The whole story of Katyn massacre

Katyn Cemetery On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany launched a blitzkrieg against Poland and occupied the western part of Poland. On September 17, the Soviet Union entered Poland from the east, occupied all Polish territory east of the Curzon Line, and captured approximately 250,000 Polish army officers and soldiers. The Soviet Union then imprisoned Polish officers and soldiers in some newly built prisoner of war camps. Among them, the three prisoner-of-war camps of Starobelsk, Kozelsk and Ostashkov held about 15,000 Polish prisoners of war, including 9,000 officers.

On April 13, 1943, the Nazi German military that invaded the Soviet Union announced that Polish soldiers massacred by the Soviet military were found in the Katyn Forest area near the German-occupied Soviet city of Smolensk. Mass graves. On April 15, the Soviet Union issued a communique categorically denying this, claiming that these Polish prisoners of war fell into the hands of the German army after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and were killed by the German army. After that, both the Soviet Union and Germany organized investigation missions to Katyn for on-the-spot investigations, but neither achieved clear results. After the war, the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal also avoided making a clear statement on the Katyn incident when trying Nazi German war criminals, thus making it an unsolved mystery.

Since then, Poland and the international community have repeatedly raised doubts and launched heated debates about the Soviet government's claims, but the Soviet government has always adhered to its established position. After Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet party and state in 1985, the Soviet Union and Poland formed a joint committee of liberal historians to conduct in-depth and detailed research on a large number of documents related to the incident. On April 13, 1990, when Polish President Jaruzelski visited the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union officially admitted full responsibility for the Katyn incident. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin knelt down in front of the Katyn Monument

The basic situation of the Katyn incident is this. The Soviet government believed that Polish prisoners of war were a big burden (on the one hand, the Soviet Union was preparing for the war intensively. It would consume valuable manpower and material resources; on the other hand, Polish prisoners of war might resist the Soviet imprisonment at any time), so it was decided to deal with the officers among the Polish prisoners of war first. Without the officers, the rest of the soldiers would be leaderless. Relevant parties in the Soviet Union believed that the best way was to eliminate them physically. On March 5, 1940, Beria, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union (Minister of Internal Affairs), wrote a report on the execution of more than 20,000 prisoners of war and prisoners, mainly Polish officers, and submitted it to Stalin and the United Nations General Assembly (Bulletin). ) for central review and approval, and was immediately approved.

In early April 1940, the execution of Polish prisoners of war officially began. Hundreds of captured Polish officers were taken into cars from the three prisoner of war camps and secretly transported to the Katyn Forest where they were executed. The executioners stood behind the Polish prisoners of war and shot them in the back of the head with pistols. After burying it, Soviet personnel laid a thick layer of soil on top. Soon, a second batch of prisoners of war was transported to the place and treated in the same way. Until mid-May of that year, the Soviet Union executed 4,421 Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest. They were buried in eight large pits, covered with pine and birch trees. In addition to the Katyn Forest, the Soviet Union also shot 3,820 people in the Starobelsk prisoner-of-war camp, 6,311 people in the Ostashkov concentration camp, and 7,305 people in other prisoner-of-war camps and prisons in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. . Including the 4,421 people shot in the Katyn Forest, the total number of people was 21,857, including about 15,000 Polish officers and soldiers prisoners.

[Edit this paragraph] Event Analysis

On June 22, 1941, the Soviet-German War broke out. In July, the German army occupied Smolensk. In the spring of 1943, in order to repair the bombed railways, roads and other projects in and around Smolensk, the German Combat Engineer Division expelled laborers from Romania, Czech, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, France and other countries who had been forcibly recruited. Go to work in Katyn Forest. On April 13, while digging the ground, several workers discovered a large grave where many officers and soldiers were buried. The German army discovered that the uniforms worn by these officers and soldiers were neither Soviet uniforms nor German uniforms (and most of them were fatally shot in the back of the neck), so they called in some Nazi officials to investigate, and claimed that the autopsy was conducted by an international commission organized by Germany. It was determined that these officers and soldiers wearing Polish military uniforms died in the spring of 1940 and were killed by the Soviets. Hitler seized on the Katyn Forest incident to publicize it. As soon as Berlin Radio announced it, it immediately shocked the world. Within the anti-fascist camp, the relations between the Soviet Union, Poland, and Britain were immediately cast a shadow.

Two days later, the Soviet government issued a statement saying that the atrocity was committed by the Germans and that Germany was trying to blame others. On April 16, the Polish government in exile in London requested the International Red Cross to conduct an on-site investigation and requested the Soviet Union to submit a formal report on the whereabouts of Polish officers in exile in the Soviet Union. The Polish government stated in a statement: We are accustomed to the lies of the German propaganda machine, and we also know its hidden purpose in publicizing this matter. However, in view of the numerous and detailed reports by the Germans on the discovery of tens of thousands of Polish officer corpses near Smolensk, and the assertion that these officers were killed by the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940, we believe that it is necessary for an authoritative international agency to investigate these officers. "Mass Graves" investigates and verifies the reported incidents.

On April 21, Stalin informed Churchill and Roosevelt that he was prepared to break off diplomatic relations with Prime Minister Sikorski's Polish government-in-exile because this regime had listened to fascist slander. Churchill and Roosevelt called on Stalin not to do this, hoping that he would maintain the unity among the allies and fight against the enemy together. Churchill believed that even if the Polish government was stupid enough to listen to Germany's accusations, there was no time for squabbling among the Allies and we had to defeat Hitler. However, on April 25, the Soviet Union announced that it would break off diplomatic relations with the Polish government.

In early October 1943, the Soviet Red Army liberated Smolensk Oblast. The Soviet government established the "Special Committee for Confirmation and Investigation of the Shooting of Captured Polish Officers by German Fascist Invaders in the Katyn Forest". In response to Germany's statement on April 13, 1943, it organized a "counter-investigation" and invited dozens of Western journalists. people, led by a guide on a tour of the great tombs in Katyn Forest. The purpose of this move was to convince foreign newspapers that the Polish corpses excavated there were shot and buried by the Germans in the late summer and early autumn of 1941, and were not carried out by the Russians in the spring of 1940, as the Germans had previously accused. thing. The reporters were pointed to seven large tombs, and then saw many autopsies being performed by Soviet doctors. The doctors put pieces of brains, livers, internal organs, etc. on the dishes and displayed them, and loudly said that the body tissues were very fresh. It means that these were done by the Germans two years ago, not the Russians three years ago. Kathleen Harriman, the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and a staff member of the Wartime Intelligence Service, was one of the reporters. She wrote: Among the documents taken out of the pockets of the Polish dead, the Russians found a document dated The letters in the summer of 1941 are excellent evidence, but there are also many inconsistencies. For example, some of the deceased had newspapers and letters from March and April 1940 in their pockets, including a copy of " "Izvestia", this bit of evidence contradicts the Soviet argument. Western reporters were not allowed to ask questions of the five witnesses, and many of the testimonies sounded fluent, as if they had been carefully rehearsed. Keisling concluded by pointing out that, overall, despite some holes, confusion and contradictions in the evidence, the Russian arguments are persuasive.

In 1945-1946, the controversy reignited during the trials of German war criminals in Nuremberg. Because neither side could produce strong evidence, the case has become an unsolved mystery since World War II. After World War II, relevant Western writings generally believed that the Soviets were responsible for this incident, but the Soviet Union firmly denied it. Soviet history books have always kept this secret and tried their best to avoid it.

[Edit this paragraph] The truth about the Katyn case

The truth about the Katyn case has always been the most sensitive, exciting and concerning issue for the Polish people, parliament and public opinion circles. There is a special "Katyn Cemetery" in the public cemetery in Warsaw. During holidays, there is an endless stream of people going there to pay their respects, with incense constantly burning and flowers piled up in mountains. Its grand occasion exceeds that of all other cemeteries. In order to satisfy the wishes of the Polish people, in April 1987, Jaruzelski, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party and Chairman of the State Council, visited the Soviet Union and held talks with Gorbachev. The two parties signed the "Polish-Soviet Ideology, Science and Technology" and Cultural Cooperation Declaration", which decided to resolve the "blank spots" and "outstanding issues" in the history of bilateral relations. The Joint Committee of Historians of the two countries established in the spirit of this declaration decided to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the Katyn incident and other events. From July 11 to 14, 1987, Gorbachev visited Poland. In a joint statement issued by the two countries, they stressed that "the investigation should be accelerated and more in-depth reference should be made to clarify the "blank spots" left over from the history of Poland and the Soviet Union. Materials from reliable sources that investigate all aspects of the history of relations between the two countries."

Professor W. Kowalski, a Polish member of the Polish-Soviet Joint Committee of Historians and a well-known Polish expert on the history of World War II, said that it is understood that the investigation work on this atrocity was carried out between 1943 and 1944. , three documents were published in one day: ① the recorded report of the international court and criminal medicine expert group composed of 12 countries; ② the documents about the Katyn massacre published by the German intelligence agency in Berlin in the spring of 1943 on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Information; ③ January 24, 1944, statement of the Expert Committee on the shooting of captured Polish officers by German fascist gangsters in Moscow. In addition, after 1945, some testimonies and recollections on this issue were published abroad. Professor W. Kowalski points out that in all this there is a lack of comprehensive documentation on the Polish side. He said that after many searches, he finally found a very precious document in the Archives of the British Foreign Office in London. It is the "secret report" given by Karl Skalzhenski, Secretary General of the Polish Red Cross Society, at a meeting at the headquarters of the Polish Red Cross Society in June 1943. In June 1945, the only printed copy of this document was entrusted by Karl Skalzhenski to the charge d'affaires of the British Embassy in Warsaw, Lee Hankay, for preservation. After many twists and turns, this document was deposited in the Foreign Office Archives in London in the spring of 1946. On February 18, 1989, the Polish newspaper "Resurrection" published this document to the public for the first time under the title "Report from Katyn - Secret Report of the Polish Red Cross".

[Edit this paragraph] The Secret Report of the Polish Red Cross

The "Secret Report of the Polish Red Cross" pointed out that on April 14, 1943, the Polish Red Cross responded to the German At the request of the occupation authorities, a team consisting of 4 technical committee members and 1 representative from the headquarters was sent. That is, a five-member investigation team composed of the Secretary-General of the Polish Red Cross, Carlo Steerzhenski, went to Smolensk, the German-occupied area of ????the Soviet Union, to investigate the graves of Polish officers. On April 15, the investigation team arrived in Smolensk. That night, the German authorities provided a report on the massacre. After several weeks of investigation by the technical committee and local residents, the following plots in the report were confirmed to be true: “Local railway workers and farmers said that from early March 1940 to In late April, 2-3 carriages full of captured Polish officers were secretly transported to Gniezhdow Station every day, and they were transported by car to an area surrounded by barbed wire..." One of them also confirmed: "Many shouts and gunshots can be heard every day." At 9 o'clock in the morning on April 16, the investigation team arrived in Katyn, which is only a few meters away from the road. In the open space in the forest between the graves, there is the corpse of the Polish officer who was examined by the forensic doctor. Skalzhenski said that he looked at all the bodies carefully and found that all their wounds were inflicted with revolver bullets, which entered the back of the head and came out of the forehead. Obviously, the wounds were of the same nature, the shots were fired in the same direction, and all shots were fired with pistols. All the officers were beaten to death while standing at close range, and some of the corpses had their hands tied tightly behind their backs. This may be a sign of self-defense and resistance. They were dressed in Polish military uniforms, wearing medals, decorations, and school-level logos. Their pants and shoes were all still in good condition. He also looked particularly carefully at the bodies of the two generals, who were identified as Generals Smoravinsky and Boharovich, as indicated by the markings of their general-level strips. From a large number of diaries of the dead, people found a record of one of the victims of the massacre, Major Sorsky, before he was killed. The record was next to the body of Major Sorsky. The record was in 1940. On June 9 ("June" is inconsistent with previous statements - the author), the recorder said: "At 3:30 in the morning that day, a small group of Polish officers were taken from Kozel, a military camp in Belarus, by the Soviet army. We were taken to Smolensk, and a few minutes before 5 o'clock in the morning we were woken up and put into a prison van. We went to a small forest, where it seemed that there were some villas. They took away our rings and watches, and the hands of the watches were pointing to 6:30. What would they do to us? ..." About a few minutes later, Major Solsky was shot. From the growth of pine trees planted on both sides of the road since the time of the massacre, it can be seen that the massacre took place in the spring of 1940, and botanists also made the same judgment. Regarding the number of corpses, Skalzhensky believed that it should be more than 4,000. On April 17, he returned to Warsaw, where the technical committee continued. On the morning of April 18, he verbally reported his trip to Katyn to the Red Cross headquarters.

Key points of the report include: There are a large number of Polish officer graves that have been excavated in Katyn near Smolensk; it can be seen from the wounds on the bodies in the same parts that this was a large-scale collective execution; the papers found next to the corpses can be It is concluded that the massacre took place between March and April 1940. So far, only a small number of the names of the victims (about 150 people) have been identified. The Polish Red Cross Technical Committee worked in Katyn Forest from April 15 to June 7, 1943. Forensic doctors examined 4243 corpses, of which 231 corpses were buried in 6 large graves, 2 The generals were buried separately. The area of ??each cemetery is 60×36 or 2160 square meters.

Soviet historians also made efforts. During their excavation of archives, they found only one document that actually mentioned the word "Katyn", but that was on June 10, 1941, shortly before the German army attacked the Soviet Union. That document called for a group of Soviet political prisoners to be escorted from Smolensk to Katyn, not Poles, and nothing could be judged based on this. Based on the clues provided by a group of parties' memoirs and relevant testimonies, Soviet historians have unearthed and sorted out four types of archival data: 1. The total number of Polish officers and soldiers accepted by the Soviet Union and the number of changes (including: demobilization, Soviet-German exchange, and detention in There are documented cases and the number of missing persons in other concentration camps); 2. Cleaning up files on Soviet orders and the number of people escorted to the concentration camps; 3. Summary report on the completion of the task; 4. Updates on the detainees in the concentration camps after May 1940. With these files, the truth will come out. These files provide the following facts:

At 5:40 a.m. on September 17, 1939, the Soviet army attacked the eastern territories of Poland, namely Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. On the 18th, Marshal Rez Simigwe, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army, issued an order to the Polish Army saying that the Soviet Union was not a belligerent and should not resist. After more than 10 hours of negotiations between the Soviet and Polish military, the Soviet army agreed that if the Polish army laid down its weapons, the personal freedom of Polish officers and soldiers would be guaranteed. At that time, the vast majority of the Polish army, totaling about 300,000 people in eastern Poland, carried out this order. Some of them voluntarily disbanded and went home, and some went to Lithuania and Romania. 130,242 officers and soldiers fled to the Soviet Union. After arriving in the Soviet Union, these people immediately became prisoners of war. They lost their personal freedom stipulated in the Soviet-Polish agreement and were handed over to the Prisoner of War Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs established by Order No. 0308 signed by Beria. . On September 19, 138 transfer stations and 8 distribution concentration camps were established under the jurisdiction of the Bureau. Each concentration camp concentrated approximately 10,000 Polish officers and soldiers. On September 21, a senior Soviet general wrote to Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov, suggesting that ordinary soldiers born in the Soviet-occupied areas of Poland be demobilized from the country. The top leadership of the Soviet Union agreed with this suggestion. In early October, Interior Minister Beria signed an order to demobilize 4,400 soldiers. At the same time, on October 3, Beria ordered the military police, mid-level and senior officers, junior officers and soldiers in the Polish army, and those born in the German-occupied areas of Poland to be classified into camps for centralized management. In mid-October, Germany proposed that Germany and the Soviet Union should exchange Polish officers and soldiers in their hands according to their place of birth, and the Soviet government agreed. From October 24 to November 23, 42,492 Polish officers and soldiers were handed over to the German side. The German side handed over 13,757 people to the Soviet side before the end of 1939. After screening, most of the personnel transferred by the German side were sent home. As of December 1, 1939, 4,727 Polish military officers were imprisoned in the Kozel concentration camp (near Katyn Forest), and 5,963 and 3,964 Polish officers and police officers were imprisoned in the Starobel and Ostashkov concentration camps. Added together, there are nearly 15,000 people. Among them, the Kozel concentration camp was the most important, housing 4 generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 654 majors, and more than 3,000 junior officers and civilian personnel. At this time, a common worry among Polish officers, especially the Jews, was that they were afraid that the Soviet Union would hand them over to Nazi Germany. On the one hand, the Soviet government notified the Polish government-in-exile in London that the Soviet Union was preparing to disband the concentration camps and demobilize Polish officers according to their volition. At the same time, it distributed forms to Polish officers regarding their voluntary destinations; on the other hand, it stepped up the transfer of detainees to Germany. The German-Soviet Mixed Commission established on November 14, 1939, completed the exchange of prisoners after consultations.

It can be seen from the Soviet archives that the second step in the master plan was to eliminate (or clean up) those "backbone" forces who opposed the Soviet-German partition of Poland (most of the dead in the tragedy were officers, Lawyers, teachers, professors, etc., this is indeed a group of elites for Poland, a small country in Central Europe).

The Prisoner of War Bureau will issue an order to approve the liquidation list, and submit the list to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine for final execution. Starting from March 1, 1940, the concentration camp where important personnel were detained received lists of Polish prisoners of war issued by the Prisoner of War Bureau every day that should be transferred to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Each list included 98-100 people. Sometimes, a list of 300 people was sent to a concentration camp to be transferred. All those included in the liquidation list "disappeared", and only 3 cases were pardoned. Some of the pardoned people are still alive, and their memoirs and the found pardon orders are complete. consistent. Since these people were not included in the cleanup, their files were not destroyed. From April to May 1940, a total of 15,131 Polish officers and soldiers were shot by the firing squad of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Among them, there are more than 4,400 people in the Kozel camp, more than 6,200 people in the Ostashkov camp, and about 4,000 people in the Starobel camp. Once executed, the missing person's registration files and personal correspondence must be destroyed under the direct supervision of a representative of the Prisoner of War Bureau. By June 1940, the Deputy Minister of the Interior reported to his superiors that the above three concentration camps could accept 5,000-8,000 new detainees.

What was the fate of other Polish officers and soldiers? After the Soviet-German war broke out on June 22, 1941, the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union changed 180 degrees. On July 30, the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Poland and joined the anti-German alliance. Polish General Vladislav Andel, who had spent more than 20 months in the Soviet Lubyanka Prison, was released in September 1941 and was appointed to the Polish Army. Commander-in-Chief, he organized a Polish combat division in the Soviet Union, with more than 25,000 Polish prisoners of war participating. In this way, the known whereabouts of more than 130,000 captured officers and soldiers include: more than 42,000 were handed over to Germany, more than 4,000 were demobilized, more than 15,000 were executed, more than 25,000 rejoined the army, and about 90,000 were killed . There are still more than 40,000 people who have not confessed. It is estimated that some of them survived after being reformed through labor, and the whereabouts of others are still unknown.

In April 1990, during Polish President Jaruzelski’s visit to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union informed him of the deaths of Polish officers in Soviet concentration camps in the early days of World War II and handed over relevant archives (General ***There are three corpse pits, in addition to Katyn Forest, Kalinin and Chagrove). This move settled an international case that had been disputed for half a century.

[Edit this paragraph] Introduction to the historical background of the Katyn Massacre

From May 1772 to January 1795, the First Polish Republic was conquered by Tsarist Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire After the three partitions, Poland was subjugated and was ruled by foreigners for a hundred years.

In November 1916, the German government promised to establish an "independent Polish state"

In December 1916, Germany and Austria established the "Polish Provisional" "State Council"

In February 1917, the October Revolution broke out in Russia and Soviet Russia was established. The Allies tried to intervene through armed intervention

On August 29, 1918, the Soviet Russian government abolished the previous empire. doctrine treaty, recognizing that the Polish people enjoy "the undeniable right to independence and unity"

In October 1918, the First World War was coming to an end, Germany and Austria were disintegrating, and the opportunity for Poland's restoration came

In November 1918, after the end of World War I, Poland was restored. Pi?sudski formed a coalition government in Warsaw and established the Polish Republic. At that time, Soviet Russia was engaged in a civil war with the White Guards of Belarus. Pilsudski, who had the support of the Allied Powers, hoped to use this to rebuild Greater Poland (including the three Baltic countries and Ukraine) in the vacuum area after the withdrawal of the German troops.

In December 1918, Soviet Russia also valued the strategic value of Ukraine and the Baltic Sea north of Lithuania, and captured Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic Sea, and established the Soviet government

In the spring of 1919, the Polish army attacked Belarus and Lithuania

In February 1919, the Soviet and Polish armies encountered each other, and the war began

In the summer of 1919, the Polish army suddenly attacked Soviet Russia and occupied most of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. The Belarusian White Guards, also supported by the Allied Powers, occupied Donbass and Kiev

At the end of April 1919, the Polish army occupied Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania

On August 10, 1919, the Polish army occupied Minsk, the capital of Belarus

Soviet Russia proposed negotiations in October 1919

In December 1919, the Allies recognized the Polish Republic. Poland tried to restore the border with Russia in 1772

On April 25, 1920, the Polish White Guards, with the support of the Allies and the Holy See, the Soviet-Polish War broke out

May 8, 1920 The Polish army occupied Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, but at this time the Polish army's front line was too long, and the people in the country were exhausted

In mid-June 1920, the Soviet Red Army reoccupied Kiev

In July 1920, the Soviet Red Army attacked Warsaw, hoping to establish a Polish Soviet government. However, the foundation of the Polish working class was weak. The Polish people believed that the Soviet army was an invader rather than a liberator, and they rebelled to defend Warsaw (except Poland***)

On July 12, 1920, the Allies proposed a ceasefire

On July 22, 1920, Poland requested an armistice

On August 13, 1920, the Soviet Red Army attempted to break through. The Warsaw Defense Line failed

The defeated Polish army reorganized and counterattacked with the help of the Allies on August 16, 1920. The Soviet army, which had made strategic mistakes, suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Warsaw

September 1920 The Polish army, which successfully counterattacked in May, launched another full-line offensive and reached the front line of the Belarusian capital. The Soviet Red Army captured more than 100,000 people; at the same time, the White Guards of Belarus also attacked Soviet Russia again

Soviet Russia in October and December 1920 Forced to sign an armistice agreement with Poland in Riga

On March 18, 1921, Poland and the Soviet Union formally concluded the "Treaty of Riga" in Riga. Poland received western Belarus and a quarter of Ukraine and part of Lithuania. Between 1919 and 1921, 120,000 to 130,000 Soviet prisoners of war were imprisoned in Poland, of whom 65,000 to 70,000 returned to Russia, more than 6,000 became White Guards (in Poland, Germany, Romania, and the Baltic countries), and 2,000 became Polish resident and naturalized. Between 1920 and 1921, 45,000 captured Red Army soldiers were executed in Poland

In March 1921, Poland became a parliamentary republic, the second Polish republic in history.

In May 1926, Pi?sudski launched a military coup, appointed himself prime minister, implemented dictatorship in Poland, arrested those who opposed him in the parliament, and promoted fascism.

In addition, he actively cooperated with Nazi Germany and signed the "Polish-German Non-Aggression Pact"

In 1938, the Polish Communist Party was disbanded and the party's main leaders were also murdered

< p>World War II broke out in September 1939

In 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression pact and a secret protocol to divide the sphere of influence

On September 1, 1939, Germany raided Poland and occupied it Most

The Polish government fled Warsaw on September 6, 1939

The Battle of Warsaw began on September 17, 1939. At the same time, the Soviet Red Army entered eastern Poland and occupied Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.

Captured 250,000 Polish troops on September 17, 1939

On September 18, 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany divided Poland across the river

September 28, 1939 The German army captured Warsaw and Poland was destroyed.

On March 5, 1940, Stalin and the central government approved the resolution to immediately execute more than 20,000 war criminals in Poland, most of whom were Polish elites

From early April to mid-May 1940, the Soviet army Polish war criminals were executed in batches in the Katyn Forest near the city of Smolensk in the Soviet Union

On June 22, 1941, the German army tore up the treaty and attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviet-German War broke out and the German army completely occupied Poland

The newly established Polish government-in-exile established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union on July 30, 1942

Nazi Germany, which invaded the Soviet Union on April 13, 1943, discovered mass graves and immediately made a big deal about it and invited the Polish Red Cross Personnel came to investigate, but the Soviet Union strongly denied it

In October 1943, the Soviet army liberated the city of Smolensk and conducted a "counter-investigation" to frame it as Nazi Germany

< p>At the end of 1943, the Polish government-in-exile severed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union due to the Katyn incident

On April 13, 1990, when Polish President Jaruzelski visited the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union officially admitted full responsibility for the Katyn incident. Responsibility

On April 10, 2010, Polish President Kaczynski went to Russia to participate in the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Katyn incident and died in a plane crash near the Smolensk "North" military airport

< p>[Edit this paragraph] Related events

World War II

World War II (World War II, referred to as World War II). From September 1, 1939 to August 15, 1945, the fascist axis of Germany, Italy, and Japan (as well as Finland, Hungary, Romania and other countries) was on one side, and the Anti-Fascist Alliance and anti-fascist forces around the world were on the other side. The second global war. From Europe to Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 61 countries and regions with a population of more than 2 billion have been involved in the war, with a combat area of ??22 million square kilometers. According to incomplete statistics, more than 90 million military and civilian casualties were lost during the war, and more than 4 trillion U.S. dollars were wasted. The Second World War ended with the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom and other anti-fascist countries and the people of the world defeating the fascist invaders and winning world peace and progress.

The crash of the Polish presidential plane

On April 10, 2010, Polish President Lech Kaczynski went to Russia to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Katyn incident. A plane crashed near the "North" military airport in Sksk and killed 96 people, including the president's wife and many senior Polish officials. The crashed aircraft was Tu-154. There will be a week of mourning in Poland. Russia declared April 12 as a national day of mourning; heads of government and the public paid attention to the incident and mourned the victims! The black box has been found, but the cause of the crash is currently unknown. The Russian team and the Polish team led by Putin worked together to find out the cause. This adds insult to injury to the Polish people, who are suffering from it, and casts a shadow over the relations between Russia and Poland.