The Chicago Memorial was designed by Chicagoan Wojciech Seweryn whose father was among the estimated 22,000 victims of the Katyn Massacre. With the help of the community and Cardinal Francis George, he raised the $300,000 necessary for its erection. Wojciech Seweryn died on 10 April 2010 in the air crash at Smolensk that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 96 others. They were all on their way to Katyn to pay their respects to those murdered there in 1940.