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at Katyn War Cemetery .]] The Katyn massacre, also known as the '''Katyn Forest Massacre''' and the '''Katyn Incident''' (), was a mass execution of system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,1 the Soviets were thus able to round up much of the Polish, Jewish , Ukrainian and Belarus ian Intelligentsia s of Polish citizenship. The term "Katyn massacre" originally referred to the Massacre , at Katyn Forest, near the village of Gnezdovo, near Smolensk , Russia , of Polish military officers confined at the Kozelsk Prisoner-of-war Camp . The term subsequently came to be applied also to the execution of Prisoners Of War held at Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps, and political prisoners in West Belarus and West Ukraine , shot on Stalin 's orders at Katyn Forest, at the NKVD (''Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del'') Smolensk headquarters and at an Abattoir in that same city, and at prisons in Kalinin (Tver), Kharkiv , Moscow and other Soviet cities. The 1943 discovery of mass graves at Katyn Forest by or an act of Genocide , which would have necessitated the Prosecution of surviving perpetrators. Some Russians continue to believe the original explanation that was maintained by the Soviet government until 1989, that it had been the Germans who had killed the Poles after invading the Soviet Union in mid-1941. PREPARATIONS Between 250,000 Молотов на V сессии Верховного Совета 31 октября цифра «примерно 250 тыс.»and 454,700 Отчёт Украинского и Белорусского фронтов Красной Армии Мельтюхов, с. 367. http://www.usatruth.by.ru/c2.files/t05.html Polish soldiers had become prisoners and were 2005 , Polish language This was a little over two weeks after the initial invasion of Poland, by Germany, on September 1, 1939. As early as September 19, 1939, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs and First Rank Commissar of State Security, 2005 . Article includes a note that it is based on a special edition of a ""Historic Reference-Book for the Pilgrims to Katyń - Kharkow - Mednoe" by Jędrzej Tucholski ) to manage Polish prisoners. The NKVD took custody of Polish prisoners from the Red Army , and proceeded to organize a network of reception centers and transfer camps and arrange rail transport to Prisoner-of-war Camp s in the western USSR. The camps were located at Jukhnovo ( Babynino rail station), Yuzhe (Talitsy), Kozelsk , Kozelshchyna , Oranki , Ostashkov ( Stolbnyi Island on Seliger Lake near Ostashkov), Tyotkino rail station (90 km from Putyvl ), Starobielsk , Vologda ( Zaenikevo rail station) and Gryazovets . Kozelsk and Starobielsk were used mainly for Military Officer s, while Ostashkov was used mainly for Boy Scout s, Gendarme s, Police Officer s and Prison Officers . Contrary to a widespread misconception, prisoners at these camps were not exclusively military officers (and the above groups) but also included Polish Intelligentsia . The approximate distribution of men at the camps was as follows: Kozelsk, 5,000; Ostashkov, 6,570; and Starobelsk, 4,000. They totalled 15,570 men. tablets; symbolic Gravestone s.]] 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 Poles were encouraged to believe they would be released, "The Katyn Diary of Leon Gladun" , last accessed on 19 December 2005, English translation of Polish document. See entries on 25th Decembert, 1939 and 3rd April, 1940. but the interviews were in effect a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. According to NKVD reports, the prisoners could not be induced to adopt a pro-Soviet attitude. They were declared "hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority." On March 5 , 1940 , pursuant to a note to Joseph Stalin from Lavrenty Beria , the members of the Soviet Politburo — Stalin , Vyacheslav Molotov , Lazar Kaganovich , Mikhail Kalinin , Kliment Voroshilov , Anastas Mikoyan and Beria — signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus . (Montefiore Stalin 296) , Dacha (circled); below it, Dnieper River .]] THE CRIME In the period from (ret.), Bronisław Bohatyrewicz (ret.), Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller (ret.), Aleksander Kowalewski (ret.), Henryk Minkiewicz (ret.), Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski , Konstanty Plisowski (ret.), Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lwów), Franciszek Sikorski (ret.), Leonard Skierski (ret.), Piotr Skuratowicz , Mieczysław Smorawiński and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). A mere 395 prisoners were saved from the slaughter, among them Stanisław Swianiewicz . They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets. They were the only ones who escaped death. of mass graves during April 1943 German Exhumation s.]] Up to 99% of the remaining prisoners were subsequently murdered. People from Kozelsk were murdered in the usual mass murder site of Smolensk country, called Katyn forest; people from Starobielsk were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kharkov and the bodies were buried near Pyatikhatki; and police officers from Ostashkov were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kalinin (Tver) and buried in Miednoje (''Mednoye''). Currency and Military Insignia from the mass graves.]] |