During the months March and April 1940, Soviet Authorities executed 25,700 Polish citizens. Among them were several thousand of Polish officers, prisoners of war, captured by the Red Army during Soviet invasion of Polish eastern provinces in September 1939.

          On June 22 1940,in spite of the Molotov-Ribentrop non-aggression pact of August 1939, Germany started the war against USSR and Hitler's armies invaded Soviet territory. On April 1943 German military authorities discovered in Katyn forest near Smolensk mass graves of Polish officers, identified by their uniforms and documents found on their bodies. The commission composed of neutral and German forensic experts examined the remains and concluded Soviet responsibility. All entries in the notebooks found on the bodies were dated prior to April 22,1940 and the most recent date found on Russian newspaper discovered on one of the corpses, was proving that all buried there, died before or soon after that date.
          USSR government protested strongly against such accusations and denied any involvement in this massacre.. In the official note Soviets maintained that the crime was committed in the spring of 1942. At that time Soviet province of Smolensk was already under German occupation and therefore the Germans were the perpetrators of the massacre. According to Russians the allegations that the massacre was committed by Soviet in 1940, were unjustified and insulting fabrication of Goebels – Hitler’s minister of propaganda.

          Polish Government in Exile, residing in wartime London, requested International Red Cross to investigate. USSR government did not agree with that and considering such a request as an unfriendly act, ended its diplomatic relations with Poles.
          The  Soviet prosecutor of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal in his summation of the charges against Goering never mentioned the Katyn massacre. The Soviet prosecutor failed to prove the case of Katyn massacre against the Germans, therefore the matter was dropped by the tribunal.
          USSR persisted in denying any responsibility in this genocide until the Perestroika. In the 1992 Russian Federation president Boris Yelcin offered a file of documents pertaining to Katyn massacre, to Poland president  Lech Walesa. They were all classified, until October 14,1992, as "Top Secret" and are the proof of Soviets guilt. One of them (shown below) is the direct Stalin's order to NKVD (Soviet's secret political police) to execute all Polish prisoners held by them.
          In 1951 the US Congress appointed the Select Committee to conduct an investigation of Katyn genocide case. In 1952 the Committee published its findings, conclusions of which are cited hereunder. They all confirm the Soviet's responsibility. It has to be noted that the name "Katyn Massacre" covers not only the Katyn forest but also two other ones, discovered later: Starobielsk near Kharkov and Ostashkovo (District of Kalinin).

Bibliography:

1. -Fitzgibbon Louis , UNPITTED AND UNKNOWN , Bachman and Turner, London 1975.
2. -Materski Wojciech Ed., KATYN Documents of Genocide , Institute of Political Studies-Polish Academy of Sciences 1993.
3. -Excerpts from Interim Report ,July 2,1952 (Included in the Final Report of the Select        Committee 1952, US Congress).
 

2. The excerpt from the protocol of the Politburo. The decision of March the 5th, 1940 (Copy to A. Shelepin - February 27, 1959)
 

 Select Committee of US Congress in its interim report of July 2, 1952  (included in the final report) unanimously finds, beyond any question of reasonable doubt, that the Soviet NKVD (Peoples’ Commissariat of Internal Affairs) committed the mass murders of the Polish officers and intellectual leaders in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia.
 The evidence, testimony, records and exhibits recorded by this committee through its investigations and hearing during the last 9 months, overwhelmingly will show the people of the world that Russia is directly responsible for the Katyn massacre. Throughout our entire proceeding, there has not been a scintilla of proof or even any remote circumstantial evidence presented that could indict any other nation in this international crime.
 It is an established fact that approximately 15,000 Polish prisoners were interned in the Soviet camps: Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov in the winter of 1939-40. With the exception of 400 prisoners, these men have not been heard from, seen or found since the spring of 1940. Following the discovery of the graves in 1943, when the Germans occupied this territory, the claimed there were 11,000 Poles buried in Katyn. The Russians recovered the territory from the Germans in September 1943 and likewise they stated that 11,000 Poles were buried in those mass graves.
 Evidence heard by this committee repeatedly points to the certainty that only those prisoners interned at Kozielsk were massacred in the Katyn Forest. Testimony of the Polish Red Cross officials definitely established that 4,143 bodies were actually exhumed from the seven mass graves. On the basis of further evidence, we are equally certain that the rest of the 15,000 Polish officers – those interned at Starobielsk and Ostashkov – were executed in a similar brutal manner. Those from Starobielsk were disposed of near Kharkov, and those from Ostashkov met a similar fate. Testimony was presented by several witnesses that the Ostashkov prisoners were placed on barges and drowned in the White Sea. Thus the committee believes that there are at least two other “Katyn” in Russia.
  No one could entertain any doubt of Russian guilt for the Katyn massacre when the following evidence is considered:
1.The Russians refused to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to make a neutral investigation of the German charges in 1943.

2.The Russians failed to invite any neutral observers to participate in their own investigation 1944, except a group of newspaper correspondents taken to Katyn who agreed “the whole show was staged” by the Soviets.

3. The Russians failed to produce sufficient evidence at Nuremberg – even though they were in charge of the prosecution – to obtain a ruling on the German guilt for Katyn by the  International Military Tribunal.

4. This committee issued formal and public invitations to the Government of the U.S.S.R. to present any evidence pertaining to the Katyn massacre. The Soviet refused to participate in any phase of this committee’s investigation.

5. The overwhelming testimony of prisoners formerly interned at the three camps, of medical experts who performed autopsies on the massacred bodies, and of observers taken to the scene of the crime conclusively confirms this committee’s findings.

6. Polish Government leaders and military men who conferred with Stalin, Molotov, and NKVD chief Beria for a year and a half attempted without success to locate the Polish prisoners before the Germans discovered Katyn. This renders further proof that the Soviet purposely misled the Poles in denying any knowledge of the whereabouts of their officers when, in fact, the Poles already were buried in the mass graves at Katyn.

7.The Soviets have demonstrated through their highly organized propaganda machinery that they fear to have the people behind the iron curtain know the truth about Katyn.  This is proven by their reaction to our committee’s efforts and the amount of newspaper space and radio time devoted to denouncing the work of our committee.  They also repub1ished in all   newspapers behind the iron curtain the a11egedly "neutral" Russian report of 1944.  The world-wide campaign of slander by the Soviets against our committee is also construed as another effort to block this investigation.

8. This committee believes that one of the  reasons for the staging of the recent Soviet “germ warfare” propaganda campaign was to divert attention of the people behind  the iron curtain from the hearings of the committee.

9. Our committee has been petitioned to investigate mass executions and crimes against humanity committed in other countries behind the iron curtain. The committee has heard testimony which indicates there are other “Katyns”. We wish to impress with all the means at our command that the investigation of the Katyn massacre barely scratches the surface of numerous crimes against humanity perpetrated by totalitarian powers.  This committee believes that an International tribunal should be established to investigate willful and mass executions wherever they have been committed.  The United Nations will fait in their obligation until they expose to the world that "Katynism" is a definite and diabolical totalitarian plan for world conquest.

Ten years after Russia admitted responsibility for the Stalin-era massacre of thousand of polish army officers at Katyn, Russian and Polish officials gathered July 28th, 2000 at the mass graves to dedicate a memorial for the victims. Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek led the Polish delegation, which included Polish army officers and the Warsaw Guard of Honour.