KATYN MASSACRE: SOVIET NKVD KILLING FIELDS

VEIL OF SECRECY

The Katyn Massacre was one of the most heinous crimes ever committed against the Polish nation by the infamous Soviet NKVD. Even after seventy-two years the tragedy of Katyn elicits little if any attention by the West. A veil of secrecy was cast upon Katyn during WWII, by Anglo-American politicians in an effort to maintain and nurture the tenuous alliance or collaboration of their Soviet counterparts. Their objective was to win the war against the Nazis at whatever cost. Extraordinary measures were taken by Churchill and Roosevelt to portray Stalin as a friend of the West, going so far as to refer to him as "Uncle Joe". But there was nothing benign about Stalin. He was by far the most evil dictator and mass murderer, outranking even the perverted insanity of Hitler.

THE MOST EVIL MASS MURDERS IN HISTORY

Stalin decreed the deaths and execution of millions of people. Though statistics vary among historians, the total numbers are quite likely closer to 40 million, which included the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, executions , purges, deportations, and deaths by starvation and overwork of prisoners held at gulag camps. Among the victims were Polish nationals - Jews as well as Christians, as well as Russians and other nationals.

Notebook: Great Names in Russian History

What is most disturbing is that there are many Russian people today who glorify Stalin. In a Russian survey, Stalin was ranked third by a television audience as one of the greatest men in Russian history. Particularly worrisome is the recent sale of school notebooks targeted to young Russian students, depicting the image of Stalin on the front cover - blatant propaganda.(Thankfully, many Russian citizens and ministers of government have voiced their opposition to this trend.)

NAZI-SOVIET INVASION

POLISH OFFICERS CAPTURED BY RED ARMY SEPT 1939

On September 1, 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland from the north, west and south and seventeen days later the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland from the east, partitioning Poland in two - the result of a secret pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop) signed on August 23, 1939 between Germany and Russia. Their objective was to eliminate the Polish state, beginning with its leaders, military and intelligentsia. While the Nazis inflicted their reign of terror against the Polish people in the west, the Soviets swept through eastern Poland arresting and deporting from 250,000 to 454,700 Polish soldiers, officers, and policemen to Russian gulags. Many Polish were able to escape but about 125,000 remained imprisoned in Soviet NKVD camps. By 1941 over 1.5 million Polish people, citizens and military men had been deported to the work camps and gulags. Hundreds of thousands were either executed, or perished from the severe cold, disease, and starvation.



VICTIMS OF THE KATYN MASSACRE

In March of 1940, upon the recommendations of the NKVD Chief, Lavrenti Beria, Stalin decreed the execution of thousands of Poles. About 20,000 Polish prisoners were massacred, including an admiral, 14 generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captain, 3,420 NCO's, 200 pilots, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, 131 refugees, 20 university professors, 300 physicians, several hundred lawyers, engineers, teachers, more than 100 writers and journalists, priests, artists, judges, an Olympic athlete, and the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army.

PHOTOS OF A FEW OF THE POLISH OFFICERS WHO WERE MURDERED AT KATYN

After decades of denial, on April 13, 1990 the Soviet Union finally admitted that the Stalinist regime was responsible for the massacres but it wasn't until April 2011 that declassified documents confirmed the gruesome statistics: 21,857 Polish internees were executed after April 3, 1940. Of the total number, 4,421 were from Kozelsk, 3,820 from Starobelsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov and 7,305 from prisons in Belarus and the Ukraine. Among the victims was one woman. About 8% of the victims of the Katyn massacre were Polish Jews.

According to sources, the NKVD spared the lives of 395 Polish prisoners, although no mention has been made of their names other than that of Stanislaw Swianiewicz and Jozef Czapski, both of whom were transported first to camp Yukhnov and then to Gryazovets.


COLD-BLOODED MURDER

Katyn Executioner Vasili Blokhin

Under the command of Major General P.K. Sprunenko, head of the NKVD POW department, Polish prisoners were organized into "selections" or groups and were executed at various locations including at Katyn. One of the locations was at the NKVD headquarters in Kalinin, Russia (Tver). Thousands of Polish prisoners were summoned one by one to appear in the presence of Vasili Blokhin, Soviet Major-General and the official NKVD executioner. Blokhin was personally responsible for devising and carrying out the system of executing as many Polish prisoners as possible. In April 1940, the NKVD shot 300 Polish prisoners per night for 28 consecutive nights.


It was a scene from a macabre nightmare. The walls of the execution room were heavily padded to ensure soundproofing. The floor was constructed of concrete and tilted at a sloping angle and was installed with a drain and a hose. One by one the Polish prisoners were led to a small red antechamber which the Soviets referred to as the "Leninist room". There, each prisoner was subjected to a brief identification, after which they were handcuffed and led to the next room - where the execution would take place.

Each prisoner was shoved against a log wall and without any formalities, or reading of sentence, Blokhin, wearing a leather butcher's apron, cap and shoulder-length gloves, entered the room, took aim with his pistol and shot each prisoner once at the base of his skull. It was done very quickly and efficiently with no interruptions. Blothkin later boasted that he averaged one prisoner every 3 minutes.

To add to the horror, Blokhin carried around his own briefcase filled with pistols. He had particular preference for the German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol, because he considered them more reliable under heavy use. As a matter of fact, this choice in weaponry provided the NKVD with a plausible argument in denying Soviet culpability when the grave sites were discovered by the Germans in 1943. It was fairly easy for the Soviets to convince everyone that the Germans were responsible, since the Walther pistol was standard issue to Nazi agents.

NKVD EXECUTION ROOM TVER

After each execution, the NKVD agents or guards would then drag the bodies of the Polish soldiers from the room and hose down the floor of all the blood. This scene was repeated continuously throughout the night until just before dawn the next day. The corpses were taken through the back door of the execution room and loaded onto covered flat-bed trucks. Twice each night these trucks drove to Mednoye where the bodies were dumped into large trenches that had been prepared in advance. Blokhin made arrangements for a bulldozer to be sent to the site with two drivers who dug up at least 24 trenches measuring a total of eight to ten meters. By daybreak the graves had all been covered up with earth. The NKVD worked this way without stopping for ten hours throughout the night and at dawn, Blokhin rewarded his accomplices with vodka.


Thousands more Polish prisoners were executed in Katyn forest. They had been told that they were being repatriated to Poland. The first group boarded a train, but strangely it was not travelling east but rather westward. Trains arrived at Gniezdowo station about 18 kilometers from Smolensk, others reached Smolensk, just outside of Katyn forest. From there the Polish prisoners were herded into black vans, with the windows blurred, and driven to a clearing in the woods. When they stepped out of the van, NKVD agents forced them to kneel at the edge of a huge pit. Their hands were tied behind their backs with rope or wire, and a choke knot tied around their necks and hands to prevent them from struggling.  They were surrounded by dozens of NKVD agents, who systematically shot each Polish man at the back of the head, and dumping their bodies into the open pit. These massacres went on continuously throughout several weeks. By mid-May over 4,500 Polish officers had been executed and buried in eight large mass graves, the largest one containing 12 layers of corpses.

KATYN MASSACRE - HANDS TIED BEHIND BACK - CORPSE OF POLISH OFFICER

Corpses of Polish Officers Exhumed from Mass Graves April 1943 KATN FOREST

Sir Owen O'Malley, the British Ambassador to the Polish government-in-exile, described the grisly scene in his report:

"In the broad deep pit their comrades lay, packed closely around the edge, head to feet, like sardines in a tin.... up and down on the bodies the executioners tramped, hauling [the corpses] about and treading in the blood like butchers in a stockyard."

CORPSES OF POLISH OFFICERS PILED INTO MASS PITS - KATYN FOREST

Polish prisoners from Kozelsk camp were transported to Smolensk and executed in Katyn Forest. No fewer than than 4,410 prisoners were murdered.

Polish prisoners from Starobelsk camp were transported to Kharkov and were taken to the basement of an NKVD prison where they were executed by shots below the back of the head. Their bodies were buried in mass graves on the grounds of the NKVD sanatorium (region 6 of forest-park zone) approximately 1.5 kilometers from the village of Pyatikhatka (near Kharkov). No fewer than 3,739 prisoners were executed there.

Polish prisoners from Ostashov camp were taken to the NKVD prison in Kalinin, where they were killed by a shot at the back of the head. No fewer than 6,314 prisoners were murdered.

Map of Polish Deportations - NKVD prison camps - and location of KATYN MASSACRE April 1940

On July 30, 1941 the Sikorski-Maisky agreement was signed between Russia and Poland whereby Stalin agreed to the release tens of thousands of Polish prisoners from Soviet gulags, and granted them so-called "amnesty" - preposterous since the Polish were not guilty of any crime. Nevertheless, it was agreed upon that a Polish army would be created on Soviet soil to fight alongside the Soviets. Despite Soviet assurances of cooperation, the fledgling Polish army was plagued by starvation, and subjected to training with wooden rifles. After considerable pressure by Generals Anders and Sikorski, Stalin finally relented and agreed to the evacuation of Polish troops through Persia (Iran), Iraq, to Palestine. As evacuees began to arrive in Palestine, it became evident to General Anders that there were thousands of Polish officers unaccounted for, and whose whereabouts could not be explained. Despite intense inquiries by Polish authorities, Stalin remained unresponsive, providing only flimsy explanations as to what may have transpired. He claimed that they may have gotten lost somewhere in Mongolia. It remained an unresolved mystery for the next two years.


Acting on information provided by a local Russian peasant, the Nazi-occupiers found the mass graves at Katyn forest in April 1943 and it was apparent that the Soviets were responsible for the atrocity. It set off a series of virulent Soviet, and Nazi denials and counter-accusations - and a controversy which lingered for decades after the end of the war. Polish officials were all too familiar with Soviet deception and chicanery and made every effort to convince Churchill and Roosevelt of Soviet culpability in the massacre but to no avail. Though Britain and the United States were aware of the facts, neither wanted to acknowledge it for fear of offending Stalin. When General Sikorski called for an investigation of the massacre by the International Red Cross, Stalin broke off all diplomatic ties with the Polish government in exile, and proceeded to install a puppet government in Soviet-occupied Poland. The Polish government-in-exile was severely chastised by Churchill and made out to be the villain.

With the end of the WWII and throughout much of the Cold War, the subject of Katyn was kept secret and hidden. But it was not over by any means. By the early 1970s Polish emigres communities in the UK began to question the HMG about Katyn, and lambasted British officials for their complicity. Surprisingly, even three decades after the war, the Brits were still ill at ease to enter any discussion on the subject for fear of provoking Soviet wrath.

On November 11, 1971, Poles in the UK created the Katyn Memorial Fund Appeal in an effort to raise enough money for the creation of a monument honouring the memory of the victims of the Katyn Massacre. The Katyn Committee proposed that a 20 foot high obelisk be erected at Cromwell Road Triangle. Though some British officials were favorable to the idea, the majority of them firmly opposed the plan for fear of long term negative effects on Anglo-Soviet relations. Those fears were magnified when on September 13, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, S.P. Kozyrev, delivered the following message:

Attempts have again been made recently in Britain, with aims hostile to the Soviet Union, to propagate the slanderous invention of Goebbels propaganda about the so-called Katyn case... according to the British press, the initiators of this campaign have already received the approval of the local authorities to set up such a memorial obelisk in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea... The Ministry expresses the hope that the British Government will take all the appropriate measures for its part to oppose this provocative act, which can only bring damage to Soviet/British relations.

Former KGB Vladimir Putin

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and collapse of the communism, the truth about Katyn finally began to emerge. In 1990 Gorbachev made the first official statement admitting that the Stalinist regime was responsible for the Katyn massacre and released numerous documents to the Republic of Poland. Further evidence was released in 1991 and 1992 however full disclosure was never provided. In March 2005, the Polish Sejm voted unanimously in favor of an Act calling upon the Russian government to declassify all documents related to the Katyn massacre, and to admit that it was an act of genocide. Moreover, the Polish Foreign Ministry requested confirmation from the Russian government about the alleged film footage taken by the NKVD during the gruesome massacres in April of 1940. Apparently there was no response other than that given by Vladimir Putin, saying that the Katyn massacre was merely a "political crime" and not a genocide.


By 2007 several Russian politicians (pro-Soviet communists) began to deny Soviet guilt of the Katyn Massacre and claimed that the documents that had been previously released were fakes. By the end of the year several Russian newspapers (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Nezavisimaya Gazeta) were printing stories that reiterated the time-worn refrain that the Nazis were responsible for the crime. Irregardless, on May 8, 2010, the Russian government released 67 volumes of de-classified reports and documents to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski which referred to "criminal case No. 159", an investigation that was instigated in the 1990s regarding the Katyn murders. Then Russian president Medvedev pledged that the Russian government would continue declassifying documents about the Katyn Massacre. While this is regarded as a positive step towards improving Russian-Polish bilateral relations, the rate of declassification of such documents is eternally slow, intermittent and piece meal.


THE SECOND KATYN

In a cruel twist of fate, on April 10, 2010 the aircraft carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 87 high-ranking government and military officials, crashed near the Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, Russia. All aboard perished. They were en route to attend ceremonies commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. The news of the tragedy reverberated around the world plunging the entire nation and Polish citizens worldwide into national mourning. Not long afterwards conspiracy theories began to circulate. Though the crash was investigated and deemed an accident, some sources maintain that there was a sinister element which led to the tragedy. Tragically, one may never know the truth.

THE SECOND KATYN TRAGEDY

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria,

 and government officials died in plane crash April 10, 2010

near Smolensk, Russia

Katyn-Kharkiv-Mednoye Memorial - KATYN MASSACRE SMOLENSK RUSSIA

Secret Polish Forces of WW2: The "Silent & Dark Ones" PART II: MISSIONS Operation Ostrama Brama

One of the most sensational battles of World War II was waged between the Polish Home Army and the Nazi German occupiers of Wilno. It was called Operation Ostrama Brama, (Operation Gate of Dawn) and was part of the larger Operation Tempest, the national uprising that lasted from July 7, 1944 to July 14, 1944.

Tadeusz Komorowski "Bor"

General Tadesuz Bor-Komorowski, Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army ordered the Armia Krajowa districts of Wilno and Navahrudak to capture Wilno from German control and maintain control over it before the Soviets could reach it. On June 12, 1944, Bor's orders were put into action. General Aleksander Krzyzanowski "Wilk", Commander of the Home Army District in Wilno (now Vilnius), regrouped all Polish partisan units in the northeastern section of Poland to launch the assault from inside the city as well as from it's perimeter.  Fighting erupted on July 7, 1944. Over 12,500 Home Army (AK) soldiers launched a vicious attack on the German garrison and succeeded in seizing most of the city center. Fighting was extremely fierce and lasted until July 14. Meanwhile in the eastern suburbs of Wilno, AK units were cooperating with reconnaissance groups of Soviet 3rd Belorussian Front.

During the operation, General Krzyzanowski attempted to consolidate all Polish partisan groups into a re-created Polish 19th Infantry Division, but it was too late. On July 15th, the advancing Red Army had already entered the city and the NKVD began to arrest all Polish soldiers and officers. In a strategy typical of Soviet chicanery, officers of the 3rd Belorussian Front extended an cordial invitation to Polish officers to a joint meeting at their headquarters, and then proceeded to arrest them when they arrived. About 5,000 Polish NCO's, soldiers, and officers were deported to a provisional internment camp located in Medininkai, a suburb of Wilno. They were given the "option" of joining the 1st Polish Army (Soviet-backed). The majority of Poles refused to join the Soviet army. They were deported to the wastelands of the USSR.

General Aleksander Krzyzanowski  "Wilk"

A secret NKVD/NKGB report dated July 17, 1944, from Lavrenti Beria to Stalin, Molotov and Antonov, reveal the extent of Soviet conspiracy against Polish forces. The following is an English translation:


July 17, 1944, Moscow

L. Beria to J. Stalin, V. Molotov, and A. Antonov

Forwarding report(s) of [Ivan] Serov and I. Tcherniakovsky

[Concerning] Arrest of Lt. Col. Aleksander Krzyżanowski, and planned disarming of Polish [Armia Krajowa - Home Army] military formations.

Beria and his mentor Stalin

****TOP SECRET****

Following information were received today from Comrade Tcherniakowsky:

The so-called Major-General “Wilk” / Kulczycki was summoned today. Wilk was told that we are interested in the locations of Polish formations, and that it would be prudent that our officers were familiar with them. Wilk agreed, and gave us 6 such locations, where his regiments and brigades are stationed. Additionally, we expressed our interest in his officers’ core, and proposed that he gathers all regimental and brigade commanders, their second in command, and chiefs of staff. “Wilk” also agreed to that, issued the necessary orders, and gave them to his communications officer, who immediately left for his headquarters.

After that, “Wilk” was disarmed [and arrested]; present at the time was a captain – the Chief of Staff who represents [the Polish] Government in London, who attempted to draw his side arm in order to resist, he cocked his gun, but was disarmed [and arrested as well].

Taking under consideration, that we received locations of Polish[Home Army] formations, the following operations’ plan was established:

1) Experienced generals and People’s Commisars for the State Security of NKVD were dispatched in order to approach the Poles and to investigate [further].

2) At the same time, units of the 3rd Belarusian Front were dispatched to disarm the Poles.

3) Today, at 1900-hours, a Border Security unit, as well as the leadership cadre of men and women of the NKVD were dispatched to disarm the [Polish] officers’ cadre.

4) Tomorrow, on 18th July, at 4 o’clock in the morning, units designated to disarm the Poles will be move to their deployment positions, will receive orders, and will begin the operation. They will report about the results of the operation.

AK Headquarters ordered an immediate retreat of all Polish units to Rudininkai Forest. By July 18 approximately 6,000 soldiers had reached the area, joined by an additional 12,000 volunteers. However, Soviet air reconnaissance discovered their locations, and they were subsequently surrounded by Soviet NKVD agents. Polish Command attempted to split their units in an attempt to try to break through to the Bialystok area, but to no avail. Most of the Polish forces were captured and interned.

In a subsequent report issued by Beria to Stalin on July 20, 1944, Soviet troops were reported to have disarmed a total of 6,000 Polish soldiers, among whom were 650 officers and NCO's. In the 2-day crackdown, the Soviets confiscated a large quantity of weapons including 5,100 rifles, 350 machine guns, 230 light and heavy machine guns, 12 light artillery pieces, 27 vehicles, 7 radio transmitters, a substantial cache of of ammunition and grenades, as well as 350 horses.

In the vicinity of Wilno, Lt. Col. Maciej Kalenkiewicz "Kotwicz" and approximately 80 to 100 soldiers remained hidden in the forests but sprung into action on August 21, engaging the NKVD expeditionary forces in battle. But Soviet units were stronger having received additional reinforcements from NKVD Intelligence-Search Unit 3, Battalion 32 (commanded by NKVD's Captain Shulkha, and Capt. Tshikin of the Regional NKVD detachment.)

Major Maciej Kalenkiewicz "Kotwicz"

Major Maciej Kalenkiewicz among his soldiers - 1944

Kalenkiewicz was trained as a Cichociemni and on December 27, 1941 parachuted into Nazi-occupied Poland to assume command of the Nowogrodek Home Army.  Due to pilot error, instead of landing in the area of the General Governement, the plane was landed smack in the middle of territory annexed by the Third Reich. The pilot and crew were arrested as soon as they landed, but later were able to escape from captivity, recapturing their weapons and killing all the Germans. In the meantime, Kalenkiewicz and his team had already reached Warsaw where Kalenkiewicz met with General Stefan Rowecki (Grot) and was accepted into the Association of Armed Struggle, the predecessor to the Home Army.

General Stefan Rowecki "Grot"

Kalenkiewicz was nick-named by the NKVD as the "handless major". He was severely wounded in his right arm during the battle against the Germans at Iwa on June 24, 1944. However he continued to take part in ambush operations against a German transport convoy near the estate of Kwiatkowce, situated about 4 km from Subotnik. (During the battle his unit was also under attack by Soviet troops.) Kalenkiewicz developed gangrene in his wounded arm and on June 29th had to undergo amputation of his hand at Antoniszki, near the Oszmina. Despite his serious condition and very high fever, on July 9th he still reported to General "Wilk" for service but his condition prevented him from taking part in the liberation of Wilno from the Germans. Major Kalenkiewicz and 38 AK soldiers were killed in action during the Battle at Surkonty on August 21, 1944.

To the Poles Operation Ostrama Brama was not a victory though they achieved a tactical victory over the German forces. The destruction of Polish units and subsequent occupation of the city by the Red Army was a bitter defeat to the Polish Home Army who struggled to achieve the goals of Operation Tempest.

NEXT:

PART II MISSIONS:  Operation Arsenal

THE TRUTH ABOUT KATYN MASSACRE

In September 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. As the Red Army advanced into Eastern Poland, they captured, and deported 320,000 Polish citizens to camps in the Soviet Union and interned from 250,000 to 454,000 Polish soldiers. About 125,000 were transferred to the NKVD, while 43,000 Polish soldiers were transferred to the Germans. Among the remainder who were released were 170,000 non-Polish servicemen in the Polish armed forces. From 10,000 to 12,000 Poles were sent to the Kolyma mines in Siberia in the period 1940-1941. Only 583 men survived.

By November 1939, the Russians had transferred 15,000 Polish Officers into the hands of the NKVD. Among the POWs were civilians, professors, doctors, lawyers, journalists, artists, judges, an Olympic athlete, priests, and the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army.

The NKVD, which was under the command of Lavrentiy Beria, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs and First Rank Commissar of State Security, received orders to organise a network of transit camps and arrange rail transport of the Polish officers to prisoner-of-war camps in the western USSR. The largest camps were located at Kozelsk, Ostashkov, and Starobelsk.

Kozielsk

Starobielsk

In response to the memo sent from Beria to Stalin, an order was decreed on March 5, 1940, to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries". It was signed by Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov and Anastas Mikoyan. By executing the Polish elite and it's military and political leaders, it was Stalin's objective to render the Polish state completely powerless.  (In Western Poland, the Germans were implementing a similar policy - of rounding up and murdering the Polish intelligentsia.)

In April 1940 the Polish prisoners detained at the Soviet camps were told that they would be repatriated to Poland. The first group boarded a train, but oddly it was not travelling east, but rather westward. It came to a stop outside Katyn Forest, situated near Smolensk. From there the Polish officers were herded into black vans which drove them to a clearing in the woods. When they stepped out, the Russians took them to a large pit inside the forest, and forced them to kneel at its edge. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and a choke knot tied around their neck and hands so that if they struggled they would have strangled themselves.

They were surrounded by dozens of armed NKVD agents who systematically shot each Polish prisoner in the back of the head. Their bodies were thrown into mass graves. This convoy of death went on for several weeks. By mid-May almost 4,500 Polish officers had been murdered and buried in eight mass graves - the largest grave contained 12 layers of corpses.

 

Among the dead were more than 200 pilots including friends and classmates of the Kosciuszko Squadron. One of its' victims was the brother-in-law of Witold Lokociewski. The sole survivor of Katyn was Professor Stanislaw Swianiewicz. He was on board the train headed to Katyn Forest, and was standing in the line ready to board the van, but for an unknown reason an NKVD colonel had pulled him out of the line.

The Nazis invaded Russia in July 1942, but it wasn't until the next spring that they discovered the mass graves in Katyn. The bodies were exhumed and examined by a team of forensic experts and staff that the Germans called in from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, and Hungary. With the exception of the Bulgarian and Czech contingent, all the experts agreed and reaffirmed that the Soviets were guilty of having committed the atrocity. Stalin denied all responsibility and countered by accusing the Nazis of the massacre. But when Polish Prime Minister Sikorski called for an investigation by the International Red Cross, the Russian government accused the Polish government-in-exile of collaborating with the Nazis, and abruptly severed all diplomatic ties with Poland.

Despite unrelenting pressure from the West, Sikorski was unwilling to make compromises on the issue. Two months later Sikorski died in a mysterious plane crash.

Sir Owen O'Malley, the British Ambassador to the Polish government-in-exile, described the grisly scene:

"In the broad deep pit their comrades lay, packed closely around the edge, head to feet, like sardines in a tin..up and down on the bodies the executioners tramped, hauling [the corpses] about and treading in the blood like butchers in a stockyard."

Churchill was indignant. Instead of holding Russia accountable for the massacre, he lambasted the Polish government for having called for an investigation. He said "No resumption of friendly or working relations with the Soviets is possible while they [the Poles] make charges of an insulting character against the Soviet government..." All of Britain was blaming the Poles for trying to "subvert" the alliance between England and the Soviet Union. This gave Stalin the legitimacy he sought as he continued to wield his propaganda against the Poles, and accusing them of collaborating with the Germans.

Meanwhile the Germans reveled in their opportunity to use the information in an attempt to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and the West. Goebbel's journal dated April 14, 1943 had this entry: "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered by the GPU (aka NKVD), for anti-Bolshevik 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 Führer 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."

Sir Owen O'Malley conducted an investigation of his own and produced a detailed report that proved that the Soviets were guilty. But Churchill hastily absconded with the report and warned everyone not to ever speak a word about it.
 

The Allies ordered a media ban which prevented

the public from knowing that

Stalin was the one responsible for the Katyn massacre.

Roosevelt was indifferent to the entire "graves question" as he put it. He was obsessed with his own self-image, and efforts at getting himself re-elected. It caused him considerable worry that he might lose the Polish-American vote, if they were ever to find out that Stalin had broken off diplomatic relations with Poland. The Allies ordered a media ban which prevented the public from knowing that Stalin was the one responsible for the Katyn massacre. The Allies were interested in only one thing - winning the war at all costs, and placating a Soviet monster, Stalin.

Since 1943, the subject of Katyn has not abated. Conflicting opinions and misinformation have circulated for decades. The Russian government has continuously denied culpability, though there is substantial proof that their predecessors were guilty in committing this atrocity.  Notebooks found on the bodies of the Polish officers had entries written that predated April 1940 - the Germans didn't invade Russia until 1941. Two American soldiers who were POWs in Germany were also at Katyn in 1943. One of them, Col. John H. Van Vliet wrote a report which concluded that the Soviets were responsible, and not the Germans. He submitted the report to Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell (the assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence), but Bissell chose to conceal the information so as not to "embarass" the Soviets.

In 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev took it upon himself to admit the truth. He announced publicly that it was the NKVD who had executed the Poles, and confirmed two other burial sites, Mednoye, and Piatykhatky. Several months prior, Gorbachev had permitted a delegation of several hundred Poles, organized by a Polish association named Families of Katyn Victims, to visit the Katyn memorial.

On April 13, 1990, the 47th Anniversary of the discovery of the mass graves, the USSR formally expressed "profound regret" and admitted to the truth. The day was declared a worldwide Katyn Memorial Day

Additional evidence was discovered in 1991 and 1992 in what was referred to as "Package No.1" consisting of top secret documents which were released under the auspices of  Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and transferred to Polish President Lech Walesa.

Among the documents was a memo dated March 5, 1940 from Beria to Stalin which called for the execution of the Polish Officers; an excerpt of the execution order, and a note to Nikita Khrushchev with information concerning the execution of the 21,857 Poles and the recommendation to destroy their personal files.
 

 Memo dated March 5, 1940 from Lavrentiy Beria to Stalin, proposing the execution of Polish Officers.

In June 1998, Yeltsin and Aleksander Kwaśniewski agreed to construct Memorials at Katyn and Mednoye.  But in the space of a few months, the tone changed drastically. Russians began to raise the issue of the deaths of Soviet POWs during the Russian-Polish War of 1919-1924. About 16,000 to 20,000 Russian POWs had perished in camps located on Polish soil. They died of communicable diseases yet some Russian officials referred to it as a "genocide comparable to Katyn".

Typical of Russian guile, it was a lame attempt to counterbalance historical facts. Moreover, in March 2005, Russian Chief Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov refused to recognize the Katyn massacre as genocide or war crimes, and alleged that there were 1,803 confirmed deaths of the total of 15,000 Polish Officers from the three Soviet camps. He said, "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

Furthermore, some Russians have tried to confuse the issue by periodically mentioning the town of Khatyn, a former Belorussian village. Apparently, the Germans massacred the entire village of Khatyn in 1943 (but that is not the same place as Katyn, where the Soviets massacred the Poles.)

Last year's tragic death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski shook the Polish nation to its very core. The President was accompanied by his wife Maria, and a delegation of top government and military officials. 97 people perished when their airplane crashed near Katyn.  They were on their way to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Katyn Massacre.  No other country had ever suffered a calamity as horrific as this The Polish nation - and Poles around the world were in a state of shock and mourning.  Immediately suspicions were raised and some accusations made against the Soviet government as having been responsible for the crash.  Despite an investigation, it was an accident, yet it does not nor will it ever rule out the possibility of some intervention.  It brings to mind a similar incident during World War II.  Prime Minister Sikorski also met with an untimely death in mysterious circumstances.  His plane crashed shortly after having taken off from Gibraltar and since then the controversy has not ended.  Nor will the controversy about President Kaczynski's death and that of many key figures in Polish government.  The title of a blog on the subject sums up public reaction - Kaczynski was the last victim of Katyn's massacre.

Just days before the crash, Putin invited Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to join him in a joint ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Katyn massacre. Putin said the following,

“We are here connected to a shared memory and shame". 

"On this road to reconciliation, we set two signposts:
to memory and to truth."

“We are committed to preserve the memory of the past 
and we will do it,

no matter how bitter the truth."

The Katyn Massacre will forever be part of the Polish psyche. It cannot be otherwise. History bears witness to the brutality of the Russian government in their attempts to eradicate the Polish nation. The only hope for reconciliation between the Polish and Russian nations is for the Russian government to accept full responsibility and de-classify and release all top-secret and classified documents as well as any and all so-called "Packages" of documentation. Full disclosure is the only key to reconciliation. Tentative apologies are worthless.

Sources and Recommended Links:

Poland Decapitated Again (by David M. Dastych) April 11, 2010

1940 Katyn Crime - Video of Andrzej Wajda (with English subtitles)

Katyn - A Crime Without Punishment

Katyn Memorial Wall (Polish Government Statement April 17,1943) (English translation)