>Soviet contribution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokot%C3%B3w_Prison#Under_Soviet_domination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Ukrainian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Soviet_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lemberg_(1918)
November 1, 1918 Ukrainian soldiers occupied Lwów's public utilities and military objectives, raised Ukrainian flags throughout the city and proclaimed the birth of the new Ukrainian state. Lwów was proclaimed the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Polish residents, constituting the majority of Lwów's inhabitants, were shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state.
The Polish forces, initially numbering only about 200 people, organized a small pocket of resistance in a school on the western outskirts of the city, where a group of veterans of the Polish Military Organization put up a fight armed with 64 outdated rifles. After the initial clashes, the defenders were joined by hundreds of volunteers, mostly Scouts, students and youngsters. More than 1000 people joined the Polish ranks on the first day of the war. This enabled the Poles to retake some of the western parts of the city, while most of the city centre remained in Ukrainian hands.
In the following day the forces of the defenders reached roughly 6,000 men and women, more than 1400 of them gymnasium students and youngsters. Because of their heroism and mass participation in the fights, they are commonly referred to as Lwów Eaglets. The Polish defenders also included a significant component of petty criminals, who, nevertheless, were valued for their heroism.
On November 11, 1918, Poland declared her independence and the following day the first units of the regular forces of the Polish Army entered Przemyśl, only some 70 kilometres away from Lwów.
is that an American flag?
what was that doing in Lvov?
The Polish-Ukrainian fight for Lwów is sometimes referred to as "the last civilized conflict" by Polish historians. Because both sides were too weak to create regular front lines and lacked heavy weapons, the civilian casualties were low and did not exceed 400.
After the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, the Lwów Eaglets were interred at the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów. The Cemetery of the Defenders held the remains of both teenaged and adult soldiers, including foreign volunteers from France and the United States. The Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów was designed by Rudolf Indruch, a student at the Lviv Institute of Architecture, himself an Eaglet. Among the most notable Eaglets to be buried there was the 14-year-old Jerzy Bitschan, the youngest of the city's defenders, whose name became an icon of the Polish interbellum. Also resting in the Eaglet's pantheon is the six-year-old Oswald Anissimo who was executed, together with his father, Michał, by Ukrainian militiamen.
After the annexation of Eastern Galicia by the Soviet Union in World War II during the Soviet invasion of Poland and then the expulsion of ethnic Poles from the province, the graves were destroyed in 1971, and the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów was turned into a municipal waste dump and then a truck depot.
>Jerzy Bitschan
Dear Father! Today I am going to enlist in the army. I want to prove that I have enough strength to serve and endure. It is also my duty to go when I have enough strength, and there is still a shortage of troops to liberate Lviv. I have already learned as much as I needed to.
Listen, young knights
To the mournful moans of the lute
May it inspire in you a desire for fame
Memories of ancient valour
Listen to how a famous crown
Was won by a brave young man
Fighting in defence of his homeland
And who died a noble death.
looks concentrated