Katyn – Golgotha of the East

Abstract

Poland has experienced two cruel systems. One of them was fascism, symbolized by the German Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The second one was Stalinism, Katyn will remain its symbol forever. For over 50 years, no other issue in Polish-Soviet relations was as concealed as the Katyn massacre. In this essay, I will talk about the genocide in 1940 on 22,000 Poles (soldiers and civilians), investigations in this matter, and the fight for the truth. Everyone knew that any public statement about this crime could have significant consequences, such as dismissal from work or school expulsion. The Katyn genocide was a war crime that was first concealed and then distorted for the longest time. It can be said that it was a crime against the Polish nation.For many years, the press, radio, and television did not talk about it. On April 13, 2020, Polish people celebrated the Katyn Massacre Remembrance Day. In the spring of the year 1940, during two months in and around Katyn (currently in Russia), executioners from the NKVD, ordered by the Soviet authorities, murdered 21,857 prisoners of war with a shot in the back of the head. NKVD-People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. This enormously evil deed of the Bolsheviks is called the Golgotha of the East. Golgotha is a place near Jerusalem where convicts were executed. Christians believe that Jesus Christ was crucified in this place. Similarly, innocent Polish officers were killed at this place of execution. The name of the crime comes from the village of Katyń near Smolensk, where victims were murdered and buried.