After the invasion of Poland in 1939 , Czernicki was evacuated from Gdynia to Warsaw and then eastwards to the area of Pińsk and Brodów . There , in the village of Deraźny , he was ambushed by the Red Army with a group of Polish Navy officers , after the Soviet Union joined Nazi Germany in the invasion of Poland . Transported to Równe ( modern Rivne , Ukraine ) , the officers were arrested by the NKVD and sent to various prisons and camps in the USSR . Czernicki , after a brief stay in Talitsa , was transferred to the NKVD special camp of Kozelsk . He was murdered in the spring of 1940 , aged fifty-seven , in what became known as the Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
Xawery Czernicki