Where is katyn poland

Probably, the draft decision was fully circulated circulaire without a plenary meeting of the Political Office, gaining the rank of a formal decision after signing by Stalin, the head of the Politburo, and its entry into the Protocol of decisions issued by this highest Party and, in fact, state authority. The main decision chain was as follows: Andrey Vyshinsky responsible for the draft of the project , Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria responsible for giving it the shape of a politically mature project , and Joseph Stalin finally approves it.

It is worth noting that Molotov, after consulting Beria, made some amendments to the proposed composition of the commission, finally approved by Stalin. The first three were members of the Extraordinary State Commission, which was indicated in the documents.

Among the three, but not introduced additionally by other official titles, Aleksey Tolstoy was a well-known writer of prose, his epic novels belonging to the broad canon of Russian literature.

The so-called actions of the Burdenko Commission, not only in terms of results, but at least part of their backstage, can be reproduced thanks to documents from a folder stored in the GARF, brought to light by Russian researchers, and also made available to Polish historians who have the opportunity to visit Moscow. The Commission - until the publication of the Communication with results of works on 24 January - held six meetings, including two on 18 January 18 - at am and pm.

The inaugural meeting in Moscow left no doubt as to the direction in which the actions of the Burdenko Commission would follow. The co-creator of the hoax of the Soviet security services presented the findings of his team in the Katyn case, which, without the slightest attempt to dispute, as indicated by the transcript of the meeting, was accepted by members of the Special Committee.

Kruglov, in presenting the information well-known in fact , placed an emphasis on testimonies collected from witnesses. In addition, the following spoke: N. Burdenko, A. Tolstoy, Metropolitan Nikolai, W. Potiomkin, A.

Gundorov and Secretary of the Commission Vladimir Makarov. The discussion was limited to uncritical commentary on Kruglov's information, and the most characteristic exchange was as follows:. Tolstoy: The most basic testimony relates to the fact that Poles still lived after our withdrawal from Smolensk. Kruglov: Numerous witnesses testify that in the autumn of the Germans convoyed small groups of Poles of people towards the Katyn Forest. They were transported in cars that turned to the Katyn Forest.

Tolstoy: I think that during the opening of the grave there should definitely be some documents, cards, notes, letters dated later than Burdenko: As we heard from Comrade Kruglov's speech, the matter is serious and I propose to discuss our work plan. There was no room for discussion of the main questions bothering the world opinion in the Katyn case, neither on the agenda of this committee meeting nor on any other.

Further deliberations on 13 January already concerned the technical issue of organizing the work of the commissions in Smolensk and Katyn. Further work by the Burdenko Commission consisted in gathering "evidence" to support and develop the lying version of the German responsibility for the crime against Poles in detail.

The commission did not investigate who committed the crimes against the Polish officers, the commission - as its name implied - determined "the circumstances of the shooting prisoners of war - Polish officers by German fascist invaders [emphasis added by W. The gathering of evidence and the explanation of circumstances in practice was limited to the processing of evidence collected by the Kruglov commission.

Thanks to work on material extracted from the pits earlier than on 14 January , and the interrogation of witnesses selected from among persons previously interrogated by the NKVD-NKGB, the Burdenko Commission issued its judgment after ten days of work. The short period of work and being bound to the "security" version did not mean, however, that the commission's activity was completely fictitious, limited, for example, to signing protocols in Moscow that were prepared by someone else.

Members of the Commission - with the help and supervision of the NKVD-NKGB - conducted field work involving the penetration of death pits, examination of corpses and the interrogation of witnesses. At the meeting held in Smolensk on 18 January at am, it was decided that the entire commission would visit the site of excavations carried out in the Katyn Forest under the direction of S. Kruglov from 14 January in the presence of a member of the Special Commission Rodion Melinkov, formally as part of its work - to view the graves and determine how to prepare for the exhumation and examination of the corpses [xxix].

Having two meetings on one day indicated that great importance was attached to the pace of the implementation of the task entrusted to the Special Commission, as well as the distribution of its working day: from am to pm and from pm to pm.

Rush was not only a declaration there, although the involvement of individual people was different - serious: N. Burdenko, V. Potiomkin and A. Tolstoy, not serious: A. Gundorov and J. Over the next few days, commission members oversaw exhumations with the participation of forensic experts and interrogated witnesses.

On 19 January , in Smolensk, the Burdenko Commission held its 4th meeting, interrogating and summarizing the results of exhumation work, including the reports on forensic examinations of corpses [xxxi]. On 20 January, the fifth meeting of the commission took place in Smolensk [xxxii].

The fact that - in accordance with the minutes - the meeting of the Special Commission in Smolensk at pm was attended by Potemkin, who on that day in Moscow probably earlier conducted hearings before the Extraordinary State Commission [xxxiii] , should be explained by the pace of the work, and not by "tuning" the protocol [xxxiv]. On that day, Burdenko said: "We have finished hearing witnesses, but we have another job to do.

We should hurry up with the sound recording. You have to choose the material and prepare it" [xxxv]. This meant the completion of the main phase of the "investigative" activities and the transition to the stage of arriving at the conclusions, which were also to constitute propaganda material.

Within a few days - between 13 and 20 January - the commission carried out a number of labour intensive activities. Regardless of the effort put into work, independent conduct by the so-called Burdenko Commission in such a short time of complicated investigation and reconstruction of events related to the murder of Polish officers was impossible. The investigation was not conducted independently, however, the commission uncritically used only the material collected earlier.

The exhumation works carried out from 14 January in the Katyn Forest, formally by the Burdenko Commission, were in fact only a continuation of the work of the Merkulov and Kruglov team, taking place at the site and on the material prepared by NKVD-NKGB, including tossing fabricated "evidence" into the pits of death. The Burdenko Commission selected witnesses from among those interrogated previously by the NKVD-NKGB, and limited itself to "summoning" jointly selected "most useful" witnesses, resigning from interrogating the rest of the previously heard and from appointing - in their own discretion - new witnesses, which in practice meant conscious consent to contact only with people already shaped by the Soviet coercion apparatus.

It should be emphasized that in the relation: the officers of Merkulov and Kruglov - the Burdenko commission, we did not have to do with the use of paraprocessor and paracourt bodies, as we can consider the Burdenko Commission, materials secured at the crime scene by the investigating authorities, i.

It was those conducting the "preliminary investigation" who imposed the current version of the events on the Commission, which only helped to develop it.

In the preparatory proceedings, the judgement was established and the Commission drafted its justification. In fact, it helped to draft the justification, because officers of the Ministry of Security, headed by Kruglov, constantly participated in the work of the Commission, which continued to act independently, "continually" supplementing their earlier Information.

In the light of the statements about the dependent and secondary role of the so-called Burdenko Commission to the Kruglov's team, on can ask the question about the purpose of its members to interrogate the same witnesses and search the same pits of death as in the "preliminary investigation".

As part of the ghostly logic of building the Katyn lie, these actions did make sense. The work of the commission did not serve to find out the truth about Katyn, or even to invent a false version of the events, because this was ready, it aimed at preparing propaganda materials on Katyn for the needs of the Soviets. Documentation that can be presented as prepared by members of the Commission, i.

Shortly speaking, a more reliable propaganda message than possible enunciations of security services. At least some members of the commission had to be well versed in the message, which precluded the signing of final documents without carrying out work at the crime scene and with witnesses.

The necessity of quick preparation of the message for the use of the world opinion was evidenced by the fact that the conference was organized mainly for foreign journalists, even before the publication of the Commission's work results. On 22 January, in Smolensk, the Burdenko Commission presented the results of its investigation into the murder in Katyn at a press conference. In the first part, representatives of the Commission made long statements, the most important conclusion of which was: it can be considered proven that in the autumn - in August-September - the Germans shot Polish prisoners of war in Koziegory [xxxvi].

In the second part - intended only for foreign correspondents, which in practice meant Anglo-Saxons - journalists had the opportunity to ask questions [xxxvii]. During the conference, the testimonies of witnesses and some of them personally were presented, and next to the presentation, basic for the NKVD-NKGB activities from the beginning, false testimonies of Bazylevsky, women employed in the "dacha" in the Katyn Forest or Parfion Kiselov, exposing the witness being "father Alexander Oglobin, the priest of the church in the village of Kurpino, located in the Katyn Forest", presented by the first hierarch of the Orthodox Church Metropolitan Nikolai, were noteworthy, which can be considered a creative contribution of the Commission to the propaganda of lies.

In part with the questions, journalists were shown an "exhibition" of objects extracted from death pits, which was undoubtedly intended to affect their emotions and probably to evoke a connection: if they show it, they did not do it. It can be hypothesized that the additional purpose of the conference was to expose the details of the Katyn Lie construction that were kept behind closed cabinets in an attempt to collide with external reviewers - foreign journalists.

The overthrow of the lying legend prepared with considerable effort was certainly not taken into account and could not be taken into account, but it was possible to check the carrying capacity of the details and detect any possible weaknesses of forgery. It was the last moment when, at relatively low costs, it was still possible to make additions and even make some adjustments in the constructed story.

The American journalist asked if the commission did not seem to have the victims dressed too warmly sweaters, thermal undergarments for August-September Potemkin replied that cold nights began in September moving to the agenda over the aforementioned August , and Tolstoy deviously explained that the prisoners had not had other clothing [xxxviii]. Perhaps the presented exchange of views contributed to the withdrawal in subsequent Soviet documents of the dating of the murder of "August-September" alternatively "end of August-September" in favor of "autumn", which cut off August and placed the murder in September or even later.

On the next day after the press conference, 23 January , the Commission held its sixth meeting in Smolensk.

Chairman Burdenko stated that "the documents found are fully convincing and allow for the statement that the time of the execution was the autumn of [underlined by W. Therefore, when N. Burdenko assured the audience that the draft final statement of the commission was almost ready, it was considered possible to finish the work in Smolensk. It was only decided to question one witness, which was carried out in Smolensk on the same day.

Although the Commission, whose members in a short discussion proposed that as long as it was possible, that is, until the statement was signed, to continue work, formally decided to prolong the work of forensic medical experts until 27 January, in fact a day later the work of the Commission was completed with the issuing of the final statement.

The completion of the Commission's work before the deadline indicated the pressure exerted on it by the Party and state authorities not to delay the work any longer. In , Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in Katyn Forest. The Soviets claimed that the killings had been carried out by the Nazis in and denied responsibility for the massacres.

This site uses "cookies". And then I saw all this horror. We came there. After a few minutes Blokhin [one of the NKVD officers who came from Moscow] put on his special clothing: a brown leather cap, a long leather brown apron, leather brown gloves with cuffs above the elbows. It made a huge impression on me — I saw the executioner! The charges were not read to the convicts. In the morning, the corpses of the murdered were transported by trucks to solitary places with already dug pits.

Gravediggers were replaced by excavators that leveled the ground. The burial places of the victims were for years inaccessible even to the local residents. We know much less about the execution in Katyn — in this case, our knowledge comes mainly from exhumations. The shells found above the death pits indicate that the executions took place directly there.

However, before the victims were sent to the execution site, they were directed to a villa, which in the s served as a resort for the most deserving NKVD officers.

This building was where the searches were conducted. Perhaps it was also where some executions were carried out. Those who resisted had their hands bound. Some of them had coats put on their head tied with a rope, the end of which was connected with a knot on their hands. The prisoners were then reloaded into prison cars without windows and transported to the execution site.

Several Soviet documents give different numbers of people killed, although the differences are small. Some researchers believe that the numbers are understated. Only prisoners escaped mass murder — from three special camps they were taken to the camp in Yukhnov. The reason for murdering Polish officers could have been the desire to take revenge for the defeat in the Polish-Soviet war of or the necessity to arrange the camps for Finns, who were taken prisoner in the ongoing war with their neighbour.

The most probable motive, however, was the idea of depriving the Polish nation of its leaders and intellectual elite. For this reason, they were to be murdered. The Soviet authorities decided that this move would facilitate the future governance of the Polish-Soviet Republic.

The coincidence in time with the AB-Aktion Extraordinary Operation of Pacification conducted by the Germans and aimed at the Polish intelligentsia does not seem to be unintentional. According to Polish historians, half of the then officer corps of the Polish Army were killed. In the NKVD prisons of so-called Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, the Soviets detained officers who were not mobilized in September , civil servants and local government officials.

Many of the murdered were high-class specialists in various fields, among them university professors, engineers, priests, doctors, lawyers, officials, poets, writers — the intellectual elite of Poland. Many employees of the central apparatus, regional directorates in Smolensk, Kharkiv, and Kalinin, as well as NKVD convoy and military units, participated in the Katyn genocide.

The perpetrators were the most experienced torturers from Lubyanka and local NKVD prisons, trained in killing with one shot. Some of them are known by name. These people included all ranks from generals to the lowest NKVD officers. The torturers remained silent for years to come, carefully hiding the secret. Some of them managed to make a career, but many of them started to drink and died, one by one, within a few years of the crime. Some of them committed suicide. In the summer of Smolensk and its surroundings were occupied by the German army.

The first information about the mass graves of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest was given to the Germans shortly after, but they did not make any attempt to verify it. In the spring of , Polish forced laborers found out about the execution of Poles from the local population. In April they started searching the forest on their own. In one of the suggested places, they discovered a corpse in Polish Army uniforms.

The Anglo-Saxons abandoned Poland, and what happened later in and only confirmed this desertion. Poland, with the consent of the United States and Great Britain, was then in the Soviet sphere of influence, behind the so-called Iron Curtain — beginning at the Baltic Sea, and ending at the Adriatic. In this way, Poland won the war and, unfortunately for millions of Poles in the country and scattered around the world, lost its chance for peace. It was the Poles, including the families of the murdered, who were to play the most important role in the entire intricate propaganda game prepared by Berlin, and who would give it its credibility.

They were also aware of the fact that members of individual delegations included representatives of the Polish underground, i. Yes, and Major General Marian Kukiel even wondered if he should not have accepted the invitation, but it would have been associated with a severe diplomatic crisis in relations with the British and the Americans.

Given the purpose of the action, the absence of the Polish government, and the presence of representatives of the Polish underground especially suited the West. At first, reactions varied, in Warsaw, Krakow and other cities of the General Government, people reacted differently than in the Wielkopolskie region and other lands directly incorporated into the Third Reich. Some did not believe that the Soviets were responsible for the death of the Polish officers. Knowing the history of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the massacres in the villages of Palmiry or Wawer, they thought that the Germans were trying to attribute their own crime to others.

This was followed by studies and interviews in the propaganda press in the Polish language but published under German control, information provided by street megaphones, film screenings, and meetings with delegates from individual cities.

It was undoubtedly a success of German propaganda, measured by the circulation of several million copies of newspapers, brochures and leaflets in all European languages.

Naturally, the Germans organized this action not because of a sudden surge of sympathy for Poles. They wanted to exploit it for their own propaganda purposes. The drama of the Poles themselves did not interest them much.

Your book is primarily dedicated to their stories.