Second Lieutenant Pilot Janina Lewandowska

3D Model

Janina Lewandowska was born in 1908 in Kharkiv. She graduated from the Higher School of Pilotage and in the field of radio telegraphy in Lviv and Dęblin. She was the first woman in Europe who made a parachute jump from a height of 5 km. She took part in the September Campaign and joined the personnel of Air Base No. 3. She was taken prisoner by the Soviets around 20 September near Husiatyn and stayed in the camps in Ostaszków and Kozielsk. She was murdered by the NKVD officers by the decision of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the VKP (b) of March 5, 1940, probably on her 32nd birthday on 22 April 1940. She was buried in the area of the present Polish War Cemetery in Katyn.

A few days earlier, her sister Agnieszka Dowbor-Muśnicka had been shot by the Germans in Palmiry.