| THE KATYN MASSACRE |
| President Roosevelt commissioned Captain George Earle to collect information about Katyn. This report also came to the same conclusion, that the Soviets were guilty. But Roosevelt rejected Earle's conclusions insisting that he was sure that Germany was the culprit. This report was also suppressed. When Captain Earle requested permission to publish the report, Roosevelt, a close friend of the family, shipped him off to the American Samoa for the rest of the war. In 1944, Moscow conducted its own investigation, under the Burdenko Commission. Predictably, it concluded that the Polish officers had been murdered in 1941, rather than 1940, accusing the Germans for the atrocity. In this way, the Soviets believed that they had succeeded in relinquishing themselves of any blame. The Soviets invited the international press to attend an exhibition in which evidence (obviously fabricated) was presented to prove German culpability. The press delegations endorsed the Soviet claims. However, Kathleen Harriman, who was among the US press corps, later retracted her initial statement. Several days later, the Russian government staged a military and religious ceremony to commemorate the victims of " German fascist invaders ". To give the ceremony a semblance of creditibility, the Polish Division of the Red Army was in attendance, and of course, the entire extravaganza was filmed for propaganda purposes. In 1949 a committe comprised of prominent American citizens pressured the US governement to open an official investigation on the Katyn massacre, but it fell on deaf ears. Meanwhile, the Soviets were busy eliminating Katyn from all Russian maps. In 1969, Moscow tried to confuse the issue. They planned to unveil a war memorial in a small village named " Khatyn " The name looks and sound just like Katyn. Khatyn was one of the thousands of villages in Belorussia that the Germans invaded and destroyed. The "name game" didn't fool anybody. When Nixon was invited by the Russian government to attend the unveiling there, the New York Times headline read, " Nixon Sees Khatyn, a Soviet memorial - Not Katyn ". In 1998 a souvenir booklet was being sold at an exhibit of World War II photographs. The text was a virtual repetition of Soviet propaganda in which the Germans were accused of having perpetrated the crime. Since the occupation of Poland, the subject of the Katyn Massacre had been erased from Polish and Russian history. But many books on the subject had been written in the US and no doubt in Germany concerning Soviet responsibility. In 1981, a memorial was erected by Solidarnosc, with the simple engraving " Katyn ". It was immediately confiscated by the NKVD. Subsequently, the Kremlin authorized a memorial to be erected in the same spot with the engraving, " To the Polish soldiers, victims of Hitlerite fascism, reposing in the soil of Katyn ". In 1987 Gorbachev signed an agreement with General Jaruzelski to investigate troublesome issues that persisted between Russia and Poland. But in a state visit to Warsaw the following year, Gorbachev refused to even address the subject of Katyn. A number of prominent Polish citizens printed an open letter in the newspaper calling on the Soviet Union to open its offical archives to the public. People demonstrated in the streets of Warsaw demanding full disclosure. The pressure was on, but the Soviets typical response was one of more lies and deceit. In 1988 the Russian government announced its plan for yet another memorial to Katyn This time they would not only commemorate the Polish officers but also the five hundred Soviet prisoners who " were shot by the fascists in 1943" (Editors Note: The year 1943 is not a typo. Its what the Russian government declared) The Soviets tried to convince the world that Katyn was a Russian and Polish tragedy. New evidence was discovered, of all places, in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Waclaw Godziemba- Maliszewski, a Polish American art expert, was conducting his own research on Katyn. He received a copy of an article written by Robert G. Poirier, a CIA officer, entitled, " The Katyn Enigma: New Evidence in a 40 Year Riddle ". In it were images taken during a reconnaissance mission of the area, before, during, and after the Germans occupied the area. The photos indicated that the terrain had not changed even after the Germans arrived. And there was film showing images of NKVD bulldozing some graves and removing bodies, presumably to rebury elsewhere. This is proof positive that the Germans had nothing to do with the crime, and that the Soviets were guilty. Godziemba-Maliszewski was able to locate more photos of Katyn at the National Archives, including eyewitness reports. Upon completion of his research in January 1991, he submitted his findings (and the Poirier article) to experts at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. From there it was forwarded to the Polish Ministry of Justice, and after verification of the information, it was disclosed to the public by an interview given to the German newspaper, Tagesspiegel ( May 12, 1991 ) It ignited great interest in Germany which had dealt with the subject since the early 1980s. A Polish prosecutor, under the watchful eye of the KGB, travelled to Kharkov, USSR, with the mission to identify various sites where Polish prisoners were executed. More evidence kept surfacing pointing to Soviet responsibility. Finally, in 1992 Moscow announced that it had just discovered the original document signed by Stalin in 1940 ordering the execution of the Polish officers. ( The document was part of Gorbachevs private collection of archives). But rather than admit that it was a government-sanctioned political murder, Gorbachev pointed the blame to Beria, Stalin's secret chief of police. Gorbachev claimed that Beria was convicted as a criminal, and executed for the crime. No mention was ever made of Stalin. In October 1992, Yeltsin presented a copy of the document to then President of Poland, Lech Walesa. It was Yelstins intention to discredit Gorbachev in what was a pollitical showdown preceeding Russian elections. In 1993, Yeltsin visited Warsaws military cemetary, and in a display of solemnity knelt before the Polish priest, and kissed the wreath that he placed at the base of the Katyn Cross. He promised to punish those who were involved in carrying out the massacre, and to make reparations. He reneged on both promises. In 1995 Yeltsin attended a ceremony at which a cornerstone was to be placed for a Polish cemetary at Katyn. Again he tried to relinquish blame from the Soviet government by telling the audience that " totalitarian terror affected not only Polish citizens but, in the first place the citizens of the former Soviet Union." Several days later, the Russian Foreign Ministry confronted Polish dissent with a warning not to stir distrust between Russian and Poland, and repeating the now familiar mantra that totalitarian rule also killed millions of Russians. In 1996, the Russians published a book ( in Polish ) entitled, " The Katyn Crime Fiction : which put blame squarely on Germany - overlooking the fact that Gorbachev had already disclosed the truth - that the Soviets were responsible for Katyn. Secret Soviet police reports were declassified in 1998, entitled, " Eyes Only For J.V. Stalin: NKVD Reports From Poland, 1944-1946 ". These documents established without a doubt that Stalin's objective was the genocide of the Polish nation. In the same year, more graves of Polish soldiers had been uncovered, near Tavda, and Tomsk, east of the Ural mountains. Despite irrefutable proof that the Soviet government was responsible, they continue to try to backpeddle and evade the truth about the Katyn Massacre. |
| CONTINUED |