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The Truth About Katyn

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The Truth About Katyn THE TRUTH ABOUT KATYN Report of Special Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating the Circumstances of the Shooting of Polish Officer Prisoners by the German-Fascist Invaders in the Katyn Forest RE Special Commission for Ascertaining and lhe Frcmt, Major of Medical Service, Professor T Investigating the Circumstances of the Shooting Voropayev. of Polish Offioer Pri,soners by the German - Fascist The Special Commission had at its disposal exten­ Jlrwaders in the Katyn Forest (near Smolensk) was sive material presented by the member of the set up on the decision of the Extraordinary State Extraordinary State Commission Academician Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Burdenko, his collaborators, and the medico-legal Crimes Committed by the German-Fasci,st Invaders experts who arrived in Smolensk on September 26, and Their Associates. 1943, immediately upon its liberation, and carried The Commission consists of: Member of the out preliminary study and investigation of the Extraordinary State Commission Academician eircumstances of all the crimes perpetrated by the Burdenko (Chairman of the Commission); member Germans. of the Extraordinary State Commission Academician The Special Commission verified and ascertained Alexei ToLstoy; member of the Extraordinary State on the spot that 15 kilometres from Smolensk, along Commission the Metropolitan Nikolai; President of the Vitebsk highway, in the section of the Katyn the All-Slav Committee, Lt.-Gen. Gundorov; the ~Forest named "Kozy Gory," 200 metres to the S.W. Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Union of the highway in the direction of the Dnieper, there of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, are graves, in which Polish war prisoners shot by the Kolesnikov; People's Commissar of Education of the German occupaticmists were buried. Russian S.F.S.R. Academician Potemkin; the Chief of the Central Medical Administration of the Red On the order of the Special Commission, and in the Army, CoL-Gen. Smirnov; the Chairman of the presence of all its members and of the medico-legal Smolensk Regional Executive Committee, Melnikov. experts, the graves were excavated. A large number To accomplish the task assigned to it Lhe of bodies clad in Polish military uniform were found Commission invited the following medico - legal in the graves. The total number of bodies, as calcu­ experts to take part in its work : Chief Medico-Legal lated by tho medico-legal experts., is 11,000. The Expert of the People's Commissariat of Health medico-legal experts made detailed examinations of Protection of the U.S.S.R., Director of Scientific the exhumed bodies, and of documents and material Research in the Institute of Forensic Medicine evidence discovered on the bodies and in the graves. Prozorovsky ; the Head of the Faculty of Forensic Simultanwusly with the excavation of the graves Medicine at the Second Moscow Medical Institute, aind examination of the bodies, the Special Commission Doctor of Medicine Smolyaninov ; Senior Staff examined numerous witnese.es among local residents, Scientists of the State Scientific Research Institute "-hose testimony establishes with precision the time of Forensic Medicine under the People's Commis­ and circumstances of the crimes committed by the sariat of Health of the U.S.S.R. Semenovsky and German occupationists. assistant Professor Shvaikova; Chief Pathologist of The testimony of witnesses reveals the following. THE KATYN FOREST 'l'he Katyn Forest had for long been the favourite appeared in many places warning that persons entering resort of Smolensk people, where they used to rest on without special passes would be shot on the spot. holidays. The population of the neighbourhood grazed The part of the Katyn Forest named "Kozy Gory" cattle and gathered fuel in the Katyn Forest. Access was guarded particularly strictly, as wae, the area on to the Katyn Forest was not banned or restricted in the bank of the Dnieper, where 700 metres from the any way. This situation prevailed in the Katyn Forest up to the outbreak of war. Even in the summer graves of the Polish war prisop.ers, there was a of 1941 there was a, Young Pioneers' Camp of the country house-the rest home of the Smolensk Industrial Insuranc~ Board in this fores,t, and it was Administration of the Peoples' Commissariat of not liquidated until July, 1941. Internal Affairs. When the Germans arrived this An entirely different regime was instituted in the country house was taken over by a German i'nstitution Katyn Forest after the capture of Smolensk by the named ''Headqua~ters of the 53 7th Engineerin:; Germans. The forest was heavily patrolled. Notices Battalion.'' POLISH WAR PRISONERS IN SMOLENSK AREA The Special Commission established that, before the prisonere., as well as some members of the guard and capture of Smolensk by the Germans, Polish war stuffs of the camps, fell prisoner to the Germans. prisoners, officers and men, worked in the western The former Chief of Camp No. 1 O.N., Major of clistrict of the Region, building and repairing roads. State Security Vetoshnikov, interrogated by the 'rhese war prisoners were quartered in three special Special Commission, testified: "I was waiting for the camps named: Camp No. 1 O.N., Camp No. 2 O.N. order on the remova.l of the camp, but communica­ and Camp No. 3 O.N. These camps were located tion with Smolensk was cut. Then I myself with :35-45 kilometres west of Smolensk. several staff members went to Smole!nsk to clarify the The testimony of witnesses and documentary situation. In Smole'nsk I found a tense situation. I evidence establish that after the outbreak of hostilities, applied to the chief of traffic of the Smolensk section in view of the situation that arose, the camps could of the Western Railway, Ivanov, asking him to pro­ not be evacuated in time and all the Polish war vide the camp with railway cars for evacuation of the 1 Polish war prisoners. But Ivanov answered that I outbreak of war between Poland and Germany he could not count on receiving cars. I also tried to get was called up and served in Brest-Litovsk, where he in touch with Moscow to obta,in permission to set ouL was taken prisoner by Red Army units. He spent o:a foot, but I fajled. By this time Smolensk wal:' over a year in the camp near Smolensk. already cut off from the camp by the Germans, and "When the Germans arrived they seized the not know what happened to the Polish war prisoners Polish camp and instituted a strict regime in it. The and guards who remained in the camp." Germans did not regard the Poles as human beings. Engineer Ivanov, who in July 1941 was acting They oppressed and outraged them in every way. On Chief of Traffic of the Smolensk Section of th!> some occasions Poles were shot without any reason Western Railway, testified before the Special Commis­ at all. He decided to escape. Speaking of himself, sion: "The Administration of Polish War Prisoners' he said that his wife, too, was a teacher and that Camps applied to my office for cars for evacuation of he had two brothers and two sisters. " tre Poles, but we had none to spare. Besides, we On leaving next day the Pole gave his name, which could not send cars to the Gussino line, where th<; Sashneva put down in a book. In this book, "Prac­ majority of the Polish war prisoners were, since that tical Studies in Natural History," by Yagodovsky, line was already under fire. Therefore, we could not which Sashneva handed to the Special Commission, comply with the request of the Camps Administration. there is a note on the last page : "Juzeph and Sofia Thus the Polish war prisoners rema.ined in th-3 Loek. House 25, Ogorodnaya St., town Zamos£ye." Smolensk Region." In the list published by the Germans, under The presence of the Polish war prisoners in th'"­ No. 3796 Lt. Juzeph Loek is put down as having camps in the Smolensk Region is confirmed by the been shot at "Kozy Gory" in the Katyn Forest in the spring of 1940. Thus, from the German report, testimony of numerous witnesses who saw these Poles near Smolensk in the early months of the occupation it would appear that J uzeph Loek had been shot one year before the witness Sashneva saw him. up to September 1941 inclusive. The witness Danilenkov, a peasant of the Witness Maria Alexandrovna Sashneva, elementary "Krasnaya Zarya" collective farm of the Katyn schoolteacher in the village of Zenkovo, told the Rural Soviet, stated: "In August and September, Special Commission that in August 1941 she gave 1941, when the Germans arrived, I used to meet Poles shelter in her house in Zenkovo to a Polish war working on the roads in groups of 15 to 20. '' prisoner who had escaped from camp. Similar statements were made by the following wit­ "The Pole wore Polish military uniform, which l nesses: Soldatenkov, former headman of the village recognised at once, as during 1940 and 1941 I used of Borok; Kolachev, a Smolensk doctor; Ogloblin, a to see groups of Polish war prisoners working on the priest; Sergeyev, track foreman; Smiryagin, road under guard .... I took an interest in the Pole engineer; Moskovskaya, resident of Smofensk; because it turned out that, before being called up, ht.> Alexeyev, chairman of a collective iarm in the had been an elementa·ry schoolteacher in Poland. He village of Borok; Kutseev, waterworks technician ; told me that he had completed normal school in Gorodetsky, a priest; Bazekina, a bookkeeper; Poland and then studied at some military school anJ Vetrova1, a teacher; Savvateyev, stationmaster at the was a Junior Lieutenant of the Reserve.
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