Posted on 04/28/2010 3:08:43 PM PDT by kronos77
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UkRB3wsj2E&feature=player_embedded
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
New Katyn documents published by Russia “good sign”: Polish PM
English.news.cn 2010-04-29 05:56:43 FeedbackPrintRSS
WARSAW, April 28 (Xinhua) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s words about new Katyn documents were “a good sign” but noted that he would “rather wait for facts”.
Russia will give Poland unpublicized documentation on the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish POWs by Soviet security services, Medvedev announced Wednesday in Copenhagen.
Earlier Russia’s state archives Rosarchiw informed that the Katyn documentation was now accessible online. Rosarchiv added that this had been expressly ordained by Medvedev.
“These words are a good sign and to be received at best face value, but I’ll rather wait for facts in this case. Especially after the Smolensk disaster, words are just not enough any more,” Tusk was quoted as saying by the PAP news agency.
Poland’s ruling party Civic Platform (PO) praised Russia’s decision to put the Katyn dossier online. According to right-wing oppositionist Law and Justice (PiS), Polish-Russian relations would improve if Russia opened its entire archive on Katyn.
This April observed the 70th anniversary of the tragedy that witnessed some 22,000 Polish deaths in the Katyn forest some 18 km west of Russian city of Smolensk.
Late Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and dozens of other top Polish officials were killed in the April 10 air crash near Smolensk when heading to commemoration of the tragedy.
The movie, “Katyn” from 2006 details all this.
SHOCKING AND MOVING...horrific.
Former Yugoslavia was firmly anti-Stalinist oriented and we were siding with Poland over the massacre issue.
And to think everybody blamed this massacre on the Germans for fifty years....
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Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution.Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's words about new Katyn documents were "a good sign" but noted that he would "rather wait for facts".To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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“...when we were studying prelude to WWII and were told about Katyn massacre of 5,000 polish POWs by Stalinists. It was 1987 back than.”
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The number 5000 is way too low. I learned about the massacre in the early 50’s in HS in W. Europe.
No, it was resolved with the help of the International Red Cross that the Russians had done it it, even before the end of WWII. But of course they had to deny that in America in order not to piss off our “ally” Uncle Joe (Stalin).
There were 5000 at the Katyn site. In addition, two other groups of 5000 officers were liquidated elsewhere and their bodies have never been recovered (One of the groups was taken out on a barge in the center of a lake and sunk).
"In private, Churchill agreed that the atrocity was likely carried out by the Soviets. According to the notes taken by Count Raczyński, Churchill admitted on 15 April 1943 during a conversation with General Sikorski: "Alas, the German revelations are probably true. The Bolsheviks can be very cruel."[51] However, at the same time, on 24 April 1943 Churchill assured the Soviets: "We shall certainly oppose vigorously any 'investigation' by the International Red Cross or any other body in any territory under German authority. Such investigation would be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism."[52] Unofficial or classified UK documents concluded that Soviet guilt was a "near certainty", but the alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than moral issues; thus the official version supported the Soviet version, up to censoring the contradictory accounts.[45] Churchill's own post-war account of the Katyn affair is laconic. In his memoirs, he quotes the 1944 Soviet inquiry into the massacre, which predictably found that the Germans had committed the crime, and adds, "belief seems an act of faith."[53]
In the United States, a similar line was taken, notwithstanding that two official intelligence reports into the Katyn massacre were produced that contradicted the official position. In 1944 Roosevelt assigned his special emissary to the Balkans, Navy Lieutenant Commander George Earle, to compile information on Katyn, which he did using contacts in Bulgaria and Romania. Earle concluded that the massacre was committed by the Soviet Union. Having consulted with Elmer Davis, the director of the Office of War Information, Roosevelt rejected the conclusion (officially), declared that he was convinced of Nazi Germany's responsibility, and ordered that Earle's report be suppressed. When Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings, the President issued a written order to desist. Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of the war in American Samoa. quoted from Wikipedia.
Wonder what else we were deceived about.....
I believe the number was around 15,000.
Sobering.
And this from the “free” side ....
Socialism under Mao = 36,000,000 dead
Socialism under Stalin = 23,000,000 dead
Socialism under the democrats = 43,000,000 aborted.
“And to think everybody blamed this massacre on the Germans for fifty years....”
We should have seen right through that claim, i mean, *everyone* knows the nazis were super nice to the Poles! I love how nazis get a case of the vapors at that dishonest Russian accusation. They murdered millions of other Poles, (but not THESE particular ones),, and months later murdered every jew in Kiev within a few days at Yabi Bar.
That was rather in Babi Yar (bar-biy yar, Women's gully )
Movie ENIGMA does deal with the massacre...Oh, Kate Winslet is in the film...
The number was about 22 - 23 000, thanks for the article.
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