Mr. Petro was born in 1939, when the eastern provinces of the Second Polish Republic were under Soviet occupation. He was a child of several years when, after World War II, the atheistic, totalitarian authorities decided to destroy the cemetery and the tomb chapel of St. Teresa in Dytiatyn. Only an iron cross, made of shell casings fired during the battle in 1920, remained on the site. In the local community, the memory of the grave of the fallen Polish soldiers survived the decades of the Soviet regime, passed down from generation to generation by still very religious farmers, Ukrainian Greek Catholics. That is why the site of the former cemetery was never sown by them.

Mr. Petro also received such an upbringing. When he was almost 50 years old, he received an unexpected visit from members of the local party yacheka. In 1986, when the Soviet Union was already undergoing perestroika, someone in the deep countryside decided to fight the dead again. When they finally managed to knock down the cross in Dytiatyn, the party members ordered the driver of a truck from the local collective farm, Mr. Petro, to take it to the forest or throw it into the river. "No, I won't take the cross away!" he replied, and did not carry out the order, which was against God's law. As punishment, he was given the task of delivering huge milk jugs, which he had to load onto the truck himself. One day, his back gave out and Mr. Petro became a cripple.

The cross he defended with his own health stands today under the church in Dytiatyn. The new one was placed in the renovated cemetery, opened in 2015. In the last years of his life, Mr. Petro visited the site of the Battle of Dytiatyn, participating in anniversary ceremonies. The memory of his heroic deed lived only among his family and neighbors, until 2019, when a volunteer of the Brother Sun Foundation, the author of this article, discovered his story during the celebrations of another anniversary of the Battle of Dytiatyn.

After consultations with the then president of the Foundation, Father Bronisław Staworowski, a decision was made to nominate Mr. Petro for the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal, established specifically for foreigners who saved Poles in the era of totalitarianism and caring for Polish memorial sites located outside the borders of contemporary Poland. The application submitted through the Pilecki Institute was approved by President Andrzej Duda, and the medal was presented in person at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw on June 3, 2021.

Mr. Petro enjoyed his decoration for a little over a year. But the most important thing is that we managed to find this man and tell him "Thank you!" on behalf of the Polish state. His deed will forever remain a part of the second battle of Dytiatyn - the battle for memory. The battle that we won together - Poles and Ukrainians.

May he rest in peace! Honor his memory!

Marcin Więckowski