For more details on this topic, see Polish prisoners of war in Soviet Union (after 1939). As a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union.

Katyn-Kharkiv-Mednoye memorial

Mass graves at Katyn war cemetery

Graves of Generals Mieczysław Smorawiński and Bronisław Bohatyrewicz

March 5, 1940 memo from Lavrenty Beria to Joseph Stalin, proposing execution of Polish officers

Polish prisoners of war captured by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Poland

Nazi propaganda poster depicting executions of Polish military officers by the Soviets, with caption in Slovak: "Forest of the dead at Katyn. A mass grave is a grave containing multiple usually unidentified human corpses Katyn war cemetery is a Polish Military cemetery located in Katyn, a small village 22 kilometres away from Smolensk, Russia Brigadier General Mieczysław Smorawiński (1893–1940 was a Polish military commander and officer of the Polish Army. Bronisław Bohatyrewicz of Ostoja Coat of Arms (1870-1940 was a Polish military commander and a general of the Polish Army. Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The Red Army ( Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия R aboche- K rest'yanskaya K rasnaya A rmiya Nazi propaganda is the term that describes the psychologically powerful Propaganda within Nazi Germany, much of which was centered around Jews consistently Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland An officer is a member of an armed force who holds a position of authority The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" "

The Katyń massacre, also known as the Katyń Forest massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, 'Katyń crime'), was a mass execution of Polish citizens ordered by Soviet authorities on March 5, 1940. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the Killing of a person by judicial process as Punishment. The Polish people, or Poles, (Polacy) are a Western Slavic Ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 ^[1] The estimated number of victims is about 22,000, with the most commonly cited number of 21,768. ^[2]. The victims were murdered in the Katyn forest, the Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere. Katyn (Каты́нь Katyń) is a village ( selo) in Smolensky District of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located approximately Tver (Тверь is a city in Russia, the administrative center of Tver Oblast. Kharkiv or Kharkov (Харків Харьков is the second largest city in Ukraine. ^[3] About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 invasion of Poland, the rest being Poles arrested for allegedly being "intelligence agents, gendarmes, spies, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, priests, and officials. An officer is a member of an armed force who holds a position of authority As a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939 during the early stages of World War II, sixteen A gendarmerie or gendarmery (dʒɛnˈdɑrməriː or /ˌʒɑndɑrməˈriː/ after the French is a Military body charged with Police duties among civilian Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy oppressor or employer through subversion obstruction disruption and/or destruction Landholder or landowner is a holder of the Estate in land with considerable rights of ownership or simply put an owner of land "^[2]

Since Poland's conscription system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,^[4] the Soviets were able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Jewish, Ukrainian, Georgian^[5] and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship. Conscription (also known as the draft, the call-up or national service) is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by some established authority A military reserve force is a military organization For the coffee shop company often called Intelligentsia for short see Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a Millennium. Ukrainians (Українці Ukrayintsi,) are an East Slavic Ethnic group primarily living in Ukraine, or more broadly— Citizens The Georgians (ქართველები kartvelebi) are a Nation and Ethnic group originating in the Caucasus, the oldest group of the Belarusians or Belorussians (Беларусы Biełarusy previously also spelled Belarussians, Byelorussians and Belorusians, also

Originally, "Katyn massacre" referred to the massacre at Katyn Forest, near the villages of Katyn and Gnezdovo (ca. Katyn (Каты́нь Katyń) is a village ( selo) in Smolensky District of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located approximately Gnezdovo or Gnyozdovo (Гнёздово is an archeological site located near the village of Gnyozdovo in Smolensk Oblast, Russia 19 km west of Smolensk, Russia), of Polish military officers in the Kozelsk prisoner-of-war camp. Smolensk (Смоленск is a city in western Russia, located on the Dnieper River, the administrative centre of Smolensk Oblast. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Kozelsk (Козе́льск is a Town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Zhizdra River ( Oka 's Tributary A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy combatants captured by the enemy in time of war and is similar to an Internment camp which is used for civilian It now is applied to the simultaneous executions of POWs from geographically distant Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps,^[6] and the executions of political prisoners from West Belarus and West Ukraine,^[7] shot on Stalin's orders at Katyn Forest, at the NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del) headquarters in Smolensk, at a Smolensk slaughterhouse,^[1] and at prisons in Kalinin (Tver), Kharkiv, Moscow, and other Soviet cities. Starobilsk (Старобільськ Старобельск is a city near Luhansk in Ukraine. Ostashkov (Оста́шков is a town in Tver Oblast, Russia, 199 km west of Tver. West Belarus is the name sometimes used in a historical context to denote the territory of modern Belarus that belonged to the Second Polish Republic between the Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The NKVD ( НКВД, ru Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел ''Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del'') or People's Commissariat A slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir (from the French verb abattre, "to strike down" or freezing works ( New Zealand Tver (Тверь is a city in Russia, the administrative center of Tver Oblast. Kharkiv or Kharkov (Харків Харьков is the second largest city in Ukraine. Moscow (Москва́ romanised: Moskvá, IPA: see also other names) is the Capital and the largest city of ^[2]

After invading and occupying the area in 1941, Nazi Germany announced in 1943 the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers The announcement led to the break up of diplomatic relations between the U. S. S. R. and the Polish government-in-exile in London. The Government of the Polish Republic in Exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union during September–October The Soviet Union continued denying the massacres until 1990, when it finally acknowledged the massacre by the NKVD and the subsequent cover-up. ^[2][8] The Russian government admitted Soviet responsibility for the massacres, yet does not classify this action as a war crime or as an act of genocide. The Government of the Russian Federation (Прави́тельство Росси́йской Федера́ции is an executive governmental body that brings together the principal War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war" including but not limited to "murder the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied This acknowledgement would have necessitated the prosecution of surviving perpetrators, which is what the Polish government had requested. The politics of Poland take place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic Republic, whereby the Prime Minister ^[2][9] In addition the Russian government also does not classify the dead as victims of Stalinist repression, which bars formal posthumous rehabilitation. Rehabilitation (реабилитация in the context of Soviet or Russian topics is often a linguistic False cognate used to translate the Russian

Prelude

On September 17, 1939, in violation of the Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the Red Army invaded the territory of Poland from the east. Events 1176 - The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought 1462 - The Battle of Świecino (or Battle of Żarnowiec Year 1939 ( MCMXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939 during the early stages of World War II, sixteen This invasion took place while Poland had already sustained serious defeats in the wake of the German attack on the country that started on September 1, 1939. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers The Invasion of Poland (1939 precipitated World War II. It was carried out by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small German-allied Events 462 - Possible start of first Byzantine indiction cycle. Meanwhile, Great Britain and France, pledged by the Polish-British Common Defence Pact and Franco-Polish Military Alliance to attack Germany in the case of such an invasion, did not take any military action. The Anglo-Polish military alliance refers to agreements reached between the United Kingdom and the Polish Second Republic for mutual assistance in case of military The term Franco-Polish Military Alliance mainly refers to the Military alliance between Poland and France that was active between 1921 and 1940 This is referred to as the Western betrayal; thus the Red Army moved to safeguard Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Western betrayal or Yalta betrayal are popular terms in many Central European countries especially in Poland and the Czech Republic which refers After the Soviet invasion of Poland following the corresponding German invasion that marked the start of World War II in 1939 the Soviet Union annexed ^[10] In the wake of the Red Army's quick advance, which met little resistance, between 250,000^[11] and 454,700^[12] Polish soldiers had become prisoners and were interned by the Soviets. The Red Army ( Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия R aboche- K rest'yanskaya K rasnaya A rmiya As a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial About 250,000 were set free by the army almost on the spot, while 125,000 were delivered to the internal security services (the NKVD). The NKVD, in turn, quickly released 42,400 soldiers. The approximately 170,000 released were mostly soldiers of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity serving in the Polish army. The 43,000 soldiers born in West Poland, now under German control, were transferred to the Germans. By November 19, NKVD had about 40,000 Polish POWs: about 8,500 officers and warrant officers, 6,500 police officers and 25,000 soldiers and NCOs who were still being held as POWs. Events 1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land ^[13]

As early as September 19, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs and First Rank Commissar of State Security, Lavrenty Beria, ordered the NKVD to create the Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees to manage Polish prisoners. Events 335 - Dalmatius is raised to the rank of Caesar by his uncle Constantine I. Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович The Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees (Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных НКВД/МВД The NKVD took custody of Polish prisoners from the Red Army, and proceeded to organize a network of reception centers and transit camps and arrange rail transport to prisoner-of-war camps in the western USSR. A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy combatants captured by the enemy in time of war and is similar to an Internment camp which is used for civilian The camps were at Jukhnovo (Babynino rail station), Yuzhe (Talitsy), Kozelsk, Kozelshchyna, Oranki, Ostashkov (Stolbnyi Island on Seliger Lake near Ostashkov), Tyotkino rail station (56 mi/90 km from Putyvl), Starobielsk, Vologda (Zaenikevo rail station) and Gryazovets. Kozelsk (Козе́льск is a Town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Zhizdra River ( Oka 's Tributary Ostashkov (Оста́шков is a town in Tver Oblast, Russia, 199 km west of Tver. Stolobny Island is an island on Lake Seliger in the Tver Oblast of Russia, about 10 km north of the town of Ostashkov. Seliger (Селигер is a Lake in Tver Oblast and in the extreme northern part Novgorod Oblast of Russia, in the northwest of the Putyvl or Putivl (Пути́вль Putyvl’, Пути́вль Putivl’) is a picturesque town in north-east Ukraine, in Sumy Oblast Starobilsk (Старобільськ Старобельск is a city near Luhansk in Ukraine. Vologda (Во́логда is a city in Russia and the administrative center of Vologda Oblast. Gryazovets (Гря́зовец is a town in Vologda Oblast, Russia, located 47 km south of Vologda. ^[14]

Kozelsk and Starobielsk were used mainly for military officers, while Ostashkov was used mainly for Boy Scouts, gendarmes, police officers and prison officers. An officer is a member of an armed force who holds a position of authority Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego ( The Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, ZHP) is the coeducational Polish Scouting organization recognized A gendarmerie or gendarmery (dʒɛnˈdɑrməriː or /ˌʒɑndɑrməˈriː/ after the French is a Military body charged with Police duties among civilian A police officer (also known as a policeman or policewoman) is a warranted employee of a Police force. A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of Prisoners at these camps were not exclusively military officers or members of the other groups mentioned but also included Polish intelligentsia. For the coffee shop company often called Intelligentsia for short see Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. The approximate distribution of men throughout the camps was as follows: Kozelsk, 5,000; Ostashkov, 6,570; and Starobelsk, 4,000. They totaled 15,570 men. ^[6]

Once at the camps, from October 1939 to February 1940, the Poles were subjected to lengthy interrogations and constant political agitation by NKVD officers such as Vasily Zarubin. Vasily Mikhailovich Zarubin (1894&ndash1972 was a Soviet intelligence officer The Poles were encouraged to believe they would be released,^[15] but the interviews were in effect a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. ^[1] According to NKVD reports, the prisoners could not be induced to adopt a pro-Soviet attitude. ^[6] They were declared "hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority. "^[1]

On March 5, 1940, pursuant to a note to Joseph Stalin from Lavrenty Beria, the members of the Soviet Politburo — Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov and Anastas Mikoyan; signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus. Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Politburo, short for Political Bureau, Russian Politicheskoye Buro, is the executive organization for a number of Political parties, most notably Molotov redirects here For other uses see Molotov (disambiguation. Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин ( – June 3, 1946) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the titular Head (Климе́нт Ефре́мович Вороши́лов Kliment Efremovič Vorošilov, Климент Єфремович Ворошилов popularly known as Klim Voroshilov Anastas Hovhannesi Mikoyan ( Armenian: Անաստաս Հովհաննէսի Միկոյան ( - October 21 1978 was an Armenian Old Bolshevik and Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Belarus ( Belarusian Беларусь / Biełaruś is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east ^[7]

The reason for the massacre, according to World War II historian Gerhard Weinberg, is that Stalin wanted to deprive a potential future Polish military of a large portion of its military talent: It has been suggested that the motive for this terrible step [the Katyn massacre] was to reassure the Germans as to the reality of Soviet anti-Polish policy. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg (born January 1, 1928) is a German -born American diplomatic and military historian noted for his This explanation is completely unconvincing in view of the care with which the Soviet regime kept the massacre secret from the very German government it was supposed to impress. . . A more likely explanation is that. . . [the massacre] should be seen as looking forward to a future in which there might again be a Poland on the Soviet Union's western border. Since he intended to keep the eastern portion of the country in any case, Stalin could be certain that any revived Poland would be unfriendly. Under those circumstances, depriving it of a large proportion of its military and technical elite would make it weaker. "^[16]

Executions

After April 3, 1940, at least 22,436 POWs and prisoners were executed: 15,131 POWs (most or all of them from the three camps)^[17] and at least 7,305 prisoners in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine. Events 1043 - Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England. ^[18] A 1956 memo from KGB chief Alexander Shelepin to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev contains incomplete information about the personal files of 21,857 murdered POWs and prisoners. Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (Александр Николаевич Шелепин 18 August 1918, Voronezh - October 24, 1994 The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( First Secretary in 1953-1966 was the title synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union after Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 17 1894 – September 11 1971 served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 following Of them 4,421 were from Kozielsk, 3,820 from Starobielsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov, and 7,305 from Belarusian and Ukrainian prisons. Shelepin's data for prisons should be considered a minimum, because his data for POWs is incomplete (he mentions 14,552 personal files for POWs, while at least 15,131 POWs "sent to NKVD" are mentioned in contemporary documents).

Those who died at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 3,420 NCOs, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, and 131 refugees. A non-commissioned officer (sometimes noncommissioned officer) also known as an NCO or Noncom, is an enlisted member of an Armed force Also among the dead were 20 university professors (including Stefan Kaczmarz); 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists as well as about 200 pilots. Stefan Kaczmarz (born 1895 in Lviv (Lemberg Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine) - 1940 was a Polish Mathematician In all, the NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps. ^[1] Altogether, during the massacre the NKVD murdered 14 Polish generals:^[19] Leon Billewicz (ret. Leon Billewicz (1870-1940 was a Polish officer and a General of the Polish Army. ), Bronisław Bohatyrewicz (ret. Bronisław Bohatyrewicz of Ostoja Coat of Arms (1870-1940 was a Polish military commander and a general of the Polish Army. ), Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller (ret. Counter Admiral Xawery Stanisław Czernicki (1882-1940 was a Polish engineer military commander and one of the highest ranking officers of the Polish Navy Stanisław Haller (born 26 April 1872, murdered in April 1940 was a Polish politician and general and cousin of General Józef Haller de Hallenburg ), Aleksander Kowalewski (ret. ), Henryk Minkiewicz (ret. Henryk Minkiewicz (1880-1940 was a Polish socialist politician and a General of the Polish Army. ), Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski (ret. Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski (1890-1940 was a Polish military commander and one of the Generals of the Polish Army murdered by the Soviet Union in the Konstanty Plisowski (1890&ndash1940 was a Polish general and military commander ), Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski (ret. Rudolf Prich (1881-1940 was a Polish military officer and a Generał dywizji of the Polish Army. Lviv ( Ukrainian: Львів, L’viv, Lwów Lemberg Львов L'vov; see also other names) is a major city in western ), Leonard Skierski (ret. Leonard Skierski ( April 26 1866 - 1940 Леонард Генрихович Скерский was a Polish military officer and a general of the Tsarist ), Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysław Smorawiński and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). Piotr Skuratowicz (1891-1940 was a Polish military commander and a General of the Polish Army. Brigadier General Mieczysław Smorawiński (1893–1940 was a Polish military commander and officer of the Polish Army. Alojzy Wir-Konas (1894-1940 was a Polish military commander and a Colonel of the Polish Army. A mere 395 prisoners were saved from the slaughter,^[2] among them Stanisław Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski. Stanisław Swianiewicz (1899-1997 was a Polish economist and historian Czapski Rozproszonejpg|thumb|right|240px|Czapski on the cover of his Rozproszone ( Dispersed writings)]] Józef Czapski ( April 3, 1896 — ^[1] They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then down to Gryazovets. They were the only ones who escaped death.

Up to 99% of the remaining prisoners were subsequently murdered. People from Kozelsk were murdered in the usual mass murder site of Smolensk country, called Katyn forest; people from Starobilsk were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kharkiv and the bodies were buried near Piatykhatky; and police officers from Ostashkov were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kalinin (Tver) and buried in Miednoje (Mednoye). Kozelsk (Козе́льск is a Town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Zhizdra River ( Oka 's Tributary Smolensk (Смоленск is a city in western Russia, located on the Dnieper River, the administrative centre of Smolensk Oblast. Starobilsk (Старобільськ Старобельск is a city near Luhansk in Ukraine. Ostashkov (Оста́шков is a town in Tver Oblast, Russia, 199 km west of Tver. Mednoye (Ме́дное is a village in Kalininsky District of Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Tvertsa River, 28 km

Detailed information on the executions in the Kalinin NKVD prison was given during the hearing by Dmitrii S. Tokarev, former head of the Board of the District NKVD in Kalinin. The NKVD ( НКВД, ru Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел ''Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del'') or People's Commissariat Tver (Тверь is a city in Russia, the administrative center of Tver Oblast. According to Tokarev, the shooting started in the evening and ended at dawn. The first transport on April 4, 1940, carried 390 people, and the executioners had a hard time killing so many people during one night. Events 1581 - Francis Drake completes a circumnavigation of the world and is knighted by Elizabeth I. Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The following transports were no greater than 250 people. The executions were usually performed with German-made Walther PPK pistols supplied by Moscow, but Nagant M1895 revolvers were also used. The Walther PP series pistols include the Walther PP PPK PPK/S and PPK/E The Nagant Revolver was designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant. ^[20][21]

The killings were methodical. After the condemned's personal information was checked, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with a felt-lined door. The sounds of the murders were also masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night. After being taken into the cell, the victim was immediately shot in the back of the head. His body was then taken out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside. The procedure went on every night, except for the May Day holiday. May Day occurs on May 1 and refers to any of several Public holidays In many countries May Day is synonymous with International Workers' Day, or Labour ^[22] Near Smolensk, the Poles, with their hands tied behind their backs, were led to the graves and shot in the neck.

After the execution was carried out, there were still more than 22,000 of the former Polish soldiers in NKVD labor camps. According to Beria's report, by November 2, 1940 his department had two generals, 39 lieutenant-colonels and colonels, 222 captains and majors, 691 lieutenants, 4022 warrant officers and NCOs and 13,321 enlisted men captured during the Polish campaign. Events 1570 - A Tidal wave in the North Sea devastates the coast from Holland to Jutland, killing more than 1000 Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Additional 3,300 Polish soldiers were captured during the annexation of Lithuania, where they were kept interned since September 1939. Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublika is a Country in Eastern often referred to as Northern Europe or in the Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial ^[23]

Some 3,000 to 4,000 Polish inmates of Ukrainian prisons and the ones from Belarus prisons in Kurapaty, were probably buried in Bykivnia. Kurapaty (Курапаты is a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, in which a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 by the Bykivnia (Биківня Быковня Bykownia is a former small village on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine, that was incorporated into the city in 1923 ^[24] Porucznik Janina Lewandowska, daughter of Gen. Shoulder strap used until 1953 Modern Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki, was the only woman executed during the massacre at Katyn. Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki ( Iosif Romanovich while in the Russian military sometimes also Dowbór-Muśnicki; ^[22][25][26]

Discovery

Katyn 1943 exhumation. Photo made by Polish Red Cross delegation. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an International humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers worldwide who stated

One of the mass graves at Katyn.

The fate of the Polish prisoners was raised soon after the Nazi Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, when the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet government signed the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement to fight Nazi Germany and form a Polish army on Soviet territory. Operation Barbarossa ( Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the Codename for Nazi Germany 's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II The Government of the Polish Republic in Exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union during September–October The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement was a treaty between Soviet Union and Poland signed in London on August 17, 1941. When the Polish general Władysław Anders began organising this army, he requested information about Polish officers. Lieutenant-General Władysław Anders (August 11 1892 &ndashMay 12 1970 was a General in the Polish During a personal meeting, Stalin assured him and Władysław Sikorski, the Polish Prime Minister, that all the Poles were freed, and that not all could be accounted because the Soviets "lost track" of them in Manchuria. Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (May 20 1881 – July 4 1943 pronounced) was a Polish military and political leader Manchuria ( Romanized Manchu: Manju,, Маньчжурия Mongolian: Манж is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast ^[27][28][29]

In 1942 Polish railroad workers found a mass grave at Katyn, and reported it to the Polish Secret State; the news was ignored; people refused to believe the mass graves contained so many dead. Polish Underground State (Polskie Państwo Podziemne also known as Polish Secret State) refers to all underground resistance organizations in Poland during ^[30] The fate of the missing prisoners remained unknown until April 1943 when the German Wehrmacht (actually Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff) discovered the mass grave of 4,243 Polish military reserve officers in the forest on Goat Hill near Katyn. Wehrmacht (literally "defense force" was the name of the unified Armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945 Rudolf Christoph Freiherr Von Gersdorff ( March 27, 1905 – January 27, 1980) was a military officer in ^[31] Joseph Goebbels saw this discovery as an excellent tool to drive a wedge between Poland, Western Allies, and the Soviet Union. Paul Joseph Goebbels (German pronunciation ˈɡœbəls English generally ˈɡɝbəlz (29 October 1897 1 May 1945 was a German politician and Reich Minister of Public On April 13, Berlin Radio broadcast to the world that German military forces in the Katyn forest near Smolensk had uncovered "a ditch . Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople . . 28 metres long and 16 metres wide [92 ft by 52 ft], in which the bodies of 3,000 Polish officers were piled up in 12 layers. "^[32] The broadcast went on to charge the Soviets with carrying out the massacre in 1940.

The Germans assembled and brought in a European commission consisting of twelve forensic experts and their staffs from Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, and Hungary. After the war, all of the experts, save for a Bulgarian and a Czech, reaffirmed their 1943 finding of Soviet guilt. ^[33]

The Katyn Massacre was beneficial to Nazi Germany, which used it to discredit the Soviet Union. Goebbels wrote in his diary on April 14, 1943: "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered by the GPU, for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand style. Events 43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar 's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The State Political Directorate was the Secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic ( RSFSR) and the Soviet Union from 1922 until We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot where they were found. Their reports now reaching us from ahead are gruesome. The Fuehrer has also given permission for us to hand out a drastic news item to the German press. I gave instructions to make the widest possible use of the propaganda material. We shall be able to live on it for a couple weeks. "^[34] The Germans had succeeded in discrediting the Soviet Government in the eyes of the world and briefly raised the spectre of a communist monster rampaging across the territories of Western civilization; moreover, General Sikorski's unease threatened to unravel the alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.

The Soviet government immediately denied the German charges and claimed that the Polish prisoners of war had been engaged in construction work west of Smolensk and consequently were captured and executed by invading German units in August 1941. The Soviet response on April 15 to the German initial broadcast of April 13, prepared by the Soviet Information Bureau, stated that "[. Events 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Soviet Information Bureau (Советское информационное бюро ( Sovetskoye informatsionnoye byuro) commonly known as Sovinformburo (Совинформбюро . . ]Polish prisoners-of-war who in 1941 were engaged in country construction work west of Smolensk and who [. . . ] fell into the hands of the German-Fascist hangmen [. . . ]. "^[6]

The Allies were aware that the Nazis had found a mass grave as the discovery transpired, via radio transmissions intercepted and decrypted by Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park, also known as Station X, is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, and (since 1967 part of Milton Keynes Germans and the international commission, which was invited by Germany, investigated the Katyn corpses and soon produced physical evidence that the massacre took place in early 1940, at a time when the area was still under Soviet control. ^[35]

In April 1943, when the Polish government-in-exile insisted on bringing the matter to the negotiation table with the Soviets and on an investigation by the International Red Cross,^[36][35] Stalin accused the Polish government in exile of collaborating with Nazi Germany, broke diplomatic relations with it,^[37] and started a campaign to get the Western Allies to recognize the alternative Polish pro-Soviet government in Moscow led by Wanda Wasilewska. Union of Polish Patriots ( Society of Polish Patriots, Związek Patriotów Polskich ZPP Союз Польских Патриотов СПП was a political body created Wanda Wasilewska ( 21 January 1905 &ndash 29 July 1964) was a Polish and Soviet novelist and left wing political activist ^[38] Sikorski, whose uncompromising stance on that issue was beginning to create a rift between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, died suddenly two months later. The cause of his death is still disputed. ^[39][40]

Soviet actions

German WWII propaganda poster (in French) exploiting the massacre. The text reads: If the Soviets win the war. . . Katyn [will be] everywhere!

When, in September 1943, Goebbels was informed that the German Army had to withdraw from the Katyn area, he entered a prediction in his diary. His entry for September 29, 1943 reads: "Unfortunately we have had to give up Katyn. Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Bolsheviks undoubtedly will soon 'find' that we shot 12,000 Polish officers. That episode is one that is going to cause us quite a little trouble in the future. The Soviets are undoubtedly going to make it their business to discover as many mass graves as possible and then blame it on us. "^[34]

Indeed, having retaken the Katyn area almost immediately after the Red Army had recaptured Smolensk, the Soviet Union, led by the NKVD, began a cover-up. Smolensk (Смоленск is a city in western Russia, located on the Dnieper River, the administrative centre of Smolensk Oblast. A cemetery the Germans had permitted the Polish Red Cross to build was destroyed and other evidence removed. ^[1] In January 1944, the Soviet Union sent the "Special Commission for Determination and Investigation of the Shooting of Polish Prisoners of War by German-Fascist Invaders in Katyn Forest," (U. The Extraordinary State Commission - fully „Soviet State Extraordinary Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating the Crimes Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices S. S. R. Spetsial'naya Kommissiya po Ustanovleniyu i Rassledovaniyu Obstoyatel'stv Rasstrela Nemetsko-Fashistskimi Zakhvatchikami v Katynskom Lesu)^[6] led (at least nominally) by Alexey Tolstoy to investigate the incidents again. Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi (Алексей Николаевич Толстой ( January 10, 1883 ( December 29, 1882 ( O The so-called "Burdenko Commission", headed by Nikolai Burdenko, the President of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, exhumed the bodies again and reached the conclusion that the shooting was done in 1941, when the Katyn area was under German occupation. Nikolai Nilovich Burdenko (Николай Нилович Бурденко ( &ndash 11 November 1946) was a Russian Surgeon, the founder of the No foreign personnel, even the Polish communists, were allowed to join the Burdenko Commission,^[1][6] whereas the Nazi German investigation had allowed wider access to both international press and organizations (like the Red Cross, with experts from Finland, Denmark, Slovakia etc) and even used Polish workers, like Józef Mackiewicz. Polish communists can trace their origins to early 1800s as is the case in nearby countries Józef Mackiewicz ( April 1, 1902 &ndash January 31, 1985) was a prominent Polish language writer and publicist ^[41] Thus, the 'medico-legal experts,' as they were called, 'found out' that all the shootings were done by the 'German-Fascist' invaders. The conclusions of the commission list a number of things, from gold watches to briefs and icons allegedly found attached to the dead bodies, and the items were said to have dates from November 1940 to June 1941, thus 'rebutting' the 'Fascist lies' of the Poles being shot by the Soviets. The report can be found in pro-Soviet publication Supplement to Russia at war weekly (1944); it is also printed in Dr. Joachim Hoffmann's book Stalin's Annihilation War 1941–1945 (original: Stalins Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1945)

Western response

The Western Allies had an implicit, if unwilling, hand in the cover-up in their endeavour not to antagonise a then-ally, the Soviet Union. The resulting Polish-Soviet crisis was beginning to threaten the vital alliance with the Soviet Union at a time when the Poles' importance to the Allies, essential in the first years of the war, was beginning to fade, due to the entry into the conflict of the military and industrial giants, the Soviet Union and the United States. In retrospective review of records, it is clear that both British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt were increasingly torn between their commitments to their Polish ally, the uncompromising stance of Sikorski and the demands by Stalin and his diplomats. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can ( 30 November 1874 The President of the United States is the Head of state and Head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in United States by

In private, Churchill agreed that the atrocity was likely carried out by the Soviets. According to the notes taken by Count Raczyński, Churchill admitted on April 15, 1943 during a conversation with General Sikorski: "Alas, the German revelations are probably true. Edward Bernard Raczyński ( July 19, 1891 &ndash July 30, 1993) was a Polish aristocrat diplomat writer politician and President Events 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Bolsheviks can be very cruel. "^[42] However, at the same time, on April 24, 1943 Churchill assured the Soviets: "We shall certainly oppose vigorously any 'investigation' by the International Red Cross or any other body in any territory under German authority. Events 1479 BC - Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Such investigation would be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism. "^[43] Unofficial or classified UK documents concluded that Soviet guilt was a "near certainty", but the alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than moral issues, thus the official version supported the Soviet version, up to censoring the contradictory accounts. Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor ^[35] Churchill's own post-war account of the Katyn affair is laconic. In his memoirs, he quotes the 1944 Soviet inquiry into the massacre, which predictably found that the Germans had committed the crime, and adds, "belief seems an act of faith. "^[44] In 1943 the Katyn Manifesto blaming the Soviet Union was published in London (in English) by the eccentric poet Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk, who was arrested by the Special Branch and imprisoned. Count Geoffrey Wladislas Vaile Potocki de Montalk (1903–1997 poet private printer pamphleteer pagan and pretender to the Polish throne was born in New Zealand, the eldest ^[45]

In the United States, a similar line was taken, notwithstanding that two official intelligence reports into the Katyn massacre were produced that contradicted the official position. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the In 1944 Roosevelt assigned Navy Lieutenant Commander George Earle, his special emissary to the Balkans, to compile information on Katyn, which he did using contacts in Bulgaria and Romania. George Howard Earle III ( December 5, 1890 December 30, 1974) was an American Politician. The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania He concluded that the Soviet Union had committed the massacre. After consulting with Elmer Davis, the director of the Office of War Information, Roosevelt rejected that conclusion, saying that he was convinced of Nazi Germany's responsibility, and ordered Earle's report suppressed. Elmer Davis ( January 13, 1890 - May 18, 1958) was a well-known news reporter author the Director of the United States Office of War The United States Office of War Information (OWI was a US government agency created during World War II to consolidate government information services When Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings, the President gave him a written order to desist. Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of the war in American Samoa. American Samoa (Amerika Sāmoa or sm ''Sāmoa Amelika'' is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast ^[1]

A further report in 1945, supporting the same conclusion, was produced and stifled. In 1943, two US POWs – Lt. Col. Donald B. Stewart and Col. John H. Van Vliet – had been taken by Germans to Katyn in 1943 for an international news conference. ^[46] Later, in 1945, Van Vliet wrote a report concluding that the Soviets, not the Germans, were responsible. He gave the report to Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell, Gen. Major General Clayton Lawrence Bissell was born in Kane Pennsylvania, in 1896 George Marshall's assistant chief of staff for intelligence, who destroyed it. George Catlett Marshall Jr (December 31 1880 &ndash October 16 1959 was an American military leader Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of ^[47] During the 1951–1952 investigation, Bissell defended his action before Congress, contending that it was not in the US interest to embarrass an ally whose forces were still needed to defeat Japan. The United States Congress is the bicameral Legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses The Empire of Japan ( {{unicode|Kyūjitai}}: ja 大日本帝國 Shinjitai: ja 大日本帝国 pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku ^[1]

Katyn in judicial proceedings

From December 28, 1945 to January 4, 1946, seven servicemen of the German Wehrmacht were tried by a Soviet military court in Leningrad. Events 1065 - Westminster Abbey is Consecrated. 1308 - The reign of Emperor Hanazono, Emperor of Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar Events 46 BC - Titus Labienus defeats Julius Caesar in the Battle of Ruspina. Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Wehrmacht (literally "defense force" was the name of the unified Armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945 A military tribunal is a kind of Military Court designed to try members of enemy forces during Wartime operating outside the scope of conventional Saint Petersburg ( tr: Sankt-Peterburg,) is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River One of them, Arno Diere, was charged with helping to dig the Katyn graves during the execution. Diere, who was also accused of shooting people with machine-gun in Soviet villages, "confessed" to having taken part in burial (though not the execution) of 15-20 thousand Polish POWs in Katyn. For this he was spared the execution and was given 15 years of hard labor. His confession was full of absurdities, and thus he was not used as a Soviet prosecution witness during the Nuremberg trial. In a November 29, 1954 note he recanted his confession, claiming that he was forced to confess by the investigators. Contrary to claims on several "revisionist" sites^[48], of all the accused during the Leningrad Trial, only Diere was accused to have had a connection to the Katyn massacre. ^[49]

In 1946, the chief Soviet prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Roman A. Rudenko, tried to indict Germany for the Katyn killings, stating that "one of the most important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are responsible was the mass execution of Polish prisoners of war shot in the Katyn forest near Smolensk by the German fascist invaders",^[50] but dropped the matter after the United States and United Kingdom refused to support it and German lawyers mounted an embarrassing defense. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political military and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Рома́н Андре́евич Руде́нко July 30 1907 - January 23 1981 ^[1][51] Also, it was not the purpose of the court to determine whether Germany or the Soviet Union was responsible for the crime, but rather to attribute the crime to at least one of the defendants, which the court was unable to do. ^[52]

Cold War views

In 1951–52, in the background of the Korean War, a U. The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the S. Congressional investigation chaired by Rep. Ray J. Madden and known as the Madden Committee investigated the Katyn massacre. Ray John Madden ( February 25 1892 - September 28 1987) was a United States Representative from Indiana. It charged that the Poles had been killed by the Soviets^[1] and recommended that the Soviets be tried before the International Court of Justice. See also International Commission of Jurists The International Court of Justice (known colloquially as the World Court or ICJ; Cour The committee was however less conclusive on the issue of alleged American cover up. ^[46]

The question of responsibility remained controversial in the West as well as behind the Iron Curtain. The " Iron Curtain " was the symbolic ideological and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II until the end For example, in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, plans for a memorial to the victims bearing the date 1940 (rather than 1941) were condemned as provocative in the political climate of the Cold War. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the

It has been sometimes speculated that the choice made in 1969 for the location of the BSSR's war memorial at the former Belarusian village named Khatyn, a site of a 1943 Nazi massacre in which the entire village with its whole population was burned, have been made to cause confusion with Katyn. The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (abbreviated as Byelorussian SSR or BSSR) (Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка ^[53][54] The two names are similar or identical in many languages, and were in fact often confused^[1][55].

In Poland Communist authorities covered up the matter in concord with Soviet propaganda, deliberately censoring any sources that might shed some light on the Soviet crime. Katyn was a forbidden topic in postwar Poland. The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Soviet Communist dominance over the People's Republic of Poland following World Not only did government censorship suppress all references to it, but even mentioning the atrocity was dangerous. Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor Katyn became erased from Poland's official history, but it could not be erased from historical memory. In 1981, Polish trade union Solidarity erected a memorial with the simple inscription "Katyn, 1940" but it was confiscated by the police, to be replaced with an official monument "To the Polish soldiers – victims of Hitlerite fascism – reposing in the soil of Katyn". Nevertheless, every year on Zaduszki, similar memorial crosses were erected at Powązki cemetery and numerous other places in Poland, only to be dismantled by the police overnight. Zaduszki (also dzień zaduszny) is a Polish tradition of lighting candles ( Znicze ' and visiting the graves of the relatives on All Souls Day Powązki Cemetery ( Polish Cmentarz Powązkowski) is the oldest and most famous cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, and is situated in the The Katyn subject remained a political taboo in Poland until the fall of the Eastern bloc in 1989. A taboo is a strong Social prohibition (or ban) against words objects actions or discussions that are considered undesirable or offensive by a group culture ^[1]

Revelations

From the late 1980s, pressure was put not only on the Polish government, but on the Soviet one as well. Polish academics tried to include Katyn in the agenda of the 1987 joint Polish-Soviet commission to investigate censored episodes of the Polish-Russian history. ^[1] In 1989 Soviet scholars revealed that Joseph Stalin had indeed ordered the massacre, and in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the NKVD had executed the Poles^[56] and confirmed two other burial sites similar to the site at Katyn: Mednoje and Pyatikhatki. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov;; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye Stavropol Krai) is a Russian politician Piatykhatky (П'ятихатки (literally - Five houses is a city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast ( province) of Ukraine.

Monument to Katyn victims, Katowice, Poland. Katowice (Katovice Kattowitz is a City in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica Inscription: "Katyn, Kharkіv, Miednoye and other places of murder in the former USSR in 1940. "

On 30 October 1989, Gorbachev allowed a delegation of several hundred Poles, organized by a Polish association named Families of Katyń Victims, to visit the Katyn memorial. Events 637 - Antioch surrenders to the Muslim forces under Rashidun Caliphate after the Battle of Iron bridge. Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) This group included former U. S. national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Adviser (abbreviated NSA, or sometimes ANSA Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński ˈzbigɲev bʐɛˈʑiɲski: (born March 28 1928 Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish-American A mass was held and banners hailing the Solidarity movement were laid. The Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. One mourner affixed a sign reading "NKVD" on the memorial, covering the word "Nazis" in the inscription such that it read "In memory of Polish officers murdered by the NKVD in 1941. " Several visitors scaled the fence of a nearby KGB compound and left burning candles on the grounds. ^[57] Brzezinski commented that:

"It isn't a personal pain which has brought me here, as is the case in the majority of these people, but rather recognition of the symbolic nature of Katyń. Russians and Poles, tortured to death, lie here together. It seems very important to me that the truth should be spoken about what took place, for only with the truth can the new Soviet leadership distance itself from the crimes of Stalin and the NKVD. Only the truth can serve as the basis of true friendship between the Soviet and the Polish peoples. The truth will make a path for itself. I am convinced of this by the very fact that I was able to travel here. "^[58]

Brzezinski further stated that "The fact that the Soviet government has enabled me to be here – and the Soviets know my views – is symbolic of the breach with Stalinism that perestroika represents. (Перестройка) is the Russian term (now used in English for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev "^[59] His remarks were given extensive coverage on Soviet television. At the ceremony he placed a bouquet of red roses bearing a handwritten message penned in both Polish and English: "For the victims of Stalin and the NKVD. Zbigniew Brzezinski. "^[60]

On 13 April 1990, the forty-seventh anniversary of the discovery of the mass graves, the USSR formally expressed "profound regret" and admitted Soviet secret police responsibility. Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) ^[61] That day is also an International Day of Katyn Victims Memorial (Światowy Dzień Pamięci Ofiar Katynia).

After Poles and Americans discovered further evidence in 1991 and 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin released and transferred to the new Polish president, former Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa, top-secret documents from the sealed package no. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin () (1 February 1931 23 April 2007 was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999 1. ^[62][1] Among the documents included Lavrenty Beria's March 1940 proposal^[63] to shoot 25,700 Poles from Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobels camps, and from certain prisons of Western Ukraine and Belarus with the signature of Stalin (among others); an excerpt from the Politburo shooting order^[7] of March 5 1940; and Aleksandr Shelepin's March 3, 1959 note^[64] to Nikita Khrushchev, with information about the execution of 21,857 Poles and with the proposal to destroy their personal files. Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Politburo, short for Political Bureau, Russian Politicheskoye Buro, is the executive organization for a number of Political parties, most notably Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (Александр Николаевич Шелепин 18 August 1918, Voronezh - October 24, 1994 Events 1284 - Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England 1575 - Indian The year 1959 ( MCMLIX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 17 1894 – September 11 1971 served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 following

Russian President Boris Yeltsin visits Powązki Cemetery monument to Katyn victims, Warsaw, 1993. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin () (1 February 1931 23 April 2007 was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999 Powązki Cemetery ( Polish Cmentarz Powązkowski) is the oldest and most famous cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, and is situated in the Warsaw (Warszawa; also known by other names) is the Capital and Largest city of Poland. ^[65]

The investigations that indicted the German state rather than the Soviet state for the killings are sometimes used to impeach the Nuremberg Trials in their entirety, often in support of Holocaust denial, or to question the legitimacy and/or wisdom of using the criminal law to prohibit Holocaust denial. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political military and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after Holocaust denial is the claim that the Genocide of Jews during World War II —usually referred to as The Holocaust —did not occur in the Still, there are some who deny Soviet guilt, call the released documents fakes, and try to prove that Poles were shot by Germans in 1941. ^[66][67]

On the opposing sides there are allegations that the massacre was part of wider action coordinated by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, or that Germans at least knew of Katyn beforehand. The reason for these allegations is that Soviet Union and Nazi Germany added on 28 September, a secret supplementary protocol^[68] to the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, in which is stated

"Both parties will tolerate in their territories no Polish agitation which affects the territories of the other party. Events 48 BC - Pompey the Great is assassinated on orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt. They will suppress in their territories all beginnings of such agitation and inform each other concerning suitable measures for this purpose"

after which in 1939–1940 a series of conferences by NKVD and the Gestapo were organised in the town of Zakopane. Zakopane is a town in southern Poland with some 28000 inhabitants (2004 situated in Lesser Poland Province since 1999 (in 1975–98 it was part of Nowy The aim of these conferences was to coordinate the killing and the deportation policy^[69] and exchange experience. A University of Cambridge professor of history George Watson believes that the fate of Polish prisoners was discussed at the conference. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the ^[70] This theory surfaces in Polish media,^[71] where it is also pointed out that similar massacre of Polish elites (German AB-Aktion operation in Poland) were taking place in the exact time and with similar methods in German occupied Poland. AB-Aktion or Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion ( German for Special Pacificational Action or Operation) was a German campaign during

In June 1998, Yeltsin and Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski agreed to construct memorial complexes at Katyn and Mednoye, the two NKVD execution sites on Russian soil. Aleksander Kwaśniewski ( born November 15 1954 is a Polish politician who served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005 However, in September of that year the Russians also raised the issue of Soviet POW deaths in the Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919-1924). About 16,000 to 20,000 POWs died in those camps due to communicable diseases;^[72][73] however, some Russian officials argued that it was 'a genocide comparable to Katyń'. ^[1] A similar claim was raised in 1994; such attempts are seen by some, particularly in Poland, as a highly provocative Russian attempt to create an 'anti-Katyn' and 'balance the historical equation'. ^[74]

During Kwaśniewski's visit to Russia in September 2004, Russian officials announced that they are willing to transfer all the information on the Katyn Massacre to the Polish authorities as soon as it is declassified. ^[75] In March 2005 Russian authorities ended the decade-long investigation with no one charged. Russian Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov claimed that out of 14,542 Polish citizens from three Soviet camps who had been sentenced to death, only the deaths of 1,803 were confirmed absolutely. ^[76] He did not address the fate of about 7,000 victims who had been not in POW camps, but in prisons. Savenkov declared that the massacre was not a genocide, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, but a military crime for which the 50-year term of limitation has expired and that consequently there is absolutely no basis to talk about this in judicial terms. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction in whole or in part of an ethnic racial religious or national group War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war" including but not limited to "murder the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied In Public international law, a crime against humanity is an act of Persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people and is the highest level of [3]^[9][56] Despite earlier declarations, President Vladimir Putin's government refused to allow Polish investigators to travel to Moscow in late 2004^[77] and 116 out of 183 volumes of files gathered during the Russian investigation, as well as the decision to put an end to it, were classified. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (; born 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, USSR; now Saint Petersburg, Russia was the second President of Russia ^[9][78][79] In late 2007 and early 2008 several Russian newspapers, including Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Nezavisimaya Gazeta printed stories that implicated the Nazis for the crime, spurning concern that this was done with the tacit approval of the Kremlin. Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Российская газета lit Russia's Newspaper is a Russian government daily Newspaper which publishes the official decrees Note "Komsomolskaya Pravda" should not be confused with Pravda. Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Независимая Газета "independent newspaper" is a Russian language daily Newspaper, published by ^[80]

Because of that, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance has decided to open its own investigation. Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej — Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu ^[2][56][9] Prosecution team head Leon Kieres said they would try to identify those involved in ordering and carrying out the killings. Leon Kieres (born May 25, 1948) is a Polish historian He was the president of a Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute of National Remembrance In addition, on March 22, 2005 the Polish Sejm unanimously passed an act, requesting the Russian archives to be declassified. Events 238 - Gordian I and his son Gordian II are proclaimed Roman emperor. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. ^[81] The Sejm also requested Russia to classify the Katyn massacre as the crime of genocide: "On the 65th anniversary of the Katyn murder the Senate pays tribute to the murdered, best sons of the homeland and those who fought for the truth about the murder to come to light, also the Russians who fought for the truth, despite harassment and persecution" – the resolution said. The resolution stressed that the authorities of Russia "seek to diminish the burden of this crime by refusing to acknowledge it was genocide and refuse to give access to the records of the investigation into the issue, making it difficult to determine the whole truth about the murder and its perpetrators. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending "^[82]

Ceremony of military upgrading of Katyn massacre victims, Piłsudski Square, Warsaw, November 10, 2007

Russia and Poland remained divided on the legal qualification of the Katyn crime, with the Poles considering it a case of genocide and demanding further investigations, as well as complete disclosure of Soviet documents. Piłsudski Square (Plac Piłsudskiego is located in downtown Warsaw, Poland. Warsaw (Warszawa; also known by other names) is the Capital and Largest city of Poland. Events 1444 - Battle of Varna: The crusading forces of King Vladislaus III of Varna (aka Ulaszlo I of Hungary and Wladyslaw Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ^[83][82]. In 2008 Polish Foreign Ministry decided to ask Russia's government about alleged movie documentation from the massacre made by NKVD during the killings. The possible document as well as further documents showing cooperation of Soviets with Gestapo during the operations are believed to be the reason for Russia's decision to classify most of documents about the massacre[4].

Art

The Katyn massacre is a major plot element in many works of culture, for example, in the W.E.B. Griffin novel The Lieutenants, which is part of the Brotherhood of War series, as well as in the novel and film Enigma. W E B Griffin (born William Edmund Butterworth III on November 10, 1929) is a writer of military and detective fiction with 38 novels in six series published Brotherhood of War is a series of novels written by W E B Griffin about the United States Army from the Second World War through the Vietnam War Enigma is a 2001 film set in World War II. It stars Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet and is based on the novel Enigma Polish poet Jacek Kaczmarski has dedicated one of his sung poems to this event. Jacek Kaczmarski ( March 22, 1957, Warsaw - April 10, 2004, Gdańsk) was a Polish Singer, songwriter Sung poetry is a broad and imprecise Music genre used mostly in Eastern European Post-Soviet countries, such as Poland and the Baltic States ^[84]

The Academy Award winning Polish film director Andrzej Wajda ^[85], whose father, Captain Jakub Wajda, was murdered in the NKVD prison of Kharkiv, has made a film depicting the event, called simply Katyn. Andrzej Wajda (born 6 March 1926 in Suwałki) is an award-winning Polish Film director. Katyń is a 2007 Polish Film about the Katyn massacre, directed by Academy Honorary Award winner Andrzej Wajda ^[86] The film recounts the fate of some of the women—mothers, wives and daughters—of the Polish officers slaughtered by the Soviets. Some Katyn Forest scenes are re-enacted. The screenplay is based on Andrzej Mularczyk's book Post mortem - the Katyn story. The film was produced by Akson Studio, and released in Poland on 21 September 2007. The film has been selected as the Polish entry for the best foreign language film for the 2008 Oscars.

In 2000, American filmmaker Steven Fischer produced a minute-long public service announcement titled Silence of Falling Leaves honoring the fallen soldiers, consisting of images of falling autumn leaves with a sound track cutting to a narration in Polish by the Warsaw-born artist Bozena Jedrzejczak. Steven Thomas Fischer (born June 10 1972 is an American Film director and producer. It was honored with an Emmy nomination and won several awards including a Telly Award (US). The Telly Awards "recognize distinction in creative work" honoring outstanding local and regional Television commercials and productions as well as non-broadcast The spot aired nationally on TVP Polonia. TVP Polonia (also known as TV Polonia or Telewizja Polonia) is the international channel of the Telewizja Polska (TVP The 2003 film The Katyn File: Mass Murder as a Propaganda Tool, by Barbara Dyrschka and Marek Grzona, also treats the subject.

Several statues in memory of the massacre have been put up worlwide. A golden statue, known as the National Katyn Massacre Memorial, is located in Baltimore, Maryland at Inner Harbor East. ^[87] A statue commemorating the massacre is erected at Exchange Place on the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey. Exchange Place is an urban area of Jersey City, New Jersey on the shore of the Hudson River, that is sometimes referred to as "Wall Street West" The Hudson River, called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, the Great Mohegan by the Iroquois, or as the Lenape Native Americans called it in Unami Jersey City is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.

Original documents

Authenticated copies of Soviet documents related to the Katyn massacre (second paper is an execution order signed by Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Kalinin and Lazar Kaganovich)

See also

• Zdzisław Peszkowski - Roman Catholic priest and leading advocate for survivors and families of the Katyn Massacre
• Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion
• NKVD massacres of prisoners
• Vinnytsia massacre
• Litene, notorious for murder of the Latvian Army officers by NKVD in June 1941. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party Molotov redirects here For other uses see Molotov (disambiguation. (Климе́нт Ефре́мович Вороши́лов Kliment Efremovič Vorošilov, Климент Єфремович Ворошилов popularly known as Klim Voroshilov Anastas Hovhannesi Mikoyan ( Armenian: Անաստաս Հովհաննէսի Միկոյան ( - October 21 1978 was an Armenian Old Bolshevik and Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин ( – June 3, 1946) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the titular Head Zdzisław Peszkowski ( August 23 1918 Sanok &ndash October 8 2007 Warsaw) was a Polish Roman Catholic AB-Aktion or Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion ( German for Special Pacificational Action or Operation) was a German campaign during The massacre of prisoners refers to a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Poland, the Baltic states, The Vinnytsia massacre was a mass execution of people in the Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia by the Soviet secret police NKVD during Joseph Stalin Litene - center of Litenes parish, in Gulbene District, Latvia.
• Victims of Communism Memorial
• Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union
• Population transfer in the Soviet Union
• List of massacres

References

Further reading

• Books about the Katyn Forest Massacre
• Allen Paul (1996). Events 217 - Roman Emperor Caracalla is Assassinated (and succeeded by his Praetorian Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. guardiancouk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. Events 1429 - Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orleans. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. "Memorial" ( Russian: Мемориал is an international historical and Civil rights society that operates in a number of post- USSR states Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Warsaw Voice Polish and Central European Review is an English language Newspaper printed in Poland, concentrating on News about Poland Events 240 BC - 1st recorded Perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Katyń: Stalin's massacre and the seeds of Polish Resurrection. Annapolis, Md. , Naval Institute Press, 402. ISBN 1-55750-670-1.  
• Allen Paul (1991). Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin's Polish Massacre. New York, Scribner Book Company. ISBN 0-684-19215-2.  
• (1993) in Wojciech Materski: Katyn: documents of genocide; documents and materials from the Soviet archives turned over to Poland on October 14, 1992, Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny, Jan Kolbowski and Mark Canning, Warsaw, Institute of Political Studies Polish Academy of Sciences, 105. Events 1066 - Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings - In England on Senlac Hill seven miles from Hastings, the forces Year 1992 ( MCMXCII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar) The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an Academy of sciences. ISBN 83-85479-50-3.  
• Anna M. Cienciala (Editor), Natalia S. Lebedeva (Editor), Wojciech Materski (Editor),. Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment (Annals of Communism Series). Yale University Press, January 28, 2008. Yale University Press is a book Publisher founded in 1908. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remained ISBN 0300108516
• Adam Moszyński, Lista katyńska. Jeńcy obozów Kozielsk–Ostaszków–Starobielsk zaginieni w Rosji Sowieckiej (Katyń list: Prisoners of Kozelsk–Ostaszków–Starobielsk camps who disappeared in Soviet Russia), Londyn 1949;
• George Sanford, "The Katyn Massacre and Polish-Soviet relations 1941–1943," Journal of Contemporary History 41(1):95–111 online
• Stanisław Swianiewicz, W cieniu Katynia (In the shadow of Katyn), Paryż 1976. George Sanford is a British scholar He holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Politics University of Bristol, England. Stanisław Swianiewicz (1899-1997 was a Polish economist and historian English edition by Borealis Pub, 2000, as In the Shadow of Katyn: Stalin's Terror, ISBN 1-894255-16-X
• Jerzy Łojek (Leopold Jerzewski), Dzieje sprawy Katynia (History of the Katyn affair), Warszawa 1980;
• Janusz K. Zawodny, Katyń, Lublin 1989;
• A. Basak, Historia pewnej mistyfikacji. Zbrodnia katyńska przed Trybunałem Norymberskim (History of certain mistification: Katyn crime before the Nuremberg Trials) ISSN 0137-1126 in Studia nad Faszyzmem i Zbrodniami Hitlerowskimi: XXI, Wrocław 1993, ISBN 83-229-1816-X Table of contents online
• Komorowski, Eugenjusz Andrei, and Gilmore, Joseph L. (1974). Night Never Ending. Avon Books. Largely discredited book purporting to be the eyewitness story of the sole survivor of the massacre.
• Large list of Katyn related books at Polish Wikipedia article.

External links

• KATYN VIDEO, 1943 "Im Wald von Katyn" (April, 1943)
• Official site of the Memorial of Katyn
• Original of Katyn order
• (Russian) A set of copies of Katyn-related documents which were provided to Lech Walesa on 14 Oct. 1992
• (Russian)Facsimile of the Soviet Izvestia newspaper with Burdenko Commission's report
• (Russian) Photos by Alexey Pamyatnykh from exhumations at Mednoe in August 1991
• (Russian) Two fragments from the videotaped interrogation of P.K.Soprunenko (former chief of USSR NKVD Board for Prisoners of War and Internees) about the Katyn massacre, 29.04.1991
• (Russian) Burdenko Commission witness Mikhail Krivozertsev interviewed in 1990, explains how testimonies were fabricated (Russian with Polish subtitles)
• Katyn massacre victim list
• Polish deaths at Soviet hands – website about Katyn forest massacre
• Pictures taken during the 1943 exhumation
• British reactions to the Katyn Massacre, 1943–2003 by Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane
• The Katyn Massacre: A Special Operations Executive perspective
• Katyn in Nuremberg
• Historians Have Yet to Face Up to the Implications of the Katyn Massacre by Adam Scrupski, History News Network, 5-17-04
• 10Nov94 H-Diplo posting by Louis R. Coatney, "Argument for Katyn as start & end of Cold War"
• Katyn Forest Massacre: Articles and links
• The Lies of Katyn by Jamie Glazov, FrontPage Magazine, August 8, 2000
• Stalin's Killing Field by Benjamin B. Denis MacShane (born 21 May 1948 is a politician in the United Kingdom. History News Network (HNN is a project of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Jamie Glazov (born Yakov Glazov, Russian: ru Яков Глазов, 19 August 1966 in Moscow, Russia) is the managing editor of FrontPage Magazine (also known as FRONTPAGEMAGCOM) is an online conservative political magazine edited by David Horowitz and is published Fischer
• (Polish) Ferdynand Goetel w Katyniu – story of one of the Polish members of the 1943 International Commission
• The Katyn Massacre: An Assesment of its Significance as a Public and Historical Issue in the USA and GB, 1940-1993
• Katyn Photo Galleries
• Stanisław Szukalski sclupture dedicated Katyń memory