves in Mednoye. Police officers constitute the largest professional group exterminated in the Katyn crime. A particularly important memorial site associated with this formation is located in Katowice. In the courtyard of the Provincial Police Headquarters there is the Polish Policeman’s Grave, where the remains of an unknown police officer exhumed in Mednoye are interred.

In the Second Polish Republic, there were two separate police formations. Throughout the country, with the exception of the autonomous Silesian Voivodeship, the State Police operated, while in Upper Silesia there was the Silesian Voivodeship Police. The uniforms of both formations were similar. Silesian officers were distinguished by Piast eagles worn on their shoulder straps. An important element of the uniform was the police badge, which took the form of a circular metal disc with an embossed number. On the reverse, a backing plate was attached, bearing the same badge number as well as an additional number stamped in Roman numerals, indicating the respective police district (voivodeship). The badges were worn on the service jacket.

Although they did not bear the names of officers, they effectively functioned as a form of identification tag. Thanks to partially preserved police documentation, eighteen badges have been attributed to specific individuals. Among them is badge number “387”, which belonged to Police Constable Józef Śmielkowski. Below we present a complete list of police badges for which the victims of the Katyń massacre have been successfully identified.