Katyn 67th anniversary

In 1940 the Stalinist NKVD secret police executed over 20 thousand Polish army and police officers, who had been held in POW camps in Ukraine since the Soviets invaded Polish territory in September 1939, on the basis of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact signed with the Nazis.

Commemorative events are being held throughout Poland. In Warsaw, a symbolic wreath has been placed by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski at the Katyn quarters in the Powazki Military Cemetery.

Katyn: taking political responsibility

03.04.2007

Sixty-seven years ago today, the first transport of Poles left the Kozielsk POW camp in Soviet Russia bound for Katyn Forest.

Sixty-seven years ago today, the first transport of Poles left the Kozielsk POW camp in Soviet Russia bound for Katyn Forest, the site of the massacre of over 20 thousand Polish officers, policemen and intelligentsia.

In 1990, the Soviet Union formally expressed ‘profound regret’ and admitted Soviet secret police responsibility, but to this day Russia refuses to acknowledge that the Katyń Massacre was an act of genocide.

Polish MEP, prominent historian Wojciech Roszkowski says that no stable relationship between Poland and Russia can be built while denying the fundamental historical facts.

Excerpts from his interview for Polish Radio’s External Service.

‘Russia needs understanding partners in Western Europe but is denying the fundamental idea of truth. The truth today is not the truth of yesterday. Russian truth is not Polish truth or German truth. How can we build stable relationships on such concepts?’

‘[The Katyn Massacre] was a case of genocide. It fits the definition of genocide as formulated by the UN Resolution of 1948 in which not only executions of special categories of people but also maltreatment or massacre of people belonging to a certain defined category of people is defined as genocide.

Here there’s no need to prove guilt, no need to carry on normal legal procedure, but an administrative decision to kill a certain number of people belonging to a category.

In the memorandum of 5 March, 1940, the Kremlin leaders specified and defined the category of people that was to be massacred at Katyn and other places.

These were Polish officers, policemen and other people belonging to the Polish elite. There were no court proceedings, these people were not even interrogated and not tried.

The Kremlin leaders decided to execute them without any court proceedings and this was exactly genocide according to the UN definition.’

‘I can imagine a situation when the Russian government changes into a more civilized form of government accepting the principles of truth and not treating historical events as a matter of political game. For Poland, it is not a matter of political games. This is reality. We cannot establish good relationship if we live in a false reality.’

http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/gb/dokument.aspx?iid=50564

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