On September 17, 1939, in the middle of the fight of the Polish Army with the German aggressor, when Warsaw, the capital of Poland was still defending itself in its siege, Poland was attacked without warning by the Soviet Union as a result of the Nazi Germany-Soviet pact signed on August 23, 1939, by the ministers of foreign affairs - Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov.
The Polish government decided to leave Poland and to continue the fight against Nazi Germany with the support of its allies France and Great Britain.
In Poland, the Polish Army resisted against the German and Soviet invasion. At the beginning of October 1939, 15000 members of the Polish Army, Police and Border Guard came under the authority of the Soviet government. Violating international law, the Soviet government denied them the Prisoners of War status.
The Polish soldiers were imprisoned in the camps of Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostaszkow. These men were immune to the communist propaganda and faithful to their oath to Poland. They were aware that the war continued and the Polish soldiers were fighting together with France and Great Britain. On March 5, 1940, the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party issued the order No P13/144.
On initiative of Lavrentiy Beria, the Soviet Politburo decided to execute all the Polish prisoners.
The decision was signed by all the Politburo members, including Joseph Stalin. Between the end of March and the end of April 1940, at least 21000 Polish prisoners (according to the Shelepin list, officials and other civilian prisoners) were killed by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police.
In the forests of Katyn, a small village near Smolensk, 4400 prisoners from the prisoner’s camp in Kozielsk were killed. The Katyn forests are a symbol of the criminal nature of communists. Without the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and German-Soviet co-operation, the Katyn massacre would never have happened.
In October 1940, 125 Soviet secret police agents were awarded for good performance of duties. Until 1990, the government of the Soviet Union denied any responsibility.
It wasn’t until 1990 that Mikhail Gorbachev accepted Soviet responsibility and he took a very courageous political step to apologise to the Poles.
“We regret that today, in modern Russia, there are still people and political forces that deny the responsibility of the Soviet Union for such terrible crimes.
“Polish officers were executed because of their nationality and their patriotism. Today they rest in peace at four memorial cemeteries. One of them is the Katyn cemetery.”
The alabaster tomb of the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria Kaczynska who were killed, with 94 other prominent Poles, in a plane crash in Smolensk, Russia. File picture: Czarek Sokolowski/AP
Katyn is a place of sorrow for Poland. On April 10, 2010, in Smolensk, on the way to the Katyn Memorial Cemetery, President of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczynski, along with a delegation of parliamentarians and military personnel, died in an air accident. It was the biggest tragedy in the democratic history of Poland after 1989, one which constantly traumatises the Polish nation.
* Spyra is head of the Political and Economic Department and Ambassador Titular of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL.