Who were the victims of the crime? Life in the camp was recorded in memoirs, documents, letters and above all, in the items recovered from the death pits during the exhumations. The victims of the Katyn crime did not only lose their lives. The executioners deprived them of their human dignity, throwing their bound bodies into unmarked mass graves.

Watch the video

The last moments

In addition to the bodies, hundreds of items were extracted from the death pits. Letters, house keys, a container with tea which still retained its aroma... These items, which turned into holy relics for the relatives, are a voice from the past, sending a message for posterity about the last moments of the Victims’ lives.

Who were the Victims of the Massacre?

The Kharkiv cemetery is the resting place for bodies of at least 3,820 Polish officers and cadets from the Polish Army regular service and reserve who were kept in the Starobilsk camp. The fraternal graves are the burial place for people representing many nations and denominations: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, the Orthodox Church, Judaism and Islam. Katyn cemeteries have turned into sites of reflection and ecumenical reconciliation.

Listen to the voices

Alojzy Piotr Babinski

From the notes found during the exhumation in Kharkiv

Read by Philip Lenkowsky

Piotr Woropay-Hordziejewicz

A letter to his wife from the camp in Starobilsk

Read by Philip Lenkowsky

Mikhail Kirshin, commissar of the Starobilsk camp

Extraordinary Political Report

Read by Rita Raider

Bronisław Młynarski

From memoirs of a survivor of Starobilsk prison camp

Read by Ian McQuillan-Grace