Katyn Massacre

Today is Katyn Remembrance Day.

According to Soviet Documents declassified in 1990, 21,857 Polish Internees, Soldiers and Prisoners were executed by the Soviets in 1940 near Smolensk, Russia, USSR.

Of the 21,857 Victims 4,421 were murdered in Katyn with the rest murdered in nearby forests.

Those who died at Katyn included Soldiers (an Admiral, two Generals, 24 Colonels, 79 Lieutenant Colonels, 258 Majors, 654 Captains, 17 Naval Captains, 85 Privates, 3,420 Non-Commissioned Officers, and seven Chaplains), 200 Pilots, Government Representatives and Royalty (a Prince, 43 Officials), and Civilians (three Landowners, 131 Refugees, 20 University Professors, 300 Physicians; several hundred Lawyers, Engineers, and Teachers; more than 100 Writers and Journalists) and 700–900 Polish Jews  including the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, Baruch Steinberg.

April 1943 the Germans found the Mass Graves and told the World. The Soviets claimed the Nazis had murdered the Polish Soldiers, but it soon became clear it was the Soviets who murdered them.

The Soviets even insisted on including the Katyn Massacre in the Nuremburg Trials in 1946 to place blame on the Germans and away from the Soviets.

During the Soviet Occupation of Poland 1945-1989 the Soviets declared that any Pole that questioned the official Communist Statement that the Katyn Massacres were carried out by the Germans was Anti-Soviet and Anti-Communist and would be sent to a Gulag or Prison.

The 1940 Katyn Massacre along with receiving no aid during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 were some of the main reasons most of the Polish People refused to support or join the Polish Communist Party or ally themselves with the Soviet Communists for 44 years.

In 1990, Soviet Leader Boris Yeltsin (President of the Russian Federative Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union) released documents about the Soviet Massacres of the Poles at Katyn.

On November 10, 2010, Polish Air Force Flight 101 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 People on board. Among the victims were the President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and his Wife, Maria, the Former President of Poland in Exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, the Chief of the Polish General Staff and other Senior Polish Military Officers, the President of the National Bank of Poland, Polish Government Officials, 18 Members of the Polish Parliament, Senior Members of the Polish Clergy, and Relatives of Victims of the Katyn Massacre. The group was arriving from Warsaw to attend an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Massacre, which took place not far from Smolensk. While not part of the Official Investigation it is believed the Russians were involved in this crash.

On November 26, 2010, the State Duma of Russia adopted a statement "On the Katyn tragedy and its victims", in which it admits that the mass execution of Polish Citizens in Katyn was carried out on the direct instructions of Stalin and other Soviet Leaders and is a crime of the Stalinist Regime.

In 2012 the European Court of Human Rights declared the Katyn Massacre as a War Crime carried out by the Soviets.

In 2021, the Russian Ministry of Culture downgraded the Memorial Complex at Katyn on its Register of Sites of Cultural Heritage from a place of Federal to one of only Regional Importance.

On June 22, 2022 the Russian Zs had removed the Polish Flag, in place since 1990, at the Katyn Massacre Memorial Site in Russia because of Poland helping defend Ukraine.

There is a good Polish Film from 2007 called “Katyń” about the Katyn Massacre.