From letters addressed to the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding
as part of the project to reconstruct the Belarusian Katyn List
„My grandfather, whom the NKVD moved out of his home in September
or October 1939 does not appear on any lists and all trace of him was lost.”
“You have included the name of my half-sister in the online-version of the Belarusian list.
For many years I have been searching in vain for information about her fate
and that of my mother’s family...” “Acting on behalf of my grandmother,
would you kindly assist me in determining the place of death of my great-grandfather, her father...”
“Please could you try and determine the fate of my Father...”
“I am submitting the details of my brother, who went missing after 17th September 1939.” “I am sending you information about my missing uncle; it may be useful in identifying those on the Belarusian list.” “I would like to register my grandfather on the reconstructed Belarusian Katyn list...”
“I am looking for information about where my uncle died and his final resting place. There’s brief information...”
A comb with inscription
recovered from the death pits during the exhumation in Kuropaty
Read by Ian McQuillan-Grace
„Hard time in prison, Minsk 25th April 1940.
The thought of you leads me to despair.”
On the other side: „26th April.
I burst into tears. A tough day”.
Konstanty Rdułtowski
Memories from Minsk prison
Read by Philip Lenkowsky
Prison in Minsk (…) No fresh air, the odour
of 120 people, sweaty and mostly sick, the crush of people not giving
even a moment of rest, dozens of half-naked bodies lying on the floor,
lice, which in these conditions appeared in large numbers,
and the restlessness and excitement brought about by it all generally gave the impression
of being in hell. I did not envision that I would ever see
such Dantean scenes in my life like those I witnessed in this cell
during my six-month stay there. (…) At the end of April or the beginning
of May [1940] they took Kazia, Stefan Rdułtowski,
Jan Mierzejewski and Mieczysław Kotarbiński.
Others were packed into the cells in their place.
However, to date they have not been found.
Stefan Śnieżko
General Prosecutor of the Republic of Poland
Read by Maria Niklińska
On 5th May 1994 in Kyiv the deputy head of the Security Service
of Ukraine, General Andrei Khomich showed me a list comprising
3435 names. It was a document formally stating
that on 25th November 1940, the head of the First Special Department
of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, Senior Lieutenant of State Security Tsvetukhin had sent to
the head of the First Special Department of the NKVD in Moscow,
Major of State Security Bashtakov, 3435 personal prison files.
However, neither I, after a superficial inspection of the list,
nor – I believe – General Khomich had any doubt,
that it was a new, additional list of previously unknown of victims of the Katyn massacre.
Vasyl Symonenko
"The prophecy of 1917" (translated by M. Bohachevsky-Chomiak)
Read by Artem Manuilov
The granite obelisks, grizzly medusas,
Crawl on and fall.
On the graveyard of executed illusions
There is no room for more. The dead,
the hounded and the torn
Arise and go to form a court. Their curses, angry and yet untold
Fall on the mouldy, satiated souls.
And the wind rocks the trees,
The last props of the apostles of crime and swindle.
On earth both truth and love shall reign
And honest work will stand on guard for truth.
Vladimir Gavrischuk
Excerpt from the testimony of 19 May 1989
Read by Ian McQuillan-Grace
In the forest where the „Memorial” is now located, I used to see
mounds of sand, which had bones, fragments of clothing and skulls lying around them.
My friends and I often picked up these skulls and took them to our school.
There were a lot of skulls scattered around the forest. I used to play truant with my friends
to go and dig up these skulls. When we noticed that some of the skulls had crowns,
we started taking them out and selling them to random people for pittance.
When we got older, we were digging up these mass graves with the sole intention
of looking for golden crowns or dental bridges.
We usually traded this gold in for some fortified wine.
Bronisław Młodziejowski
From the report of the probing and exhumation investigation in Mednoye
Read by Maria Niklińska
These coats were brought over separately, because it was confirmed,
that the corpses underneath the coats were also in full winter uniform, ie. in trench coats.
The evidence discovered whilst searching the coats could suggest,
that it was carried out at the place of execution, ie. in the NKVD building in Tver, on Soviet Street.
It is most likely the prisoners left these coats in the cells
and were then dragged to their execution. Later on,
after the liquidation of the entire transport, all of the remaining pieces of uniform
and other items were removed from the prison cells.
Dmitry Tokarev
From the report of the interrogation of the former head of the NKVD Directorate of the Kalinin Region
Read by Ian McQuillan-Grace
The technology there was worked out by Vasily Blokhin,
yes, together with the commandant of our Directorate, Andrei Rubanov.
They padded the doors which led into the corridor with felt so that the shots fired in the cells could not be heard.
Then the condemned men were taken out through the corridor, turning to the left, where there was a red common room.
In the red common room, they were checked according to the list:
whether their personal data was correct, if there were any mistakes, thus, and then,
when they had made sure that this was the person to be shot,
they immediately put him in handcuffs and led him to the cell, where the execution was carried out.
The walls of the cell were also covered in a sound-absorbing material.
That’s all.
20th March 1991
Ivan Yurasov commissar of the Ostashkov camp
Political report
Read by Rita Raider
TOP SECRET
The mood among the majority of POWs regarding the dispatch is lively, especially among the rank-and-file police,
who are sure that they are going home, others are in doubt,
as to whether they are going home; several prisoners-of-war from the German territory
say they do not want to return to Germany.
Whilst leaving the camp, the departing prisoners-of-war threw matchboxes
with notes in them away, in which they had written that “during the search
they looked for weapons; personal items and valuables were not taken away,
all complaints are accepted, courteous treatment, it is impossible to deduce
from the search where they are taking us.”
The dispatch is taking place in an organised and peaceful way. (…)
Alojzy Piotr Babinski
From the notes found during the exhumation in Kharkiv
Read by Philip Lenkowsky
(…) Tuesday 26th March – News is still circulating,
that we are to leave from here soon. An order to get ready was issued
[…] in front of the blocks. [One] ruble [is] 450 zł.
Thaw during the day, frosts at night.
Friday 29th March
– Official reports that the next day of departure is still to come.
Wednesday 3rd April – Temperature this morning – 37.9 degrees,
this evening – 38 (ill).
I received milk today […] it looks like milk.
I wrote a card to Ryśka in Andrychów.
Thursday 4th April – this morning - 36.6,
this evening - 36.8. I gave the card
back to be posted. Friday 5th April
– They dressed me in order to […]
prepare for departure and initially to the train station.
We’re […] Saturday 6th April
– I got a separate compartment until […]
We left at night in the direction of Kharkiv. I am lying down the whole time as […]
in front […] a lower temperature.
From the pocket calendar of Lieutenant Alojzy Piotr Babinski,
found during the exhumation in Kharkiv.
Piotr Woropay-Hordziejewicz
A letter to his wife from the camp in Starobilsk
Read by Philip Lenkowsky
Dear Hela! Nothing new with me.
For the last four days spring has started to appear here.
The sun is shining brightly, the streams are flowing.
The [river] Aidar is expected to flood.
Today was a very beautiful, sunny, palm day (Palm Sunday),
which reminded me of the same day a year ago, two years ago etc.
For almost two months I’ve had no letters from you;
three weeks have also passed since I received a telegram. I worry whether you all at home are in good health.
I am sending you, my little boys, my parents,
and my neighbourly friends – my heartfelt season’s greetings.
I wish you all happiness, good luck, peace,
and good health and all that you desire.
I kiss you tenderly – Yours, Piotr.
Postscriptum: If it is possible,
take some pictures and send me a photograph.
I have a few of your photographs. – P.
A letter from Certified Captain Piotr Woropay-Hordziejewicz to his wife from the camp in Starobilsk.
Mikhail Kirshin, commissar of the Starobilsk camp
Extraordinary Political Report
Read by Rita Raider
I report that
on 11th October 1939
at 17:30 during an escape attempt,
prisoner-of-war Józef Augustynow, son of Jakub, a Pole from the Kraków Voivodeship was killed.
Facts of the case:
On 11th October 1939 at 17:30
prisoner-of-war, Private Augustow climbed over a stone wall of a height
of one and a half metres and ran away.
Sentries from posts 6 and 7, Red Army soldiers from the 135th convoy regiment,
Comrades Kuzminov and Grigoryev stopped him several times
by shouting “stop” and firing warning shots.
The prisoner-of-war continued his escape; then, sentry Comrade Kuzminov,
at a distance of 400m from his post cut across the path of the escapee
and ordered him to follow him back to the camp. Instead of carrying out
the sentry’s order, the prisoner-of-war lashed out at him and tried to disarm the sentry.
The sentry, Comrade Kuzminov, in accordance with the regulations of the sentry service,
used his weapon and immediately killed him outright.
An investigation carried out by the special unit showed that
the sentry had acted appropriately, and the case was dismissed.
Camp Commissar, Battalion Commissar Kirshin
Bronisław Młynarski
From memoirs of a survivor of Starobilsk prison camp
Read by Ian McQuillan-Grace
On 30th September at around seven o’clock in the morning, after a long and hard night,
the train stopped with a screeching sound as the buffers between the wagons smashed into one another.
After a while, the soldiers open its heavy, rusty door.
It’s cold and sunny outside. Our teeth are chattering.
We look disgusting in the light – dirty, hairy, dishevelled.
(…) Our wagon stopped almost in front of the station building,
which had a sign with “Starobilsk” written on it. (…)
We walk slowly, constantly being driven forward, weak from hunger and exhaustion.
TEST - en
test
test - głos opis en
Piero Onifiani
Shame
Cry with the tears of the whole world
once you already know about Katyń
cry with tears that no longer mark your face
but shake you up on the inside
the scenes so ruthless so terrible, unimaginable.
I lower my gaze knowing that it was people like me who did it.
Dr Helge Tramsen
a Danish surgeon, one of the twelve doctors who went to Katyń in April 1943 as a member of the International Commissions
what I saw at Katyń was such a terrible sight,
such a horrifying thing, I couldn’t have imagined
anything like that in my worst nightmares.
With my own eyes, I saw thousands of corpses in Polish uniforms,
deliberately murdered with a shot to the back of the skull,
their hands tied behind their back.”
An interview with Dr. Hieronim Bartoszewski
medical doctor, member of the Polish Red Cross Technical Committee in 1943
– How thick was the layer of earth that covered the bodies of those murdered?
– Between 1.5 and 1.7 meters.
We saw mixed corpses, arms and legs sticking out.
On one side, we could only see the heads arranged like matches in a box,
with heads in one direction. On the other side,
there were several layers of corpses, the whole deck ...
– You are unable to talk.
– Words don’t carry enough meaning.
Statement by the TASS Agency
Read by Jodie Baltazar
13 April 1990, Moscow
The revealed archival materials in their entirety lead to the conclusion
that the direct responsibility for the Katyń crime lied with Beria, Merkulov, and their helpers.
The Soviet side, expressing its deep regret over the Katyń tragedy,
declares that it is one of the grave crimes of Stalinism. Copies of the found documents
have been handed over to the Polish side. The search for these materials is being continued.
Józef Książek
daughter of Captain Józef Książek murdered at Katyn
read by Jodie Baltazar
Those mourning ceremonies, although held in summer and early autumn,
had the air of All Souls’ Day, of the Forefathers’ Eve ceremony.
For many of us, it was the first time when we could feel the elusive presence
of the Dead Loved One, and think of ourselves:
“I am the blood of your blood, and the bone of your bone.”
Here, somewhere under this grass that has grown on a foreign land,
lie my former beginnings. This is hard to fully comprehend or express.
This experience was never given to us before. We could only feel it there and then:
at Kharkiv, Katyń and Mednoye, in the forest cemeteries,
listening to the bell tolling for them.
Kazimierz Wierzynski
Funeral Mass in the New York Cathedral
Read by Aidan Hoyle
We pray for soldiers, soldiers of Vilnius and Lviv,
Captured in assault from behind, by traitors, by Judases,
When they no longer enjoyed even the cruel laws of every war,
Which allow you to kill so as not to be killed,
Soldiers in deadly camps, soldiers in poisoned swamps,
Soldiers in stone-like ice, soldiers beaten and handcuffed,
Soldiers of our freedom.
We pray for the innocent.
John Paul II
Address to the Katyń Families during a special audience
Read by Philip Lenkowsky
You are witnesses to a death that should not be forgotten.
The tragic events that took place in the spring of 1940 at Katyń,
Kharkiv, and Mednoye are a chapter in the Polish martyrdom books.
A chapter that must not be forgotten. This living memory should be preserved
as a warning to future generations. [...]
This enormous harvest of death [...] took the shape of freedom in the national dimension.
In the human dimension, it is an example
of courage and perseverance in being faithful to ideals.
Krysia Mikucka and Staś Mikucki
children of Second Lieutenant Eugeniusz Mikucki, who was murdered and buried in Katyn
To Comrade Joseph Stalin in Moscow
Our good, dear Father Stalin, I am ill in my bed, missing my daddy very much,
as I haven’t seen him for almost nine months. And I thought to myself that only you,
Great Stalin, could bring him back.
He was an engineer and he was called up for military service
during the war and was taken prisoner.
He is now in Kozielsk in the Smolensk region.
We were resettled to the Kazakhstan Republic,
to the Aryk-Balyksky district, to the Imantav kolkhoz.
We have no relatives here. My mom is tiny, very weak.
Please send us our father. I’m asking this with all my heart.
Ferdynand Goetel
writer, witness to the German exhumation
The main grave stretches out in front of us.
It is split by a gorge, dug out along the pile of corpses,
lying on top of each other in a compact mass, stuck together.
There is an inert arm sticking out of the wall in one place,
with legs hanging down elsewhere.
In the area where the top layer of the corpses is uncovered,
there is a figure, bound with a rope.
It seems to be still reliving the drama of the fight before death. [...]
The corpse we indicated is taken out. A brawny, broad-shouldered man
with the emblems of a cavalry captain. His uniform is undamaged.
Beautiful, “Warsaw-style” boots. His face is like a wax mask.
We shrink and tremble inside because Professor
separates the head from the body with a few movements of the knife,
and scalps it to show the entrance wound of the bullet
in the back of the head and the exit wound above the forehead.
And now, the scissors are cutting the military uniform, in search of papers.
They are found. Stuck together and worn away with venom, not quite legible.
Amongst them, a loose sheet with a partially legible address of the sender:
“Zielińska ... Grodziec County ... village ...”—
I can no longer remember the name.
Further on, “Dear husband ...”—
“Anyone else?”, Professor asks.
“No, no, that’s enough!”
Józef Trepiak
a diary written in the 1939 calendar wydobytym z dołów śmierciEN
A sunny, warmer day, no wind.
Three gener[als], Minkiewicz, Smorawiński, and Bohaterewicz,
as well as about 120 officers of high rank, were sent.
We are waiting until (...).
7 April 1940
Józef Mackiewicz
A witness of the German exhumation
Badges, buttons, belts, eagles, orders.
These are not anonymous corpses. Here lies the army.
One could venture to say it’s the cream of the army,
combat officers, some served in the three wars previously fought.
However, what is most tormenting to the imagination
is the individuality of the murder, multiplied in this monstrous mass.
Teofil Ryszard Rubasiński
one of the discoverers of the pit of death in Katyń
It didn’t take much time until we saw Polish uniforms.
From now on, we dig more carefully into the ground so as not to damage the bodies.
We can see the coats, not damaged on the surface
but rotten underneath the corpses. We dig up the bodies
of two men, with the ranks of a major and a captain.
A horrifying sight. The faces were beyond recognition,
hardly anything left of one head, only a shapeless mass, like a neck extension.
The victims’ arms were tied at the back, some with rope,
others with a metal pin, made with primitive wire...
We are silent.
Józef Czapski
prisoner of the camp in Starobelsk
From the very first moment, I started to ask all incoming Poles
if they had worked with any of our companions
from Starobelsk, Kozielsk, or Ostashkov.
We still believed that our colleagues would arrive any minute now...
But none arrived and, moreover, we had hardly any news about them,
about their fate, except for contradictory second-hand reports.
Adam Solski
Last sentences from a notepad extracted from the death pit at Katyń
Five o’clock in the morning. At dawn, the day had a particular start.
Leaving in a prison truck in compartments (terrible!).
[We were] brought to some forest; something like a summer resort.
A detailed search was done here.
My watch, showing 6:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.), was taken away.
I was asked about my wedding ring which (...).
They took away the roubles, the main belt, the penknife (...)
A note from Lavrentiy Beria to Joseph Stalin
5 March 1940
Read by Vergil Smith
To Comrade STALIN The USSR considers it
necessary: to entrust the following to the NKVD of the USSR:
1) the cases of 14,700 people
held in POW camps: former Polish officers,
officials, landowners, police officers, intelligence agents,
gendarmes, settlers, and prison guards,
2) as well as the cases of 11,000 people arrested and held in prisons
in the western provinces of Ukraine and Belarus: members
of various counter-revolutionary espionage and subversive organisations,
former landowners, factory owners, former Polish officers, officials,
and fugitives to be dealt with according to a special procedure,
applying the highest punishment to them: firing squad.
Józef Mackiewicz
A witness of the German exhumation
Our officers were brought to Gniezdowo station.
Only four kilometres to the Katyń forest from here.
They travelled the last four kilometres of their lives
very much as we do now, passing the same trees, like this birch tree or the other,
and I’d like to remember what this tree looks like but, as usual,
it will be immediately lost in my memory among the many other birch trees and bushes.
The Katyń forest is not big.
It covers several hectares.