Pokolj u Katinskoj umi

Izvor: Wikipedija

Krievi za Katyn, Harkiv i Mednoje

5. oujka 1940.: Memorandum Berije Staljinu s prijedlogom egzekucije poljskih asnika

Sovjetski plakat iz Drugog svjetskog rata koji prikazuje vojnika Crvene armije koji zarobljava poljskog asnika i
"oslobaanje seljaka od gospode"

U pokolju u Katynskoj umi (poljski: zbrodnia katyska, Katy crime; ruski:

), jedinice sovjetskogMinistarstva unutranjih poslova (poznatije kao NKVD) ubile
su vie tisua poljskih asnika. To je bio dio ire akcije NKVD-a u okviru koje je, prema
zapovjedi najueg sovjetskog rukovodstva, ubijeno oko 22.000 poljskih dravljana, asnika,
policajaca, intelektualaca i druge elite. Ubijani su na razliitim mjestima
u Rusiji, Ukrajini i Bjelorusiji. Kako su masovne grobnice kodKatina dugo bile jedine poznate,
openito se itava ova akcija naziva pokoljem kod Katinske ume.
Nakon to je 1943. Wehrmacht otkrio masovne grobnice kod Katina, prekinuti su odnosi
izmeu poljske vlade u emigraciji iSovjetskog saveza. Masakr je koristila propaganda Treeg
Reicha, dok je sovjetsko rukovodstvo pod Staljinom odluno odbijalo svaku vezu s
masakrom, i za njega optuivalo Nijemce. Tek je Mihail Gorbaov 1990. jasno rekao[1], da je
za masakr odgovoran Sovjetski Savez. Ovaj zloin do danas optereuje rusko-poljske
odnose.

Sadraj

1 Uvod
2 Pozadina pokolja
3 Odluka o ubojstvu i motivi
4 Pokolj
5 Period skrivanja pokolja
6 Izvori

Uvod
Nakon to je potpisan Sovjetsko-njemaki sporazum o nenapadanju, uslijedila je sovjetska
okupacija istone Poljske. Tako je u jesen 1939. 14.700 asnika i vojnika poljske vojske i
policije palo u sovjetsko ratno zarobljenitvo.
Dana 5. oujka 1940. lanovi Politbiroa Komunistike partije Sovjetskog
Saveza Staljin, Molotov, Kaganovi, Voroilov, Mikojan,Berija i Kalinin potpisali su zapovijed
za pogubljenje "nacionalista i kontrarevolucionarnih aktivista" u okupiranim podrujima. Ova
iroka definicija omoguila je, pored asnika, vojnika i rezervista, ubojstvo i oko 10.000
poljskih intelektualaca i policajaca. U pismu predsjednika KGB-a Aleksandra eljepina Nikiti
Hruovu u oujku 1959. spominje se broj od 21.857 rtava[2]. Smaknua je izvrio NKVD u
vremenu od 3. travnja do 19. svibnja 1940. godine.[3][4].
Toan broj rtava ovog zloina nije do danas pouzdano utvren.

Pozadina pokolja
Sovjetski Savez je 17. rujna 1939. godine napao Poljsku sa istoka. Napad je izvren dok je
Poljska bila u ratu sa Njemakom koji je poeo 1. rujna 1939. godine i trpjela znaajne
gubitke na zapadnom frontu. Ovaj napad je izvren u skladu sa sporazumom Ribbentrop
Molotov kojim je izvrena podjela interesnih sfera izmeu SSSR-a i Njemake. Zbog brzog
napredovanja Crvene armije koja je naila na slab otpor, izmeu 250.000[5] i
454.700[6] poljskih vojnika je zarobljeno. Oko 250.000 je odmah puteno dok je 125.000
predato NKVD-u. NKVD je odmah oslobodio jo 42.400 vojnika. Oko 170.000 osloboenih
vojnika su bili podrijetlomUkrajinci ili Bjelorusi koji su sluili u poljskoj vojsci. Oko 43.000
vojnika koji su roeni u zapadnom dijelu Poljske (tada pod njemakom kontrolom) je predato
Nijemcima. NKVD je 19. studenog 1939. godine drao oko 40.000 poljskih ratnih
zarobljenika: oko 8.500 asnika, 6.500 policijskih asnika kao i 25.000 vojnika i rezervnih
asnika.[7]
Do oujka 1940. godine stvorena su tri posebna
logora: Kozelsk (), Ostakov ( ) i Starobelsk ( ) u kojima su
se nali skoro svi poljski asnici zarobljeni u SSSR-u kojih je bilo oko 15.000 .
Dugo vremena samo ovo je bilo poznato jer je, na tada zagonetan nain, ovako velika
skupina prestala da daje znake ivota (obitelji su naglo prestale da dobijaju pisma od
zarobljenika). Glasine o masakru koje su poele da se javljaju 1943. godine SSSR je
preuivao ili odluno odbacivao. Tek slabljenje i raspad te drave su dozvolili da se u
potpunosti sazna tok dogaaja.

Odluka o ubojstvu i motivi

Narodni komesar za unutranje poslove SSSR-a Lavrentij Berija je 5. oujka 1940. godine
poslao dokument (794/B) Josipu Staljinu u kojem je poslje tvrdnje da poljski vojni zarobljenici
(14.736 ljudi od toga 97 % Poljaci) kao i zatvorenici u zapadnoj Bjelorusiji iUkrajini (18.632
ljudi - od toga 1.207 asnika i ukupno 57 % Poljaka) predstavljaju deklarirane i beznadeno
nepopravljive neprijatelje sovjetske vlasti, izjavio da NKVD smatra da je razborito da se:

strelja 14.700 vojnih zarobljenika i 11.000 zatvorenika, bez sasluanja, bez iznoenja
optubi i bez odluke o okonanju istrage. [8]
sluaj i donoenje odluka vodi trojka u sastavu: Vsevold Merkulov (upisan posebno,
vjerojatno od strane Staljina iznad precrtanog Berije), Bogdan Kobulov i Leonid
Batakov.

Na dokumentu se nalaze 4 potpisa: Staljinov, Voroilovov, Molotovov i Mikojanov, kao i

dopisano Kalinin za, Kaganovi za. U skladu sa dokumentom Politbiro CK
Komunistike partije Sovjetskog Saveza je istog dana donjeo odluku br. P13/144 sa
sadrinom koju je Berija predloio, ali u kojoj brojke nisu navedene. Ova odluka predstavlja
primjer vansudske presude za oko 26.000 ljudi.
U Kobulovom kabinetu se 14. oujka odrao sastanak. Na njemu je sudjelovala nekolicina
efova okruga NKVD-a. Njima se danas pripisuje pokolj. Berija je 22. oujka izdao naredbu
br. 00350 O rasputanju zatvora NKVD-a u Ukrajini i Bjerusiji. U tim zatvorima veina
zatvorenika su bili poljski asnici i policajci. Iz Moskve su 1. travnja stigla 3 prva pisma
uputstva namenjena logoru u Ostakovu. Ova pisma su sadrala imena 343 osoba i bila su
poetak akcije rasputanja zatvora.

Pokolj

Najvea masovna grobnica u Katinskoj umi

Eshumacija u Katynu 1943. godine snimioMeunarodni odbor Crvenog kria

Gore navedeni nalozi za transport su uglavnom osim nekoliko o premjetanju

u Juhnov (ruski: ) bili smrtne presude. Na osnovu tih naloga su stvarani konvoji, koji
su na razne naine (pjeke, vlakovima ili kamionima) provoeni do mjesta gdje su ljudi
ubijani. Postojalo je pet mjesta gdje su ljudi masovno ubijani, ali dva mjesta su i dalje sporna
poto nema tonih podataka pa se i dalje esto navodi nekoliko lokacija na kojima su te
grupe rtava ubijene. Mjesta zloina su:

Katyn, grad kod Smolenska sa odmaralitem NKVD-a.

Ubijeno 4.410 zatvorenika iz logora Kozelsk, a od tog broja je dio vjerojatno ubijen u
Smolensku u sjeditu NKVD-a. Iz logora su odlazili konvoji u grupama od 50 do 344
ljudi i to od 3. travnja do 12. svibnja. Zadnjeg dana organizirana su 2 konvoja u
kojima je ukupno bilo 205 ljudi i poslana u logor u Juhnovu. Ostali su pobijeni i
sahranjeni u 8 masovnih grobnica. Meu rtvama su bili i: kontradmiral Xawery
Czernicki i generali Bronisaw Bohatyrewicz, Henryk Minkiewicz iMieczysaw
Smorawiski, kao i jedna ena potporunik Janina Lewandowska.
Konvoji su eljeznikom prugom u trajanju od oko 24 sata, preko Smolenska
dovoeni do stanice Gnjazdovo, prisutan svjedok na skoro cijelom putu konvoja 29. i
30. lipnja 1940. godine. je bio profesor Stanisaw Swianiewicz. Sa eljeznike stanice
asnici su autobusom prevoeni na mjesto pokolja, gdje su nad masovnim
grobnicama mlaim i jaim rtvama stavljani injeli preko glave i vezivane ruke
konopom sovjetske proizvodnje isjeenim na jednake dijelove. Potom su iz bliza
ubijani iz pitolja marke Walther, kalibra 7,65 mm, uglavnom pucnjem u zadnji dio
glave; neke rtve su dodatno prebijane sovjetskim bajunetom. Na mjestu ubojstva i
kod grobnica su naene ahure metaka iz spomenutoga pitolja. Masakriranje na
mjestu gdje su rtve sahranjene nije u potpunosti potvreno, a postoje izvori koji
kazuju da je barem dio rtava ubijen u Smolensku, kao i Harkivu. Dokaz za ovaku
tvrdnju moe da bude i to to su tijela u jednoj od masovnih grobnica sloena
drugaije nego u ostalim. Tijela su bila vie zbijena, ljepe sloena i okrenuta licem
na dolje. Ostaci rtava su sahranjeni u 8 masovnih grobnica.

Harkiv, okruno sjedite NKVD-a

Ubijeno 3.739 zatvorenika iz logora u Starobelsku. Iz logora su odlazili konvoji od 5.
travnja do 12. svibnja. Dva konvoja od 25. travnja i 12. svibnja u kojima je ukupno bilo
78 ljudi je poslano u logor u Juhnovu. Ostali su ubijeni i sahranjeni u masovnim
grobnicama u okolini Harkiva, 1,5 kilometara od sela Pjatihatki ( ). Tom
prilikom su ubijeni generali: Leon Billewicz, Stanisaw Haller, Aleksander
Kowalewski, Kazimierz Orlik-ukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Franciszek
Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz i Alojzy Wir-Konas.
Konvoji sa zarobljenicima su vagonima dolazili do Harkiv, a sa eljeznike stanice
automobilima do zatvora NKVD-a. Poslje identifikacije zatvorenicima su vezivane
ruke, potom su uvoeni u dvoranu u kojoj su ubijani pucnjem u potiljak. Tijela ubijenih
su, sa aravima vezanim oko glave, po noi odvoena kamionima i sahranjivana.

Tver, okruno sjedite NKVD-a

Ubijeno 6.314 zatvorenika iz logora u Ostakovu. Iz logora su odlazili konvoji od 4.
travnja do 16. svibnja. Tri konvoja od 29. travnja, 13. i 16. svibnja u kojima je ukupno
bilo 112 osoba je poslano u logor u Juhnovu. Ostali su ubijeni i sahranjeni u preko 20
masovnih grobnica u okolini Tvera u naselju Mednoje ().

Konvoji sa zarobljenicima su pjeice dovoeni preko zaleenog jezera Seliger do

naselja Tupik i eljeznike stanice Soroga, a potom vagonima do Tvera u zgradu
NKVD-a (sada je Tverski medicinski institut). U podrumu je svaki zarobljenik
identificiran, poslje ega je dovoen do tapeciranih vrata. Slino kao i u Harkivu, rtve
su ubijane pucnjem u potiljak iz pitolja marke Walther. Prvi put, kada je doao konvoj
od 390 osuenika egzekutori su imali problema sa ubijanjem tako velikog broja ljudi
pa sljedei konvoji nisu prelazili brojku od 250 osoba. Ostaci ubijenih su odnoeni na
kamione koji su ekali ispred i potom voeni do 32 km udaljenog naselja Mednoje.
Tamo je, na letnjikovcu Tverskog NKVD-a na kraju ume, uz pomo bagera iz
Moskve ve bila pripremljena raka dubine 4-6 m u kojoj je moglo da se smjesti oko
250 posmrtnih ostataka. Leevi su ubaeni u raku poslje ega je bager zatrpavao
leeve i pripremao raku za sljedei dan.

Kijev
Ubijeno 3.435 (po drugim podacima 4.181) zatvorenika iz zapadne Ukrajine.

Minsk, ul. Lenjina 17

Ubijeno 3.870 (po drugim podacima 4.465) zatvorenika iz zapadne Bjelorusije.

U Katiynskom masakru NKVD je pobio skoro polovinu ukupnog broja poljskih asnika[9].
Meu ubijenim asnicima bilo je ukupno 14 generala.[10] Masovno ubistvo je izbeglo jedino
395 (esto se spominje i brojka od 448) zatvorenika[3] koji su prebaeni u logor logor u
Juhnovu. Meu zarobljenicima koji su prebaeni u Juhanov su bili i Stanisaw
Swianiewicz i Jzef Czapskiref name="Fischer"/>.

Period skrivanja pokolja

Poslije izvrenja pokolja, koji je imao status dravne tajne, za obitelji ubijenih je nastupila
nagla tiina, prestala su da stiu pisma, pisma koja su slana ubijenima su se vraala, svaka
proba da se doe do podataka o sudbinama zarobljenika i mjestu gdje se oni nalaze je
nailazila na zid utnje. Poele su da se javljaju razne glasine, izmeu ostalih da su
zarobljenici poslani u logore na sjeveru Rusije, na Zemlju Franje Josipa i Novaju Zemlju i da
su utopljeni u Bjelom moru ili Sjevernom ledenom moru.
U ovom periodu nije se javljala teza koja e ubrzo postati veoma zastupljena o umjeanosti
Nijemaca u sudbinu zarobljenika. Iako su se odnosi Poljske i SSSR-a izmjenili nabolje poslje
napada Njemake na SSSR, Sovjetske vlasti nisu odgovarale na zahtjev poljske vlade da
objasni status zarobljenika.
U ovom periodu se pojavljuje izvjetaj iz 1940. godine koji je premijeru Churchillu poslao
bivi vlasnik Katyna i koji je vidio ubacivanje tijela u jame.

Katyn massacre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katyn-Kharkiv-Mednoye memorial in witokrzyskie Mountains, Poland

Map of the sites related to the Katyn massacre

The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyska, mord
katyski, 'Katy crime'; Russian: Katynskij ra'sstrel 'Katyn shooting'), was a mass
execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD),
the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by NKVD chief Lavrentiy
Beria's proposal to execute all captive members of the Polish Officer Corps, dated 5 March 1940. This
official document was approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including its leader,Joseph Stalin. The
number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, with 21,768 being a lower limit. [1] The victims were
murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere. Of the total killed,
about 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were
police officers, and the rest were arrested Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be "intelligence
agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests".[1]
The term "Katyn massacre" originally referred specifically to the massacre at Katyn Forest, near the villages
of Katyn andGnezdovo (approximately 19 kilometers [12 miles] west of Smolensk, Russia), of Polish military
officers in the Kozelskprisoner-of-war camp. This was the largest of several concurrent executions of
prisoners of war. Other executions were carried out at the geographically
distant Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps, at the NKVD headquarters in Smolensk, and at prisons in Kalinin
(Tver), Kharkiv, Moscow, and other Soviet cities. Still more executions took place at various locations in

Belarus and Western Ukraine, based on special lists of Polish prisoners prepared by the NKVD specifically
for those regions. The investigations of the killings made in the 1990s covered not only the massacre at
Katyn forest, but also the other mass murders mentioned above. Polish organisations such as the Katyn
Committee and the Federation of Katyn Families consider the victims executed at the locations other than
Katyn to be victims of the larger coordinated operation.[1]
The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943.
When the London-basedPolish government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Red
Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it. The Soviet Union claimed the victims had
been murdered by the Nazis, and continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it
officially acknowledged and condemned the perpetration of the killings by the NKVD, as well as the
subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government.[1][2][3][a]
An investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Soviet Union (19901991) and
the Russian Federation (19912004), confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres. It was able to
confirm the deaths of 1,803 Polish citizens but refused to classify this action as a war crime or an act
of genocide. The investigation was closed on grounds that the perpetrators of the massacre were already
dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of Stalinist
repression,formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable.[4] The human rights
society Memorial issued a statement which declared "this termination of investigation is inadmissible" and
that the confirmation of only 1,803 people killed "requires explanation because it is common knowledge that
more than 14,500 prisoners were killed".[5] In November 2010, the Russian State Dumaapproved a
declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the massacre.[6]

Background

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signs theMolotovRibbentrop Pact. Behind him: Ribbentrop and
Stalin.

On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Meanwhile, Britain and France, obligated by
the Polish-British Common Defense Pactand Franco-Polish Military Alliance to attack Germany in the case
of such an invasion, demanded that Germany withdraw. On 3 September 1939, after it failed to do so,
France, Britain, and most countries of the British Empire declared war on Germany but provided little
military support to Poland.[7] They took minimal military action during what became known as the Phoney
War.[8]

The Soviet Union began its own invasion on 17 September, in accordance with the MolotovRibbentrop
Pact. The Red Army advanced quickly and met little resistance,[9] as Polish forces facing them were under
orders not to engage the Soviets. About 250,000[1][10]454,700[11] Polish soldiers and policemen became
prisoners and were interned by the Soviet authorities. Some were freed or escaped quickly, but 125,000
were imprisoned in camps run by the NKVD.[1] Of these, 42,400 soldiers, mostly of Ukrainian and
Belarusian ethnicity serving in the Polish army who lived in the former Polish territories now annexed by the
Soviet Union, were released in October.[10][12][13] The 43,000 soldiers born in western Poland, then under
German control, were transferred to the Germans; in turn the Soviets received 13,575 Polish prisoners from
the Germans.[10][13]
In addition to military and government personnel, other Polish citizens suffered from repressions.
Thousands of members of the Polish intelligentsia were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly being
"intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and
priests".[1] Since Poland's conscription system required every nonexempt university graduate to become a
military reserve officer,[14] the NKVD was able to round up a significant portion of the Polish educated
class.[f] According to estimates by Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), roughly 320,000 Polish citizens
were deported to the Soviet Union (this figure is questioned by some other historians, who hold to older
estimates of about 700,0001,000,000).[15][16] IPN estimates the number of Polish citizens who died under
Soviet rule during World War II at 150,000 (a revision of older estimates of up to 500,000).[15][16] Of the group
of 12,000 Poles sent toDalstroy camp (near Kolyma) in 19401941, most POWs, only 583 men survived,
released in 1942 to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East.[17] According to Tadeusz Piotrowski, "during
the war and after 1944, 570,387 Polish citizens had been subjected to some form of Soviet political
repression".[18]
As early as 19 September, head of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria ordered the secret police to create
the Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees to manage Polish prisoners. The NKVD took
custody of Polish prisoners from the Red Army, and proceeded to organise a network of reception centers
and transit camps and arrange rail transport to prisoner-of-war camps in the western USSR. The largest
camps were located at Kozelsk (Optina Monastery), Ostashkov (Stolbnyi Island on Seliger Lake near
Ostashkov) and Starobelsk. Other camps were at Jukhnovo (rail station Babynino), Yuzhe (Talitsy), rail
station Tyotkino 90 kilometres/56 miles from Putyvl), Kozelshchyna,Oranki, Vologda (rail
station Zaonikeevo), and Gryazovets.[19]

Polish POWs captured by the Red Armyduring Soviet invasion of Poland

Kozelsk and Starobelsk were used mainly for military officers, while Ostashkov was used mainly for Polish
boy scouts, gendarmes, police and prison officers.[20] Some prisoners were members of other groups of
Polish intelligentsia, such as priests, landowners, and law personnel.[20] 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.[21]

According to a report from 19 November 1939, the NKVD had about 40,000 Polish POWs: about 8,000
8,500 officers and warrant officers, 6,0006,500 police officers, and 25,000 soldiers and non-commissioned
officers who were still being held as POWs.[1][13][22] In December, a wave of arrests resulted in the
imprisonment of additional Polish officers. Ivan Serov reported toLavrentiy Beria on 3 December that "in all,
1,057 former officers of the Polish Army had been arrested".[10] The 25,000 soldiers and non-commissioned
officers were assigned to forced labor (road construction, heavy metallurgy).[10]
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. The prisoners
assumed that they would be released soon, but the interviews were in effect a selection process to
determine who would live and who would die.[23][24] According to NKVD reports, if the prisoners could not be
induced to adopt a pro-Soviet attitude, they were declared "hardened and uncompromising enemies of
Soviet authority".[23]
On 5 March 1940, pursuant to a note to Joseph Stalin from Beria, four members of the Soviet Politburo
Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Anastas Mikoyansigned an order to execute 25,700
Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and
Belarus.[25][c] The reason for the massacre, according to historian Gerhard Weinberg, was that Stalin wanted
to deprive a potential future Polish military of a large portion of its 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. 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".[26]
In addition, Soviets realized that the prisoners constituted a large body of trained and motivated Poles who
would not accept a Fourth Partition of Poland.[1]

Executions

Memo from Beria to Stalin, proposing the execution of Polish officers

The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, with a lower limit of confirmed dead of
21,768.[1] According to Soviet documents declassified in 1990, 21,857 Polish internees and prisoners were
executed after 3 April 1940: 14,552 prisoners of war (most or all of them from the three camps) and 7,305
prisoners in western parts of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs.[27][b] Of them 4,421 were from Kozelsk,
3,820 from Starobelsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov, and 7,305 from Byelorussian and Ukrainian
prisons.[27][b] Head of the NKVD POW department, Maj. General P. K. Soprunenko, organized "selections" of
Polish officers to be massacred at Katyn and elsewhere.[28]
Those who died at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258
majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 3,420 Non-commissioned officers, seven chaplains, three
landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, 131 refugees, 20 university professors, 300 physicians;
several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists as well as
about 200 pilots.[23] In all, the NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps.[23] Altogether, during the
massacre the NKVD executed 14 Polish generals:[29] Leon Billewicz (ret.), Bronisaw
Bohatyrewicz (ret.), Xawery Czernicki (admiral),Stanisaw Haller (ret.), Aleksander
Kowalewski (ret.), Henryk Minkiewicz (ret.), Kazimierz Orlik-ukoski, Konstanty Plisowski (ret.),Rudolf
Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski (ret.), Leonard Skierski (ret.), Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysaw
Smorawiski andAlojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). Not all of the executed were ethnic Poles,
because the Second Polish Republic was a multiethnic state, and its officer corps included Belorussians,
Ukrainians, and Jews.[30] It is estimated that about 8% of Katyn massacre victims were Polish Jews.[30] 395
prisoners were spared from the slaughter,[1] among them Stanisaw Swianiewicz andJzef Czapski.[23] They
were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets.[19]

A mass grave at Katyn, 1943

Up to 99% of the remaining prisoners were subsequently murdered. People from the Kozelsk camp were
executed in the Katyn forest; people from the Starobelsk camp were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of
Kharkiv and the bodies were buried near the village of Piatykhatky; and police officers from the Ostashkov
camp were murdered in the internal NKVD prison of Kalinin (Tver) and buried in Mednoye.[19]
Detailed information on the executions in the Kalinin NKVD prison was provided during a hearing by Dmitrii
Tokarev, former head of the Board of the District NKVD in Kalinin. According to Tokarev, the shooting
started in the evening and ended at dawn. The first transport on 4 April 1940, carried 390 people, and the
executioners had difficulty killing so many people in one night. The following transports held no more than
250 people. The executions were usually performed with German-made 7.6517mm Walther PPK pistols
supplied by Moscow, but 7.6238mmR Nagant M1895 revolvers were also used.[31] The executioners used
German weapons rather than the standard Soviet revolvers, as the latter were said to offer too much recoil,
which made shooting painful after the first dozen executions.[32] Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin,
chief executioner for the NKVDand quite possibly the most prolific executioner in historyis reported to
have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, some as young as 18, from the Ostashkov camp
at Kalinin prison over a period of 28 days in April 1940.[28][33]
The killings were methodical. After the personal information of the condemned was checked, he was
handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with stacks of sandbags along the walls and a felt-lined, heavy door.
The victim was told to kneel in the middle of the cell, was then approached from behind by the executioner
and immediately shot in the back of the head. The body was carried out through the opposite door and laid
in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside and subject to the
same fate. In addition to muffling by the rough insulation in the execution cell, the pistol gunshots were also
masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night. This procedure went on
every night, except for the May Day holiday.[34]
Some 3,000 to 4,000 Polish inmates of Ukrainian prisons and those from Belarus prisons were probably
buried in Bykivnia and in Kurapaty respectively.[35] Lieutenant Janina Lewandowska, daughter of Gen. Jzef
Dowbor-Municki, was the only woman executed during the massacre at Katyn.[34][36]

Discovery
Secretary of State of the Vichy regimeFernand de Brinon and others in Katyn at the graves of Mieczysaw
Smorawiski andBronisaw Bohatyrewicz, April 1943

The question about the fate of the Polish prisoners was raised soon after the Axis invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941. ThePolish government-in-exile and the Soviet government signed the Sikorski-Mayski
Agreement which announced the willingness of both to fight together against Nazi Germany and for a Polish
army to be formed on Soviet territory. The Polish general Wadysaw Anders began organizing this army,

and soon he requested information about the missing Polish officers. During a personal meeting, Stalin
assured him and Wadysaw 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.[37][38]
In 1942, with the territory around Smolensk under German occupation, captive Polish railroad workers
heard from the locals about a mass grave of Polish soldiers at Kozelsk near Katyn, found one of the graves,
and reported it to the Polish Secret State.[39] The discovery was not seen as important, as nobody thought
that the discovered grave could contain so many victims.[39] In early 1943,Rudolf von Gersdorff, a German
officer serving as the intelligence liaison between the Wehrmacht's Army Group Center and Abwehr,
received reports about mass graves of Polish military officers. These reports stated the graves were in the
forest of Goat Hill near Katyn. He passed the reports to his superiors (sources vary on when exactly the
Germans became aware of the graves from "late 1942" to JanuaryFebruary 1943, and when the
German top decision makers in Berlin received those reports [as early as 1 March or as late as 4
April]).[40] Joseph Goebbels saw this discovery as an excellent tool to drive a wedge between Poland,
Western Allies, and the Soviet Union, and reinforce the Nazi propaganda line about the horrors of
Bolshevism and American and British subservience to it.[41] After extensive preparation, on 13 April, Berlin
Radio broadcast to the world that German military forces in the Katyn forest near Smolensk had uncovered
a ditch that was "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".[42] The broadcast went on to charge the Soviets with carrying out the
massacre in 1940.[42]

Polish banknotes and epaulets recovered from mass graves

The Germans brought in a European Red Cross committee called the Katyn Commission consisting of
twelve forensic experts and their staff from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Croatia,
the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, andHungary.[43] They were so intent on proving that the
Soviets were behind the massacre that they even included some Allied prisoners of war, among them
writer Ferdynand Goetel, the Polish AK prisoner from Pawiak.[44] After the war, Goetel escaped with a fake
passport due to an arrest warrant issued against him; two of the twelve, the Bulgarian, Marko Markov and
the Czech,Frantisek Hajek, with their countries becoming satellite states of the Soviet Union, were forced to
recant their evidence, defending the Soviets and blaming the Germans.[45] The Katyn massacre was
beneficial to Nazi Germany, which used it to discredit the Soviet Union. On 14 April 1943 Goebbels wrote in
his diary: "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered by the GPU, for antiBolshevik propaganda on a grand style. We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot
where they were found. Their reports now reaching us from ahead are gruesome. The Fhrer 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".[46] The Germans won a major propaganda victory, portraying communism as a danger toWestern
civilization.

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 15 April to the initial German
broadcast of 13 April, prepared by the Soviet Information Bureau, stated that "Polish prisoners-of-war who
in 1941 were engaged in construction work west of Smolensk and who...fell into the hands of the GermanFascist hangmen".[47]

Katyn exhumation, 1943

In April 1943 the Polish government-in-exile insisted on bringing the matter to the negotiation table with the
Soviets and on opening an investigation by the International Red Cross.[48] Stalin, in response, accused the
Polish government of collaborating with Nazi Germany, broke off diplomatic relations with it, [49][50] and
started a campaign to get the Western Allies to recognize the alternative Polish pro-Soviet government in
Moscow led by Wanda Wasilewska.[51] Sikorski died in an air crash in Julyan event that was convenient
for the Allied leaders.[52]

Soviet actions
When, in September 1943, Goebbels was informed that the German army had to withdraw from the Katyn
area, he wrote a prediction in his diary. His entry for 29 September 1943 reads: "Unfortunately we have had
to give up Katyn. 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". [46]
Having retaken the Katyn area almost immediately after the Red Army had recaptured Smolensk, around
SeptemberOctober 1943, NKVD forces began a cover-up operation.[23][53] A cemetery the Germans had
permitted the Polish Red Cross to build was destroyed and other evidence removed.[23] Witnesses were
"interviewed", and threatened with arrest for collaborating with the Germans if their testimonies disagreed
with the official line.[53][54] As none of the documents found on the dead had dates later than April 1940 the
Soviet secret police planted false evidence to push the apparent time of the massacre back to the summer
of 1941, when the Germans controlled the area.[54] A preliminary report was issued by NKVD
operatives Vsevolod Merkulov and Sergei Kruglov, dated 1011 January 1944, concluding that the Polish
officers were shot by the Germans.[53]
In January 1944, the Soviet Union sent another commission, the Special Commission for Determination and
Investigation of the Shooting of Polish Prisoners of War by German-Fascist Invaders in Katyn
Forest (Russian:
-

, Spetsial'naya Kommissiya po ustanovleniyu i rassledovaniyu obstoyatel'stv rasstrela nemetskofashistskimi zakhvatchikami v Katynskom lesu voyennoplennyh polskih ofitserov) to the site; the very name

of the commission implied a predestined conclusion.[23][53][54] It was headed by Nikolai Burdenko, the
President of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (hence the commission is often known as the
"Burdenko Commission"), who was appointed by Moscow, to investigate the incident.[23][53] Its members
included prominent Soviet figures such as the writer Alexei Tolstoy, but no foreign personnel were allowed
to join the Commission.[23][53] The Burdenko Commission exhumed the bodies, rejected the 1943 German
findings that the Poles were shot by the Soviets, assigned the guilt to the Germans and concluded that all
the shootings were done by German occupation forces in autumn of 1941.[23] Despite lack of evidence, it
also blamed the Germans for shooting Russian prisoners of war used as labor to dig the pits. [23] It is
uncertain how many members of the commission were misled by the falsified reports and evidence, and
how many suspected the truth; Cienciala and Materski note that the Commission had no choice but to issue
findings in line with the Merkulov-Kruglov report, and that Burdenko himself likely was aware of the coverup. He reportedly admitted something like that to friends and family shortly before his death. [53][53] The
Burdenko commission's conclusions would be consistently cited by Soviet sources until the official
admission of guilt by the Soviet government on 13 April 1990.[53]
In January 1944, the Soviets also invited a group of more than a dozen mostly American and British
journalists, accompanied by Kathleen Harriman, the daughter of the new American ambassador W. Averell
Harriman), and John Melby, third secretary at the American embassy in Moscow, to Katyn.[54] That Melby
and Harriman were included was regarded by some at the time as an attempt by the Soviets to lend official
weight to their propaganda.[54] Melby's report noted the deficiencies in the Soviet case: problematic
witnesses; attempts to question the witnesses were discouraged; statements by witnesses were obviously
given as a result of rote memorization and "the show was put on for the benefit of the correspondents".
Nevertheless Melby, at the time, felt that on balance the Russian case was convincing.[54] Harriman's report
reached the same conclusion and both were asked to explain after the war why their conclusions seemed to
be at odds with their findings, with the suspicion that the conclusions were those the State Department
wanted to hear.[54] The journalists were less impressed, and not totally convinced by the staged Soviet
demonstration.[54]

Western response

British, Canadian, and American officers (POWs) brought by the Germans to view the exhumations

The growing Polish-Soviet tension was beginning to strain Western-Soviet relations at a time when the
Poles' importance to the Allies, significant 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, both British Prime Minister Winston Churchill andU.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt were increasingly torn between their commitments to their Polish ally and the demands by Stalin
and his diplomats.[55]

In private, Churchill agreed that the atrocity was likely carried out by the Soviets. According to Edward
Raczyski, Churchill admitted on April 15, 1943, during a conversation with General Sikorski: "Alas, the
German revelations are probably true. The Bolsheviks can be very cruel".[56] However, at the same time, on
24 April 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. Such investigation would
be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism".[57] 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 Soviets, up to censoring any contradictory
accounts.[58] Churchill asked Owen O'Malley to investigate the issue, but in a note to the Foreign Secretary
he noted: "All this is merely to ascertain the facts, because we should none of us ever speak a word about
it."[54] O'Malley pointed out several inconsistencies and near impossibilities in the Soviet version. [54] Later,
Churchill sent a copy of the report to Roosevelt on 13 August 1943. The report deconstructed the Soviet
account of the massacre and alluded to the political consequences within a strongly moral framework but
recognized there was no viable alternative to the existing policy. No comment by Roosevelt on the O'Malley
report has been found.[59]Churchill's own post-war account of the Katyn affair gives little further insight. In
his memoirs, he refers to the 1944 Soviet inquiry into the massacre, which found the Germans responsible,
and adds, "belief seems an act of faith".[60]

Nazi propaganda poster depicting executions of Polish military officers by theSoviets, with caption
in Slovak: "Forest of the dead at Katyn"

At the beginning of 1944, Ron Jeffery, an agent of British and Polish intelligence in occupied Poland, eluded
the Abwehr and travelled to London with a report from Poland to the British government. His efforts were at
first highly regarded, but subsequently ignored by the British, which a disillusioned Jeffery attributed to the
treachery of Kim Philby and other high-ranking communist agents entrenched in the British system. Jeffery
tried to inform the British government about the Katyn massacre but was as a result released from the
Army.[61]
In the United States a similar line was taken, notwithstanding two official intelligence reports into the Katyn
massacre which contradicted the official position. In 1944, Roosevelt assigned his special emissary to
the Balkans, Navy Lieutenant CommanderGeorge Earle, to produce a report on Katyn.[23] Earle concluded
that the massacre was committed by the Soviet Union.[23] Having consulted with Elmer Davis, the director of
the Office of War Information, Roosevelt rejected the conclusion (officially), declared that he was convinced

of Nazi Germany's responsibility, and ordered that Earle's report be suppressed. When Earle formally
requested permission to publish his findings, the President issued a written order to desist. [23] Earle was
reassigned and spent the rest of the war in American Samoa.[23]
A further report in 1945, supporting the same conclusion, was produced and stifled. In 1943, two U.S.
POWs Lt. Col. Donald B. Stewart and Col. John H. Van Vliet had been taken by Germans to Katyn for
an international news conference.[62] Documents released by the US National Archives in September 2012
revealed that Steward and Van Vliet sent coded messages to their American superiors indicating that they
saw proof that implicated the Soviets. Three lines of evidence were cited. Firstly, the Polish corpses were in
such an advanced state of decay that the Nazis could not have killed the Poles, as they had only taken over
the area in 1941. Secondly, none of the numerous Polish artifacts, such as letters, diaries and identification
tags pulled from the graves, were dated later than the spring of 1940. Most incriminating was the relatively
good state of the men's uniforms and boots, which showed that they had not lived long after being captured.
Later, in 1945, Van Vliet submitted a report concluding that the Soviets were responsible for the massacre.
His superior, Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell, Gen. George Marshall's assistant chief of staff for intelligence,
destroyed the report.[63] Washington kept the information secret, presumably to appease Stalin and not
distract from the war against the Nazis.[64][65] During the 195152 Congressional investigation into Katyn,
Bissell defended his action beforeCongress, arguing that it was not in the U.S. interest to antagonize an ally
(Soviet Union) whose assistance was still needed against Japan.[23]

At the Nuremberg trials

From 28 December 1945 to 4 January 1946, seven Wehrmacht servicemen were tried by a Soviet military
court in Leningrad. One of them, Arno Dre, who was charged with murdering numerous civilians using
machine-guns in Soviet villages, confessed to having taken part in burial (though not the execution) of
15,000 to 20,000 Polish POWs in Katyn. For this he was spared 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 trials. He later recanted his confession, claiming that he was forced to confess by the
investigators.[66]
At the London conference that drew up the indictments of German war crimes before the Nuremberg trials,
the Soviet negotiators put forward the allegation, "In September 1941, 925 Polish officers who were
prisoners of war were killed in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk". The U.S. negotiators agreed to include it,
but were "embarrassed" by the inclusion (noting that the allegation had been debated extensively in the
press) and concluded that it would be up to the Soviets to sustain it.[67] At the trials in 1946, Soviet
General Roman Rudenko, raised the indictment, 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,"[68] but failed to make the case and the U.S.
and British judges dismissed the charges.[69] 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.[70]

Cold War views

1973 newsreel about the massacre

In 1951 and 1952, with the Korean War as a background, a U.S. Congressional investigation chaired by
Rep. Ray J. Madden and known as the Madden Committee investigated the Katyn massacre. It concluded
that the Poles had been killed by the Soviet NKVD[23] and recommended that the Soviets be tried before
the International Court of Justice.[62] However, the question of responsibility still remained controversial in
the West as well as behind the Iron Curtain. 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. It has also been alleged that the choice made in 1969 for the location of the Byelorussian
SSR war memorial at the former Belarusian village named Khatyn, a site of a 1943 Nazi massacre was
made to cause confusion with Katyn.[71][72] The two names are similar or identical in many languages, and
were often confused.[23][73]
In Poland, the pro-Soviet authorities covered up the matter in accordance with the official Soviet
propaganda line, deliberately censoring any sources that might provide information about the crime. Katyn
was a forbidden topic in postwar Poland. Censorship in the People's Republic of Poland was a massive
undertaking and Katyn was specifically mentioned in the "Black Book of Censorship" used by the authorities
to control the media and academia. Not only did government censorship suppress all references to it, but
even mentioning the atrocity was dangerous. In the late 1970s, democracy groups like the Workers'
Defence Committee and the Flying University defied the censorship and discussed the massacre, in the
face of beatings, arrests, detentions, and ostracism.[74] In 1981, Polish trade union Solidarity erected a
memorial with the simple inscription "Katyn, 1940". It was confiscated by the police and replaced with an
official monument with the inscription: "To the Polish soldiersvictims of Hitlerite fascismreposing in the
soil of Katyn". Nevertheless, every year on All Souls Day, similar memorial crosses were erected
at Powzki cemetery and numerous other places in Poland, only to be dismantled by the police. Katyn
remained a political taboo in communist Poland until the fall of communism in 1989.[23]
In the Soviet Union during the 1950s, the head of KGB, Aleksandr Shelepin proposed and carried out the
destruction of many documents related to the Katyn massacre in order to minimize the chance that the truth
would be revealed.[75][76] His 3 March 1959 note to Nikita Khrushchev, with information about the execution
of 21,857 Poles and with the proposal to destroy their personal files, became one of the documents that
were preserved and eventually made public.[75][76][77][78][b]

Revelations
From the late 1980s on there was increasing pressure on both the Polish and Soviet governments to
release documents related to the massacre. 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.[23] 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 and confirmed two other burial sites similar to
the site at Katyn: Mednoye and Piatykhatky.

Monument in Katowice, Poland, memorializing "Katyn, Kharkv, 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 the Polish
association Families of Katy Victims, to visit the Katyn memorial. This group included former U.S. national
security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. A mass was held and banners hailing the Solidarity movement were
laid. 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.[79] 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 Katy. 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.[80]
Brzezinski further stated that:
The fact that the Soviet government has enabled me to be hereand the Soviets know my viewsis
symbolic of the breach with Stalinism that perestroika represents.[81]
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".[82]
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.[83][a] The day was declared a
worldwide Katyn Memorial Day (Polish: wiatowy Dzie Pamici Ofiar Katynia).[84]

Official investigations
After Poles and Americans discovered further evidence in 1991 and 1992, Russian President Boris
Yeltsin released the top-secret documents from the sealed "Package 1." and transferred them to the new
Polish president Lech Wasa.[23][85] Among the documents was a proposal by Lavrenty Beria, dated 5

March 1940, to execute 25,700 Poles from Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobels camps, and from certain
prisons of Western Ukraine and Belarus, signed by Stalin (among others).[d][23][85] Another document
transferred to the Poles was Aleksandr Shelepin's 3 March 1959 note to Nikita Khrushchev, with information
about the execution of 21,857 Poles, as well as a proposal to destroy their personal files to reduce the
possibility that documents related to the massacre would be uncovered later.[78][b] The revelations were also
publicized in the Russian press, where they were interpreted as being one outcome of an ongoing power
struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev.[85]
In 1991 the Chief Military Prosecutor for the Soviet Union began proceedings against P. K. Soprunenko for
his role in the Katyn murders, but eventually declined to prosecute because Soprunenko was 83, almost
blind, and recovering from a cancer operation. During the interrogation, Soprunenko defended himself by
denying his own signature.[28]

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

During Kwaniewski's visit to Russia in September 2004, Russian officials announced that they were willing
to transfer all the information on the Katyn massacre to the Polish authorities as soon as it became
declassified.[86] In March 2005 the Prosecutor-Generals Office of the Russian Federation concluded a
decade-long investigation of the massacre. Chief Military ProsecutorAlexander Savenkov announced that
the investigation was able to confirm the deaths of 1,803 out of 14,542 Polish citizens who had been
sentenced to death while in three Soviet camps.[87] 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, that
Soviet officials who had been found guilty of the crime were dead and that, consequently, "there is
absolutely no basis to talk about this in judicial terms". 116 out of 183 volumes of files gathered during the
Russian investigation, were declared to contain state secrets and were classified. [5][88]
On 22 March 2005 the Polish Sejm unanimously passed an act requesting the Russian archives to be
declassified.[89] The Sejm also requested Russia to classify the Katyn massacre as a crime of
genocide.[90] 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."[90]
In late 2007 and early 2008, several Russian newspapers, including Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya
Pravda, andNezavisimaya Gazeta printed stories that implicated the Nazis for the crime, spurring concern
that this was done with the tacit approval of the Kremlin.[91] As a result, the Polish Institute of National
Remembrance decided to open its own investigation.[1]
In 2008, the Polish Foreign Ministry asked the government of Russia about alleged footage of the massacre
filmed by the NKVD during the killings. Polish officials believe that this footage, as well as further documents

showing cooperation of Soviets with the Gestapo during the operations, are the reason for Russia's decision
to classify most of the documents about the massacre.[92]
In the following years, 81 volumes of the case were declassified and transferred to the Polish government.
As of 2012,[93] 35 out of 183 volumes of files remain classified.[94]

Further court hearings

In June 2008, Russian courts consented to hear a case about the declassification of documents about
Katyn and the judicial rehabilitation of the victims. In an interview with a Polish newspaper, Vladimir Putin
called Katyn a "political crime".[95]
On 21 April 2010 the Russian Supreme Court ordered the Moscow City Court to hear an appeal in an
ongoing Katyn legal case.[96] A civil rights group, Memorial, said the ruling could lead to a court decision to
open up secret documents providing details about the killings of thousands of Polish officers. [96] On 8 May
2010, Russia handed over to Poland 67 volumes of the "criminal case No.159", launched in the 1990s to
investigate the Soviet-era mass killings of Polish officers. The copies of 67 volumes, each having about 250
pages, were packed in six boxes. With each box weighting approximately 12 kg (26.5 lb), the total weight of
all the documents stood at about 70 kg (154 lb). Russian President Dmitry Medvedev handed one of the
volumes to the acting Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski. Medvedev and Komorowski agreed that the
two states should continue their efforts in revealing the truth over the tragedy. The Russian president
reiterated that Russia would continue declassifying documents on the Katyn massacre. The acting Polish
president said that Russia's move might lay a good foundation for improving bilateral relations.[97]
In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights declared admissible two complaints of relatives of the
massacre victims against Russia concerning adequacy of the official investigation.[98] In a ruling on 16 April
2012, the court found that Russia had violated the rights of victims' relatives by not providing them with
sufficient information about the investigation and described the massacre as a "war crime". However, it also
refused to judge the effectiveness of the Soviet-Russian investigation because the related events took place
prior to Russia ratifying the Human Rights Convention in 1998.[99]

Polish-Russian relations
Russia and Poland remained divided on the legal description of the Katyn crime. The Poles considered it a
case of genocide and demanded further investigations, as well as complete disclosure of Soviet
documents.[90][100]
In June 1998, Boris Yeltsin and Aleksander Kwaniewski agreed to construct memorial complexes at Katyn
and Mednoye, the two NKVD execution sites on Russian soil. However, in September of that year the
Russians also raised the issue of Soviet prisoner of war deaths in the camps for Russian prisoners and
internees in Poland (19191924). About 16,000 to 20,000 POWs died in those camps due to communicable
diseases.[101] Some Russian officials argued that it was "a genocide comparable to Katyn".[23] 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".[102]
On 4 February 2010 the Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, invited his Polish counterpart, Donald
Tusk, to attend a Katyn memorial service in April.[103] The visit took place on 7 April 2010, when Tusk and
Putin together commemorated the 70th anniversary of the massacre.[104] Before the visit, the 2007

film Katy was shown on Russian state television for the first time. The Moscow Times commented that the
film's premiere in Russia was likely a result of Putin's intervention. [105]
On 10 April 2010, an aircraft carrying Polish President Lech Kaczyski with his wife and 87 other politicians
and high-ranking army officers crashed in Smolensk, killing all 96 aboard the aircraft.[106] The passengers
were to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. The Polish nation was
stunned; Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was not on the plane, referred to the crash as "the most tragic
Polish event since the war." In the aftermath, a number of conspiracy theories began to circulate.[107] The
catastrophe has also had major echoes in the international and particularly the Russian press, prompting a
rebroadcast of Katy on Russian television.[108]The Polish President, Lech Kaczyski was to deliver a
speech at the formal commemorations. The speech was to honour the victims, highlight the significance of
the massacres in the context of post-war communist political history, as well as stress the need for Polish
Russian relations to focus on reconciliation. Although the speech was never delivered, it has been
published with a narration in the original Polish[109] and a translation has also been made available in
English.[110]
In November 2010, the State Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament) passed a resolution declaring
that long-classified documents "showed that the Katyn crime was carried out on direct orders of Stalin and
other Soviet officials". The declaration also called for the massacre to be investigated further in order to
confirm the list of victims. Members of the Duma from the Communist Party denied that the Soviet Union
had been to blame for the Katyn massacre and voted against the declaration.[6] On 6 December 2010,
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed commitment to uncovering the whole truth about the
massacre, stating "Russia has recently taken a number of unprecedented steps towards clearing up the
legacy of the past. We will continue in this direction".[111]
Still, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, as well as a number of other pro-Soviet Russian
politicians and commentators continue to deny all Soviet guilt, call the released documents fakes, insist that
the original Soviet versionPolish prisoners were shot by Germans in August 1941is the correct one, and
call on the Russian government to start a new investigation that would revise the findings of the one
concluded on 2004.[112][113][114]

Memorials

Katyn Memorial, Cannock Chase,Staffordshire, UK

Several memorials of the massacre have been erected worldwide. During the Cold War, the British
government objected to plans to build a major Katyn monument in the UK.[115][116][117] The Soviet Union did
not want the Katyn massacre to be remembered, and demanded that the British government prevent the
erection of the monument.[117][118][e] The British government did not want to antagonize the Soviets, and the
construction of the monument was delayed for many years.[115][116] When the local community secured the

right to build the monument, no government representative was present at the ceremony (although
representative of the British Conservative Party opposition were present).[115][116][117] A monument was finally
unveiled on 18 September 1976 at theGunnersbury Cemetery amid controversy.[117][119] Another memorial in
the UK was erected three years later, in 1979, in Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.[120] A memorial tablet
by Ronald Sims has also been installed in the Airmens Chapel within Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire.
There is a large Polish community in the county and each year a service is held to remember the massacre.
In 2000, the memorial at the Katyn war cemetery was opened in Russia.[121][122] Previously, the site featured
a monument dedicated to the "victims of the Hitlerites".[121] In Canada, a large metal sculpture has been
erected in the Polish community ofRoncesvalles in Toronto, Ontario, to commemorate the
killings.[123] In South Africa, a memorial in Johannesburg commemorates the victims of Katyn as well as
South African and Polish airmen who flew missions to drop supplies for the Warsaw Uprising.[124]

Katyn Memorial, Pksw Brzyzek cemetery, Zakopane, Poland

In Wrocaw, Poland, a composition by Polish sculptor Tadeusz Tchrzewski is dedicated to those killed at
Katyn. Unveiled in 2000, it is located in a park east of the city's centre, near the Racawice
Panorama building. It shows the 'Matron of the Homeland' despairing over a dead soldier, while on a higher
plinth the angel of death looms over, leaning forward on a sword.[125]
In the United States, a golden statue known as the National Katyn Massacre Memorial, is located
in Baltimore, Maryland, on Aliceanna Street at Inner Harbor East.[126] Polish-Americans in Detroit erected a
small white-stone memorial in the form of a cross with a plaque at theSt. Albertus Roman Catholic
Church.[127] A statue, the Katy Memorial, commemorating the massacre has also been erected
at Exchange Place on the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey.[128] Other memorial statues are located
in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and Niles, Illinois.[127]
In Ukraine, a memorial complex was erected to honor the over 4300 officer victims of the Katy massacre
murdered in Pyatykhatky, 14 kilometres/8.7 miles north of Kharkiv in Ukraine; the complex lies in a corner of
a former resort home for NKVD officers. Children had discovered hundreds of Polish officer buttons whilst
playing on the site.[129]

In art and literature

The Katyn massacre is a major element in many works of film, literature and the fine arts. The first book in
English, titled "The Katyn Wood Murders", was published by Polish migr Jzef Mackiewicz in 1951 in
New York. It is central to the plot in the W.E.B. Griffin novel The Lieutenants, which is part of

the Brotherhood of War series. The cover-up of the massacre by the Allies is a central plot point in Robert
Harris's novel Enigma and the 2001 film of the same name. Philip Kerr's 2013 novel A Man Without Breath,
the ninth in his successful Bernie Gunther series, has Gunther investigating the massacre with Wehrmacht
War Crimes Bureau in and around occupied Smolensk in 1943. James R. Benn's Rag and Bone (Billy Boyle
series) uses the Katyn Massacre as a central plot element. Polish poet Jacek Kaczmarski has dedicated
one of his sung poems to this event.[130] In a bold political statement during the height of the Cold War,
Serbian film director and screenwriter Duan Makavejev used original Nazi footage in his 1974 film Sweet
Movie. The Polish composer Andrzej Panufnikwrote an orchestral score in 1967 called "Katyn Epitaph" in
memory of the massacre.[131]
In 2000 U.S. filmmaker Steven Fischer produced a 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 Boena Jdrzejczak. It was honored with
an Emmy nomination.[132]
The 1999 Academy Honorary Award recipient, Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, whose father, Captain
Jakub Wajda, was murdered in the NKVD prison of Kharkiv, made a film depicting the event, Katyn. It
focuses on the fate of some of the mothers, wives and daughters of the Polish officers killed by the Soviets.
Some of the Katyn Forest executions were re-enacted. The screenplay is based on Andrzej Mularczyk's
book Post mortemthe Katyn story. The film was produced by Akson Studio, and released in Poland on 21
September 2007. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008 for the Best Foreign Language Film.[133]
In 2008 British historian Laurence Rees produced a six-hour BBC/PBS television documentary series
entitled World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West. The Katyn massacre was a
central theme of the series.[134][135]