KATY MASSACRE

Eliza Iatesen
1.Sequence of events.
Poland ceded under two strokes: Nazist invasion from September the 1 st completed by
Soviet invasion from September 17. Poland was hastily divided between Stalin and Hitler
according to the Ribbentrop Molotov Pact, signed on 24 august 1939: Moscow and Berlin have
a military cooperation but they also establish several secret conferences of GESTAPO and
NKVD, determining repressive measures for polonaise resistance. Soviet secret services will
deliver information to the German partners as regards to the polonaise partisans.
Poland will fall under Soviet repression: tens of thousands of people were arrested,
executed or irrationally arrested, under the only supposition that they were the enemies of
nation
Polonaises preferred to withdraw in front of the advancement of the 800.000 soviets,
which attacked on 17th September. The soviets in their turn lugged in captivity all polonaise
officers and tens of thousands civilians. The chief of NKVD, Lavrenti Beria, recommended to
Stalin, in a letter addressed to him in March 1940 to take into account the extermination of
Polonaise prisoners. Beria repeated again and again that the Polish officers, functionaries, and
prisoners were counter-revolutionary agents attempting to continue their c-r (counterrevolutionary) activity, and are conducting anti-Soviet agitation. According to Beria, All of
them are bitter enemies of the Soviet power, filled with enmity for the Soviet system. Beria
went on to list the total number of prisoners for each category before recommending that the
NKVD USSR apply towards them the punishment of the highest order shooting. [...] The
matter is to be looked at without summoning the arrested and without the presentation of
evidence.1Berias recommendation was approved by Stalin and by the Politburo from
Moscow. Executions started on the 3rd April 1940 and took place in NKVD prisons, from
Kalinin, Harkov and in Katyn forest. Other places of imprisonment were Kozielsk, Starobielsk,
Ostachkov( there were 5000, 4000 and respectively 6500, including active officers, a certain
1

Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, www.massviolence.org, accessed on 28 February

28, 2009.

number of invalids from the war, officers of the army and constabulary, and clerical members 2).
Thus, in July, 1941, 15000 officers were imprisoned in URSS.
The terryfing image of these crimes is described in many memorial documents and
transposed by Andrzej Wajda in the film with the same name Katyn, from 2007. The
polonaise prisoners were brought near the digged ditches with their hands tied, they were shot
with a bullet in their nape and then threw over the bodies of the previous victims. In this way
the Soviets assassinated an admiral, 16 generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 654
captains, 3400 petty officers. Apart from the military personnel, another 300 physicians, 100
writers and journalists, 20 university professors, 200 pilots, 800 teachers, lawyers and inginiers.
Moscow wanted to behead Poland, depriving it of its elite.3
After the war between Germany and URSS started, Stalin will ask for help from the
West, and will be bound down to get in touch with the Polonaise Government exiled in
London, which will ask about the faith of the thousands militaries in the soviets hands.From
London had to arrive a diplomatic mission charged

to supervise the constitution of a

Polonaise army on the territory of URSS. At the end of 1942 NKVD arrested Polonaise
delegation under the accusation of espionage and anti-Soviet activities. We can even admit that
Moscow was afraid that the truth from Katyn was close to be found.
Katyn case was made public on 13 April 1943, when a radio from Berlin announced that
some huge common pits were discovered in a forest near Smolensk, hiding the remains of
several thousands Polonaise officers, assassinated by the Russians. Three days later, Kremlin
emitted an announcement in which affirmed that there were Polonaise war prisoners used in
construction labor near Salmolensk which have been shot by Germans in the summer of 1941.
Almost simultaneously, the relations between Moscow and the Polonaise government from exile
got drastically worse. The latter are firmly decided to find the truth. Thus, on 25 th April 1943
Stalin ordained the interruption of the diplomatic relations with them.

Alexandra Kwiatkowski-Viatteau, 1940-1943.La memoire du sicle. Katyn- Larme Polonaise asasine,

ed.Edition Complexe, Poland, 1982, p.73

3

George Damian, Dosarele secrete- Masacrele de la Katyn, published in Ziua, www.ziua.net, accessed
on 28 February, 2009, No.4264 from Sutarday, 21 June, 2004.

From the autumn of 1943 till January 1944 soviets tried to create evidences in order to
blame the Nazis for the Katy crimes. The lie in lasted till 1990. In the final years of the Cold
War, the public silence in Poland was broken, when, following the signing of an April 1987
agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev on Polish-Soviet academic and cultural cooperation, PUWP
first secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski set up a joint Polish-Soviet commission to investigate the
blank spots in contemporary Polish history, including Katy. Soviet commission members
maintained total silence on the massacres, and the commission failed to produce documents for
public consumption, yet the commission made the word itself Katy less taboo.4
2. KATY FILM
-Nenna MbaI see my film about Katyn as a story of a family separated forever, about great illusions and the brutal
truth about the Katyn crime. In a word, a film about individual suffering, which evokes images of much
greater emotional content than naked historical facts. A film that shows the terrible truth that hurts,
whose characters are not the murdered officers, but women who await their return every day, every hour,
suffering inhuman uncertainty. Loyal and unshaken, convinced that it was only enough to open the door
to see the long awaited man at it as the tragedy of Katyn concerns those who live and lived then.
(FILM DIRECTOR, Andrzej Wajda )

The movie KATYN opens on a bridge in Poland the date, September 17 th 1939 with
people shouting the soviets have entered and the Germans are behind us. The question on their
lips which way do we run?
A woman in a car calls out to Mrs. Anna to get to Krakow where its safer but Anna
declines and heads to find her husband Captain Andrzej who refuses to leave saying he made a
pledge to the army.
A train arrives to take them away and the flag is ripped apart with the red part being put
in place and the white either used as a bandage or simply just tucked away underlining the fact
that it is Red territory.
The Reds spread word assuring the poles of their protection claiming to be their saviour
saying resistance is futile.
4

George Damian, Dosarele secrete- Masacrele de la Katyn, published in Ziua, www.ziua.net, accessed
on 28 February, 2009, No.4264 from Sutarday, 21 June, 2004.

The university is closed down and all the intellectuals are arrested and sent to a labor
camp on the grounds of being anti-German this was a ruse to prevent the rebuilding of the nation
by removing the intellectuals that would be needed for this to happen. This begs the question
who is the Polish at war with the Germans or the Soviets, the movie sheds no light on this.
The film cuts to the POWs in the train arguing that this is not what they signed up for but
they are asked to calm down by a fellow officer who urges them not to fight in front of the
Soviets. One officer asks whose fault it is and another answers history will judge,very intuitive
you might say.
A soldier reports the sighting of the first star prompting a speech from the General I guess
the first star represents a hope about the future because the general talks about not giving up and
that the achievement of a free Poland is up to them. He ends with a song almost like he is saying
a prayer which the men join in signifying unity of purpose.
Subsequently Wadjas focus shifts to the families, Anna and Nika are in a room with the woman
from the car and a child and a red coat soldier who is very nice and even offers to marry Anna
who reminds him that she is already married. He ends up saving their lives in the midst of the
war one person is trying to do the right thing.
Krakow 1940.
Anna and Nika make their way to Krakow we dont know how but she talks of spending
all her money in the process, Nikas grandma wants to know when last her son wrote she tells
them about the father but doesnt seem to believe what he writes in his letters as they are meant
not to provoke the censor, the movie cuts back to the train where the officers are celebrating
Christmas but the lieutenant thinks its suspicious their spirits are waning and one tried to commit
suicide.Captain Andrzjez tries to keep a diary of events that he hopes will get to his wife upon
his demise.
April 13th 1943
Names are announced and printed in the newspapers people listen with dread and hope at
the same time. Not hearing a loved ones name gives hope and we see Anna smiling she take the
news to her mother-in-law but they argue over the possibility because she sees the name of
lieutenant Jerzy and the units commander on what has infamously become known as the Katyn
list.

The senselessness of it all and the loss of her husband leaves the mother in doubt and
Anna tries desperately to convince her to cling on to hope by saying no part of me has died yet
if he were dead I would have felt it.
Relatives of the deceased are invited by the Germans among them is the Generals wife
she is asked to read a propaganda statement condemning the Soviets for the atrocities at the
Katyn forest, the daughter cries dont leave me, as her mother is being led away for her refusal to
read the statement on tape, she is shown a film about mass graves of polish officers exhumed and
how the German soldier fights to protect all of Europe against the Bolshevik menace. This scene
depicts the courage of loved ones not to murder loved ones again by damning supposed offenders
without being sure of the facts even at the expense of their own lives, not sure what the truth is
but not wanting to be part of lies either.
The movie skips to 1945 a maid returns to her former place of employment but since her
husband has joined the Peoples army her status has changed and she is now a lady. She returns
the Generals saber and leaves finding that she is unable to stay.
Nika mistakes a uniformed soldier for her dad but it is actually his friend who tells Anna how he
got mistaken for dead, and that it was actually the Captain who had on a sweater with his name
but he urges her to still keep hope alive but Anna goes in and tells the mother that her son is dead
after which she collapses.
He has joined the Soviet army as well this serves to remind us of what some did in order
to survive others are caught between trying to honour the dead and staying out of trouble, Jerzy
goes to the laboratory, here they are saving the soldiers things as evidence to prove who
committed the crime and the presence of an NKVD officer which is the secret police would be
suspicious as it may be a setup, thus he is not trusted and the professor demands to see a warrant
while feigning ignorance but Jerzy tells him he comes in private to ask that an envelope in his
name be sent to the Captains wife as she will consider them relics, he writes down her address
but he later shoots himself after a drunken tirade about the historical truth in a bar unable to
live with himself any longer.
The soviets also make their own propaganda film citing the Germans as the culprit saying
the execution style of a single gunshot to the back of the head is typical of the Gestapo claiming
that the murders took place not later than 1941. As the film is showing the generals wife knocks
on a van and shouts it is a lie but Major Jerzy steps in and takes her away. While sitted on a

bench he tells her he was among the polish officers that testified to the impartiality of the
investigation carried out by the Soviets, he salutes two soviet officers as they pass and the
woman tells him he salutes them like victors when they are in fact murderers.
You may think differently but you do the same this is one of the dilemmas portrayed in
the movie to speak against the Soviets was certain death and to keep quiet or join them was to
betray the dead. This theme is explored in the movie with the scene between the Major and the
generals wife and then again between two sisters, Agnieska who insists on building a memorial
for her brother with the right date and her sister who justifies her refusal to participate with the
words: there will never be a free Poland but she is not alone even the priest in the church asks
her to take it away. She feels that people shouldnt let themselves be killed but to try to make
Poland as free as possible.
Agnieska ends the dialogue by saying she chooses the murdered and not the murderers. The
plaque is broken and she has taken what maybe her last look at freedom.
A young boy refuses to change the entry on his CV concerning his fathers death and
goes into the street and tears a poster extolling the Soviets but manages to get away with the help
of a young lady who he makes a date with but he never keeps it, he later dies.
The final scene of the movie begins with Anna receiving her husbands diary, he tries to
leave a momento by scribbling on the carriage wall with his rosary his rank, squadron and date.
The graphic scene of the killings is shown starts with the execution of the general first in
a room with an officer seated on a desk behind him on the wall is a picture of Stalin maybe this is
an answer after all to the question of whose fault it is. The killings then move to the forest with
the officers hands tied behind their backs,an officer walks along with a bayonet finishing up the
job, the graves are covered the screen goes blank for a few seconds with a morbid background
music playing and then the credits starts rolling.
3. KATYN IN PEOPLES THOUGHT
In 1977 it was published Le livre Noir de la Censure en Republique Populaire de
Pologne5. Alexandra Kwiatkowski-Viatteau points out some information from this book: The
censure lasted till present (1975), from the death of the polonaise officers during the second

Alexandra Kwiatkowski-Viatteau, 1940-1943.La memoire du sicle. Katyn- Larme Polonaise asasine,

ed.Edition Complexe, Poland, 1982, p138.

World War.For the appreciation of the materials on the subject around Katyn, it should be taken
into account the next set of criterias:
First of all we should not tolerate the tentative to charge the Soviet Union with the
responsibility of Polonaise officers death. Secondly, in scientific works, formulations like
fusille par les hitleriens Katyn, mort a Katyn, and all the other forms are tolerated only if
they are sustained by the date of death, not later than September 1941. Those who died after
September 1939 were only considered prisoners of war.
Louis Robert Coatney, from University of Illinois stated in his thesis that in order to
understand in quantitative terms the recent realization of the importance of Katyn to 20th
Century Polish and Soviet history and to the history of wartime and postwar foreign relations, a
cursory survey of Katyn-related scholarly articles abstracted in the index Historical Abstracts is
illuminating. Prior to the late 1980s, an article on Katyn appeared only once every five or so
years. In the first half of 1992, alone, ten articles were indexed and abstracted.
For the West, the Katyn Massacre was a signal, inceptive incident in the wartime doubt
in Western minds about the motives and methods of the Soviet Union. The visualized image of
prisoners-of-war, bound and gagged, being forced down onto stacks of fresh corpses of their
murdered friends--heaped like so much garbage--then to be shot through the back of their heads
was a specter which could not be comfortably or complete-ly ignored and forgotten. Such
wartime disturbance and distrust served as a foundation for the postwar East-West antagonism
which became known as "the cold war." Katyn was also important for its subsequent, periodic
use as a compelling example of Marxist-Leninism's threat to liberal, Western society and
institutions. Finally, it was significant as a professional, ethical challenge to Western intellectuals
and to their institutions of inquiry.6

Louis Robert Coatney, The Katyn Massacre, an assessment of its significance, as a publical and historical
issue, an abstract of a thesis presented to the Department of History in Western Illinois University, 1993,
published on http://www.ibiblio.org/, accessed on 1st March, 2009.
6