Władysław Raginis

On August 21, 2012 Raginis was posthumously promoted, by the Minister of National Defence Tomasz Siemoniak to the rank of Major.

On August 28, 2009 he was posthumously awarded, by the President of Poland, with the Order of Polonia Restituta (Grand Cross).

On May 13, 1970, Raginis was posthumously awarded, by the Council of State of the Polish People's Republic, with the Virtuti Militari - Gold Cross (IV Class) medal.

The 31st Council of the Polish Scouting Association in Białystok, chose Raginis as their patron in 1969.

(In the style of the epitaph for the soldiers at Thermopylae). The family of Raginis was officially notified of his death in Wizna three years later in 1943 when his sister, Maria Morawska, received a notice through the Red Cross.

In the late summer of 1939, the "Sarny" Regiment sent the bulk of its forces to Upper Silesia to man the Fortified Area Silesia, some units, including Raginis, instead went to Osowiec Fortress, near the border with East Prussia.

In anticipation of the outbreak of the Second World War, on September 2, 1939, Major Jakub Fober gave Raginis command of all the Wizna Fortified Area, a buffer of 9 kilometres (5.6 miles) between the Narew River and Biebrza River, which was part of defensive line of Independent Operational Group "Narew" on the right wing of Polish forces. "Wizna" secured a major artery of communication, the Łomża – Białystok road and the Zambrów – Osowiec railway.

The defense of Wizna against overwhelming odds lasted for three days. On September 10, 1939, the bunker commanded by Raginis was the last remaining pocket of resistance. Although heavily wounded, Raginis was still commanding his troops. At noon on the third day, the German commander, Heinz Guderian, threatened that all Polish POWs would be shot if the defense of the bunker did not cease. Turning to his men in the shelter, Raginis thanked them for their bravery, and for doing their duty. He then ordered them to surrender and leave the shelter - he would keep his word and not surrender. Seweryn Biegański, who was the last to leave the shelter, describes the moment;

After graduating on July 15, 1930, he was assigned to the 76th Infantry Regiment stationed in Grodno, where he was a platoon commander and instructor-lecturer at the School Cadet Corps. In 1939, as a distinction, he was advanced to lieutenant and then to captain and assigned to the elite Border Defence Corps (KOP) as the commander of the 3rd company, heavy machine gun battalion, of the Border Defence Corps Regiment "Sarny" under the command of Lt-Colonel Nikodem Sulik.

Raginis was born in Zariņi (Zariny) village near to Dźwińsk (Daugavpils), Courland Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Latvia) to a landowning family with patriotic traditions. Soon after graduating from a gymnasium in 1927, he joined the Infantry NCO School in Komorowo near Ostrów Mazowiecka where he was a mediocre student and completed his studies in 1928. He then completed a short practice of the military and the same year he enrolled at the Infantry Officers School in Ostrów Mazowiecka. One of his schoolmates recalled:

Władysław Raginis (June 27, 1908 – September 10, 1939) was a Polish military commander during the Polish Defensive War of 1939 of a small force holding the Polish fortified defense positions against a vastly larger invasion during the Battle of Wizna. Because the positions were held at great cost for three days before being annihilated with few survivors, Wizna is referred to as the Polish Thermopylae and Captain Raginis as a modern Leonidas.