Bohdan de Nisau

Bohdan Jan de Nisau (18 August 1896 − 26 January 1943) was a Polish socialist and communist activist, chemical engineer, participant in the Silesian Uprisings and prisoner of Stalin.

Biography He was the son of Feliks Józef, an official, and Wanda Izabela Mieczkowska. In 1914 he graduated from the Trade School in Mława and started chemical studies at the University of Warsaw, which he never completed. The same year he joined the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and Polish Military Organisation in the district of Ciechanów. As a member of PMO he took part in disarming German soldiers in 1918, when Poland regained its independence.

In 1919 he joined Union of Independent Socialist Youth (ZNMS). After completing the plebiscite course he went to Upper Silesia to work on the plebiscite organization. He was an editor of The Workers Paper.

In August 1920 de Nisau took part in the Second Silesian Uprising and later was a member of the Wawelberg Group. He left PPS on 18 September 1920, after being accused of communist tendencies.

In the Soviet Union he worked under the name Egon Bogdanowicz Sztern, at first in a chemical plant in Dzerzhinsk and from 1933 as a head of chemical laboratory in Horlivka. He was arrested in 1934, in the time of Great Purge, and was accused of Trotskyism. His wife fled back to Poland with their little son, convinced of her husband's death. In fact Bohdan died in prison in Voronezh only in 1943.