Friday October 26th 2007

Movie Still

I awoke on Friday and decided to take in the Kino (movie for Americans). I walked down the street turned to corner and went in the Kino Ton which is located next to the Red Church. I paid my 14 Zlotys (think $5.00 US) and took a seat in the middle of the theatre. I sat spellbound and at times repulsed by the images on the screen. On September Katyn opened in Warsaw and then later in other cities around Poland. For those unfamiliar with the name, Katyn is a forest in the former Soviet Union near the city of Smolensk. This is a tale of horror from World War II. Rather than retelling this story I have included the following text from: Our Lady Queen of Poland and St. Maximillian Kolbe Parish,
Silver Spring, MD.

What is the Katyń Forest Massacre?

For a comprehensive analysis, see:
Report No. 2505 of the 82nd Congress, December 1952:
Final Report of the Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation and Study of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances on the Katyn Forest Massacre
(PDF, 3.7 MB)

In brief: As a result of the Russian attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, a large portion of the Polish army situated east of the Vistula River fell into Russian hands. About 181,000 men were captured and scattered throughout hundreds of labor camps in the Soviet Union. As a result of further arrests in late 1939 and early 1940, this number increased to 230,000. Of that number, 14,500 were officers. Most of these officers were confined in three prisoner-of-war camps: Starobielsk (125 miles east of Kharkov), Kozielsk (95 miles south of Smolensk) and Ostashkov (half way between Moscow and Leningrad, now St. Petersburg).

Beginning in November of 1939, families of these prisoners started receiving correspondence from these camps. After the war, it was established that at least 2,000 prisoners from Starobielsk and Kozielsk camps contacted their families. No letters were ever received from men in the Ostashkov camp. The reason was that of the men on Ostashkov, only a very small number were officers. The majority of these men were members of the Polish National Police and Frontiers Guards KOP, who were definitely not allowed any outside contact. The same rule evidently applied to the few officers interned in the camp.

In May of 1940, all correspondence from Starobielsk and Kozielsk suddenly stopped. In fact, not a single letter was received in Poland from any of the camps after May, 1940.

After the German attack on Russia in 1941, a political pact and then a military agreement were signed between Russia and the Polish government in London. The Polish army began to form on the territory of USSR and the Russian government agreed to release all Poles from POW and labor camps, General Anders, who was released from Butyrki prison in Moscow on July 4, 1941, immediately opened talks with the Russian officials concerning the fate of the officers at the three camps, who were not returned with the others.

On September 20, 1941, Stanisław Kot, the Polish Ambassador to Moscow, in a conversation with the Russian vice-minister, A. Wyshinsky, requested that the search for the missing officers be renewed. His request was supported by an official note from the Polish government-in-exile in London. This re­quest was repeated at further meetings between the two diplomats. Finally, the Russian vice-minister categorically stated that: “all Polish POW in the Russian territory, if any still existed, will be released”. But none arrived at the recruiting centers. According to Stalin, they had all escaped. Not once during these conversations was the possibility mentioned that any of the missing POWs had been captured by the Germans.

In October 1942, a group of Polish railway workers servicing trains on the Warsaw-Smolensk line were told by Russian peasants that in the Katyń woods there were massive graves of Poles murdered by the NKVD in the spring of 1940. The news reached the Germans, who sealed off the area and started investigating.

In April of 1943, the shocking news was announced by the Germans, to the Polish nation and to the whole world. For years afterwards, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, the Soviet government denied any part in the massacre. It was not until 1990 that a formal admission that the murders were committed, not by the Germans, but by the Russians, was finally made.

Today we observe the 65th anniversary of the Massacre in the Katyn Forest and other execution sites of the 14,500 Polish Officers. As we pray that the victims of Katyn enjoy eternal happiness, we honor their noble sacrifice and their heroic death for the Polish cause.

If you have followed along this far you now know about Katyn. What you might not know is that up until recently (1989) this subject did not exist in the Polish history books used by the school system. It was forbidden. I have been told of incidents of teachers merely mentioning this subject were removed from the schools and prohibited from teaching again. Elders would instruct their children and grandchildren “ Learn what they teach you in school, pass your exams and do not forget the horror and tragedy of Katyn.” In 1989 things changed in Poland. Katyn was discussed openly and this film represents one of the first attempts by a Polish film director to deal with this great tragedy. He great Theatre and Film Director, Andrzej Wajda, brings Katyn to the screen. It is, without a doubt, the finest example of cinematic art I have ever witnessed. The film is at once both a narrative and a documentary. The story unfolds with the Polish officers being taken prisoner by the Soviets and then switches its point of view to those of the families and women that await their return. The N.K.V.D., the forerunner of the KGB, took control of the men and carried out the murders. It is said that in Polish N.K.V.D. means “I do not know when I will return home.” It is important that you understand that each officer was held by two members of the N.K.V.D. while a third shot each Polish officer and members of the intelligentsia in the back of the head with a pistol. At the end of this film Wajda forces you to witness the murder of officer after officer. You are at ground level when the blade of the bull dozer pushes the earth onto these poor souls and you witness the hand of a dead officer buried in the earth clutching a Rosary. I sat in the audience weeping and I realized that it was not the 4,000 officers I had thought but the figure was somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 murdered. The film ends in blackness and silence. The audience left the theatre in silence. I arose and walked to the lobby only to sit down in the lobby to compose myself. For me the day seemed ruined. I was so moved and emotionally devastated by this work of cinematic art. I walked through the streets of Bialystok knowing that at one time the streets were filled with Nazi soldiers and then by the Soviets. As I walked down the street I looked in the faces of the older Poles wondering how many relatives they had lost at Katyn and the two other sites. Through the tears my eyes caught sight of the twin spires of the Red Church, I entered and prayed, wondering when mankind would stop slaying each other and I realized that it was the Polish sense of religion and devotion to God that enabled the Polish people, my ancestors, to survive such tragedy.

Click The Arrow Below To Start the Movie