Lwów Eaglets Lwów Eaglets ( ) is a term of affection applied to the Polish teenagers who defended the city of Lviv ( , ) in Eastern Galicia , during the Polish - Ukrainian War ( 1918 – 1919 ) . Background . The nowadays western Ukrainian Lviv ( , ) before the breakdown of Austro - Hungarian empire , was the biggest and capital city of one of Habsburg ' s dominions - the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria . While Poles were the prevailing ethnicity in the province , in the eastern galician territories Ukrainians constituted a majority ( 65 % ) , Poles were a significant minority ( 22 % ) and dominated the cities , together with the Jewish residents . In Lviv , according to the Austrian census of 1910 , which listed religion and language , 51 % of the city ' s population were Roman Catholics , 28 % Jews , and 19 % belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church . Linguistically , 86 % of the city ' s population used the Polish language and 11 % preferred the Ukrainian language . In the final days of collapsing Habsburg ' s empire , on November 1 , 1918 , Ukrainian soldiers from former Austrian army units occupied Lviv ' s public utilities and military objects , raised Ukrainian flags throughout the city and proclaimed the birth of the new Ukrainian state . While the Ukrainian residents enthusiastically supported the proclamation , the city ' s significant Jewish minority remained mostly neutral towards the Ukrainian proclamation and the Polish residents , constituting the majority of Lviv ' s inhabitants , were shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state . Reacting to the Ukrainian military revolution , Poles rose up throughout the city . Polish forces , initially numbering only about 200 people , organized a small pocket of resistance in a school at the western outskirts of the city , where a group of veterans of the Polish Military Organization put up a fight armed with 64 outdated rifles . After the initial clashes , the defenders were joined by hundreds of volunteers , mostly scouts , students and youngsters . More than 1000 people joined the Polish ranks in the first day of the fights . The " Lwów Eaglets " . Originally the term was applied exclusively to the young volunteers ( such as Antoni Petrykiewicz ) , who had participated in the so - called " Defence of Lwów " ( ) , i . e . during the fights within the city ( November 1 to November 22 , 1918 ) and the following siege by the Ukrainian army from November 23 , 1918 to May 22 , 1919 . With time , however , the term ' s application was broadened , and it is now used for all the young soldiers who fought in the area of Eastern Galicia in the defense of the Polish cause in the Polish - Ukrainian War and the Polish - Bolshevik War . In addition to the young Polish nationals of Lviv , those fighting in the Polish - Ukrainian battle for Przemyśl ( ) are also frequently referred to as " Eaglets " ( Pol . " Orlęta Przemyskie " ) . Cemetery of the Lwów Eaglets . After the Polish - Ukrainian conflict , the " Lwów Eaglets " were interred at the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów ( Polish popular name : " Cmentarz Orląt Lwowskich " ) , part of the Lychakiv Cemetery . The Cemetery of the Defenders held the remains of both teenaged and adult soldiers , including foreign volunteers from France and the United States . The Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów was designed by Rudolf Indruch , a student at the Lviv Institute of Architecture , himself an Eaglet . Among the most notable Eaglets to be buried there was 14 - year - old Jerzy Bitschan , the youngest of the city ' s defenders , whose name became an icon of the Polish interbellum . Also resting in the Eaglet ' s pantheon is six year old Oswald Anissimo who was executed together with his father Michał by the Ukrainian soldiers . After the annexation of Eastern Galicia with the city of Lwów by the Soviet Union in World war II ( see : Soviet invasion of Poland ) and the following expulsion of the Polish population from the city , the graves were destroyed in 1971 , and the Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów was turned into a municipal waste dump and then into truck depot . After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of an independent Ukraine , work began on the restoration of the " Eaglets ' Cemetery " , although slowed by opposition of local nationalists . Following Polish support for Ukraine ' s Orange Revolution ( 2004 ) , the opposition declined and the Cemetery was officially reopened in a Polish - Ukrainian ceremony on June 24 , 2005 . The last surviving Lwów Eaglet , Major Aleksander Sałacki ( born 12 May 1904 ) , died in Tychy , on April 5 , 2008 .