Josip Pavlovich Urbanovich (sometimes Joseph ; April 3, 1906 [1] - died July 20, 1944) - one of the leaders of the anti-fascist Resistance in Western Belarus , an active member of the Communist Party ( KPZB ).
Biography
Born in the village of Sheipichi, Pruzhany district, Brest region . He was engaged in revolutionary activities in Western Belarus, even before the war he gained in this field a certain fame. From 1939 he worked as chairman of the Ruzhansky village council. From August 1941 he joined the fight against the invaders [2] . Secretary of the underground anti-fascist committees. For some time he lived in a dugout near the house of the young pioneer hero Baran .
He organized the defeat of the German garrison in Kossovo (August 2, 1942). In the summer of 1943 the commander of the partisan brigade . P.K. Ponomarenko . He died at the hands of partisan-marauders (or at that time they were just marauders and former partisans) who robbed the local population and disarmed the existing partisans. While trying to stop them, Urbanovich, who was sitting on a horse, was shot with a pistol. He was buried 13 km from the village of Vereshki, Ivatsevichi district, in a brotherly cemetery (it’s also a partisan cemetery in Guta-Mikhalin ). Both marauders were later caught and judged by partisans. One of them was sentenced to hang, the other to execution [1] .
Memory
In Pruzhany there is Urbanovich street. Such a street is in Kossovo and in Voronilovich. There is a monument and a plaque in Ruzhany, there is a square and also a street named after him [3] .