Katyn Forest Massacre

On 23 August 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty. As part of their agreement, secret protocols delineated their respective spheres of influence over the territory between them. On 1 September 1939 Nazi Germany launched the Second World War by invading Poland from the West. On 17 September the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East. The two totalitarian powers split Poland between them. Approximately 250,000 Polish soldiers were captured by the Red Army. About 15,000 military officers, police officers and border guards were segregated and interned in three camps: Starobelsk, Kozelsk and Ostashkov. On March 5, 1940, NKVD Chief Beria provided Stalin with a written proposal to execute the Poles at the three camps as well as thousands of other Polish prisoners in the jails of Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine. Beria described the Polish prisoners as "sworn enemies of Soviet power, filled with hatred for the Soviet system of government". He proposed to "apply to them the supreme punishment, shooting". In the operation that followed in April and May 1940, 21,857 Poles were shot by the NKVD and buried in hidden mass graves. On 22 June 1941, the Germans attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviets then agreed to release the Poles in Soviet captivity and allow General Władysław Anders to assume the command of a Polish Army to be formed on Soviet territory. But where were the officers who were held at Starobelsk, Kozelsk and Ostashkov? Polish efforts to find them were futile as the Soviet authorities dodged the issue and gave evasive answers. On 13 April 1943 the Nazis announced a gruesome discovery in the Katyn Forest where they found mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of Polish officers from the Kozelsk camp. The Germans claimed the Polish officers were killed by the Soviets. The Soviets responded by claiming that the Nazis had captured and killed the Polish officers in 1941. This "Katyn Lie" would be the official Soviet and Communist narrative on the subject for the next 47 years. On 13 April 1990 Soviet President Gorbachev provided the Polish Government with documents confirming that the Soviets were responsible for the Katyn Massacre. On 14 October 1992 Russian President Yeltsin revealed the text of the execution order of March 5, 1940, signed by Stalin."The Katyn Forest Massacre: An Annotated Bibliography of Books in English" begins with a history of the Katyn Massacre and an overview of the literature on Katyn. The subsequent chapters discuss the authors and contents of some 38 books that have been published over the decades in English about Katyn. Each book contributed something to the evolving literature and general knowledge about the history of the Massacre. Books were written by some prisoners who survived (Czapski and Młynarski), witnesses who were brought to the exhumations (Stroobant and Werth), diplomats and generals who tried to find out what happened to the missing officers (Kot and Anders), family members who were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia (Adamczyk), researchers and historians (Zawodny, Ciencala, Sanford and Maresch), and authors who believed that raising awareness about Katyn was worthwhile because it might help rectify an injustice (FitzGibbon and Allen). Books written before the Soviet admission of guilt pointed an accusatory finger at the Kremlin. Those written afterward had the benefit of archival revelations that helped shed light on previously unknown details of the NKVD Katyn operation. The Foreword is by Dr. Alexander M. Jablonski, President of the Oskar Halecki Institute in Canada. Andrew Kavchak studied political science (M.A., Carleton University) and law (LL.B., Osgoode Hall Law School). His grandfather was among the Polish officers held at Starobelsk and murdered at Kharkov in April 1940 in what has become known as the Katyn Massacre.