Leon Billewicz

Leon Billewicz
Memorial at the Piatykhatky mass grave in Kharkiv, with plaque of General Leon Billewicz (172/272) among 3,739 names of victims of the local NKVD killing squad.
Born	(1870-02-24)February 24, 1870 Verbichno (today Verbichne, Turiisk Raion)
Died	1940 Kharkiv NKVD prison, Soviet Union
Allegiance	Poland
Rank	Brigadier General

Leon Billewicz (Werbiczna, April 25, 1870 – 1940) was a Polish officer and a General of the Polish Army. Initially serving with the Imperial Russian Army, in November 1918 he joined the Polish forces. In the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919-1920 he commanded the Polish 13th Infantry Brigade. In 1919 he was promoted to the rank of Generał brygady (Brigadier general). After the Peace of Riga he remained in active service and, until 1927, served as a commanding officer of the Brześć Fortified Area. In April 1927, he retired from active service.

Katyn

After the Invasion of Poland in 1939 he was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in Soviet Union. Interned in the Starobielsk concentration camp, he was murdered in Kharkov in April 1940, at the age of seventy, during the Katyń massacre. Among the Katyn victims were 14 Polish generals including Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller, Aleksander Kowalewski, Henryk Minkiewicz, Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysław Smorawiński and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously).