After years of lies, oppression, desecration
of the burial sites,
the Soviet authorities admitted to carrying out the Katyn Massacre.
The truth regarding Katyn can be a warning to us all, as well as an experience which unites nations
who have also been subjected to the atrocities of Soviet totalitarianism.
Watch the video
Kto zamordował blisko 22 tysiące obywateli polskich podczas Zbrodni Katyńskiej?
Federacja Rosyjska nie zdecydowała się na wskazanie i nawet symboliczne ukaranie osób odpowiedzialnych za Zbrodnię Katyńską. 21 września 2004 roku Naczelna Prokuratura Wojskowa Rosji umorzyła prowadzone śledztwo katyńskie „w związku ze śmiercią sprawców”. Ich nazwiska nie zostały oficjalnie opublikowane, a samo postanowienie o umorzeniu śledztwa, jak i wiele jego materiałów utajniono.
Jednak na podstawie znanych i opublikowanych dokumentów jesteśmy w stanie część z nich nazwać z imienia i nazwiska.
Perpetrators
On 26 October 1940, a total of 125 NKVD officers were rewarded by Lavrenty Beria for a ‘successful execution of special tasks’, but the number of perpetrators of the Katyn Massacre is undoubtedly much higher. The Russian Federation discontinued the investigation, it has not identified all the perpetrators until today and has not even symbolically condemned those who were guilty.
The lie
Bykivnia became the burial place for prisoners from the so-called Ukrainian Katyn list, containing 3,435 names. The documents of the crime, the results of exhumations and investigations serve as a weapon in the fight against the so-called ‘Katyn lie’. The lie which accompanied the Massacre from the very beginning and still persists today.
Listen to the voices
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.
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.
