Katyń: The forgotten massacre of World War II
Illustration for an article on Big Issue UK , which is talking about the Katyn Massacre.
In September 1939, 22,000 Polish soldiers were captured by the Red Army. Eight months later they were told they were going home. Instead they were taken out to the forest and shot. Writer Jane Rogoyska has the definitive account of the Katyn massacre.
“In April 1940, 22,000 Polish prisoners of war, mainly
officers, were secretly murdered by the NKVD, on Stalin’s direct orders. The men had been captured by the Red Army in September 1939 as they retreated east from the German invasion of Poland. For seven months they were held in special NKVD interrogation camps. In April–May 1940 they were told they were going home. Instead they were shot, one by one, and buried in mass graves. Only 395 men survived.”
“As I listen to the daily news from Ukraine about freshly-dug mass graves and bodies left lying in the streets; when I hear Vladimir Putin declaring, without irony, that the Russian army has been sent on a “special operation” to deliver the world from an aggressive neo-Nazi regime, I feel a chill of recognition. I had thought that Stalin’s baffling, crazy, murderous world belonged firmly in the past. The death of my great uncle Ludwik suddenly feels very real.”
“In April 1940, 22,000 Polish prisoners of war, mainly
officers, were secretly murdered by the NKVD, on Stalin’s direct orders. The men had been captured by the Red Army in September 1939 as they retreated east from the German invasion of Poland. For seven months they were held in special NKVD interrogation camps. In April–May 1940 they were told they were going home. Instead they were shot, one by one, and buried in mass graves. Only 395 men survived.”
“As I listen to the daily news from Ukraine about freshly-dug mass graves and bodies left lying in the streets; when I hear Vladimir Putin declaring, without irony, that the Russian army has been sent on a “special operation” to deliver the world from an aggressive neo-Nazi regime, I feel a chill of recognition. I had thought that Stalin’s baffling, crazy, murderous world belonged firmly in the past. The death of my great uncle Ludwik suddenly feels very real.”
Hope no more war in this world
