IPN to begin its investigation to Katyñ massacre

http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=22599& ^ | 25th May 2004

[lizol]

IPN to begin its investigation to Katyñ massacre

The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) will launch an investigation into the Katyñ crime at the beginning of August.

"More and more information we had no idea about is cropping up. We will do everything to explain the crime, which according to our law was genocide," said Leon Kieres, IPN's president. He added that "public expectations and honesty" are the reasons behind initiating an investigation. Katyñ, where the Soviet NKVD murdered 25,000 Polish army officers, is a sensitive issue in Polish-Russian relations, as the Russians do not consider crimes committed in the USSR in the 1940s as genocide. The Russians are currently conducting their own investigation into the case, which is why IPN may have problems in gaining access to certain documents. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, A3) E.B.

[blanknoone]

I know the soviets murder many potential societal 'leaders' but never heard the number 25,000 before. Not sure whether that strikes me as high or low, but I'd like to see some sort of accuracy measurement. Is it 25,000 whose name and birth records they have tracked, or from mass graves or a wild guess?

[Hans]

Very interesting book on the period, delves heavily
into the Katyn massacre, When God Looked The Other Way by
Wesley Adamczyk.
Just published by the University of Chicago.

[lizol]

It's the total number of polish POW's officers taken by the Soviets in 1939, when they attakced Poland. I don't remember the exact number, but something about 15.000 of them where found buried in the forest of Katyn, Miednoye, Ostaszkovo. The rest are missed, but never came back home and for sure were kept in Soviet camps.
One "funny" thing by Josef Stalin. When Polish Army was organised in the Soviet Union in 1942 by general Anders and general Sikorski they asked Stalin where were officers, because they didn't show up at army rallying points. Stalin answered ... they had escaped to Manchuria.

[FreetheSouth!]

The Katyn forest is where the Soviets massacred Polish army officers they had taken prisoner when Germany and the U.S.S.R. split up Poland in 1939. http://www.katyn.org.au/beria.html http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/L1HwwII.htm

[FreetheSouth!]

Have you read "A Question of Honor " about the Polish squadron of the RAF in WWII? It covers this topic and others regarding the Polish war effort in WWII. if you want to really know the truth about what happend to Poland before, during, and after the war. Very unflattering look at Roosevelt and Churchill in regards to Poland.

www.amazon.com

www.questionofhonor.com

[Cicero]

A horrible business. Stalin tried to blame the massacre on the Nazis.

[lizol]

And they were found not guilty in the Nurnberg Trial

[Robert A Cook PE]

Nope.

It's accurate - as far as anything in Poland and Russia under Stalin can be determined.

The socialists/communists gathered the surrendered Polish leaders (military and civilian and professional)! - mayors, lawyers, teachers, professors, doctors, police, businessmen, union, and basically anybody else who stuck their heads out or protested the arrests) into large enclosures and regular jails.

Carried them in converted busses to the forest, and shot them. All this was in the half of Poland that the USSR took over while the Germans were taking the rest of the country. Graves were found by the Nazi's when they invaded Russia through Poland, but the Nazi claims were ignored as propaganda - since Roosevelt (1) didn't care about the Poles, and (2) it would embarrass the Russians when we were allies with them against Hitler.