The Katyn Massacre: The Reader’s Digest version or real history?

It is important to note that not a single one of the documents themselves refers in any way to executions. In fact Document 53 cited by Cienciala explicitly states that the prisoners were being sent to labor camps.

All of the documents referred to or reproduced in Part II of the Cienciala volume concern the transportation of prisoners from one camp to somewhere else. Not a single one of them refers to ―executions, ―shootings, ―killing, etc. All this language is added by Cienciala. In this she has followed the practice of the Polish and Russian scholars who promote the ―official version.

It is true, of course, that the absence of a reference to the killings does not in itself prove anything about the fates of the people who were transported. What is important in terms of the Katyn controversy, however, is the dates of the transports and their destinations.

Cienciala assumes that, except for a few shipments that she specifically mentions, all the prisoners who were moved in April and May 1940 out of the three camps in which the Polish prisoners were being kept were in fact being shipped to their executions. Those executions are assumed to have taken place in April and May 1940. The ―official‖ version of the Katyn Massacre simply assumes that all these documents about clearing the Polish prisoners out of the camps in April 1940 in reality meant sending them away for execution. It is this assumption that has been challenged by a recent discovery.

Jósef Kuligowski

In May 2011 Polish news media reported that a numbered metal badge had been unearthed which had been identified by the Ukrainian archaeological team as that of a Polish policeman, Jósef Kuligowski, heretofore assumed to have been executed by the Soviet NKVD at Kalinin (now Tver‘), Russia, and buried with other such victims at Mednoe, outside of the town.8

Czy osoby z Listy Katyńskiej mordowano również na Grodzisku we Włodzimierzu Wołyńskim?! Odnaleziona przez ukraińskich archeologów odznaka Policji Państwowej o numerze 1441 / II na to wskazuje. Jak nas poinformował pan Piotr Zawilski, dyrektor Archiwum Państwowego w Łodzi odznaka o tym numerze należała do posterunkowego Józefa Kuligowskiego z IV komisariatu w Łodzi. Informacja o przydziale i numerze służbowym pochodzi z maja 1939 roku. Nazwisko posterunkowego figuruje na jednej z list dyspozycyjnych dla obozu w Ostaszkowie. Dotychczas uważano, że został zamordowany w Kalininie i spoczywa w Miednoje. Jak wytłumaczyć fakt, że odznaka Józefa Kuligowskiego znaleziona we Włodzimierzu Wołyńskim? Czy zginął w Kalininie, czy we Włodzimierzu?9

8 A photograph of Kuligowski‘s badge may be viewed at http://katyn.ru/images/news/2012-12-29-zheton-1441.jpg and a somewhat lighter, more legible copy at http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/kuligowski_badge_1441.jpg 9 ―Osoby z Listy Katyńskiej mordowano we Włodzimierzu Wołyńskim?!‖ (Persons from the Katyn List murdered at Włodzimierz Wołyński?!), ITVL May 25, 2011. At http://www.itvl.pl/news/osoby-z-listy-katynskiej-mordowano- we-wlodzimierzu-wolynskim– 6 / 104 /[/learn_more]  
My translation:10

It was a Polish National Police badge number 1441, which belonged to: Constable of the National Police Jósef Kuligowski son of Stephen and of Josepha née Sadurska, b. 12 March l898 in the village of Strych. In the Polish army on 20 June l919. 10 pap. Participant in the 1920 war, particularly distinguished himself at the Battle of Mariampol 24 May 1920. In the police from l921. Initially served in the Tarnopol region. Then from 1924 for many years in Lodz – in 1939 in the V Komis. In August 1939 mobilized to l0 pal. as Nr679.L class V VM. [NKVD transfer list] 026 / l ([position]15), 35 [.] 6, according to: ed Z. Gajowniczek, B. Gronek,, ―Mednoye Cemetery Book,‖ Vol. l, Warsaw 2005, p. 465. Badge has been transferred to the local museum.

Badge of Police Constable Jósef Kuligowski unearthed at Volodymyr-Volynsky

9

Here is the entry for Kuligowski from Volume One of the ―Mednoe Cemetery Book‖:16

15 Sprawozdanie z Nadzoru Nad Badaniami Archeologiczno-Ekshumacyjnymi na Terenie Rezerwatu Historyczno- Kulturowego Miasta Włodzimierza Wołyńskiego (Ukraina). Opracowanie zespołowe pod kierunkiem dr Dominiki Siemińskiej. Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa. (Report of the Supervision on the Archaeological- Exhumation Investigation in the Area of the Reservation of the Historical-Cultural Town of Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy (Ukraine). A Team Description under the Direction of Dr. Dominika Siemińska. Council for the Commemoration of Struggle and Martzrdom). Toruń, 2012, Note, pp. 1-2. At http://www.kresykedzierzynkozle.home.pl/attachments/File/Rap.pdf

16 Miednoje. Księga Cmentarna Polskiego Cmentarza Wojennego. Warsaw: Rada Ochrony Pamiêci Walk i Mêczeñstwa 2005. Tom 1, 465.

10

The Polish archaeologist in charge of the excavations and author of the report, Dr. Dominika Siemińska, has determined that the victims buried in the mass grave in which this badge was found were killed no earlier than 1941:20

Z pewno cią stwierdzono, że zbrodnia została dokonana nie wcze niej niż w 1941 roku. (p. 4)

It can be confirmed with certainty that the crime did not take place earlier than 1941.

They were able to determine the time period by dating the shell casings found in the graves. All but a very few were of German manufacture. Almost all of them are datable to 1941. / 109 /

Some of the bodies were arranged in the ―sardine-packing‖ (Sardinenpackung) formation21 favored by Obergruppenführer22 Friedrich Jeckeln, commander of one of the Einsatzgruppen, extermination teams whose task it was to carry out mass executions. A photograph of the bodies in grave no. 1 shows this arrangement of bodies.23

EKSHUMOWANE CIALA POLSKICH OFICEROW
W KATYNIU.
KATYN, 1943.
ADM

http://www.ornatowski.com/index/katyn.htm

20 See above, note 14.
21 A description of this method of execution may be found on the English-language Wikipedia page on Jeckeln at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Jeckeln#World_War_II_mass_murderer
22 Equivalent to full or four-star General, the highest SS rank aside from that of Heinrich Himmler, whose rank was Reichsführer-SS.
23 Photograph at http://katyn.ru/images/news/2012-12-29-gruppa4.jpg (as of May 6 2013). It is taken from page 8 of the Polish archeological report cited above.A description of this method of execution may be found on the English- languageWikipedia page on Jeckeln at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Jeckeln#World_War_II_mass_murderer

11

Also, a large percentage of the bodies in the mass graves are of children. The Soviets did not execute children. So the evidence is strong that this is a site of German, not Soviet, mass executions. This conclusion is confirmed by the recent research of other Ukrainian scholars concerning this very burial site. Relying on evidence from German war crimes trials, eyewitness testimony of Jewish survivors, and research by Polish historians on the large-scale massacres of Poles by Ukrainian Nationalists, Professor Ivan Katchanovski and Volodymyr Musychenko have established that the victims buried at this site were mainly Jews but also Poles and ―Soviet activists.‖ Katchanovski concludes that Ukrainian authorities have tried to push the blame onto the Soviet NKVD in order to conceal the guilt of the Ukrainian Nationalist forces who are celebrated as ―heroes in today‘s Ukraine, including in Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy itself.24

However, regardless of which party is guilty of the mass executions, the fact remains that Kuligowski was indeed transported from Ostashkov POW camp to Kalinin in April 1940 but was not shot until 1941 at the earliest. And this means that the transportation lists, which are assumed to be lists of victims being shipped off to be shot, were not that at all. Kuligowski was transported in April 1940 by the Soviets not in order to be shot but for some other reason. He remained alive, probably to be captured and executed by the / 110 / Germans, most likely in the second half of 1941 but possibly somewhat later. Moreover, Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy is 800 miles from Kalinin (Tver‘).

http://www.uamoderna.com/md/199

12

This is the major deduction from this discovery that is relevant to our understanding of the Katyn Massacre case: The fact that a Polish POW’s name is on one of the Soviet transportation lists can no longer be assumed to be evidence that he was on his way to execution, and therefore that he was executed by the Soviets.

Nazi poster accusing the NKVD.  Note the lurid style.

Ludwik Małowiejski

There is evidence that more Polish POWs are buried in these same mass graves, and therefore were executed at the same time, by the Germans in 1941 or 1942. The epaulette of a Polish policeman‘s uniform and Polish military buttons were found in grave No. 2.25

In September 2011 Polish media reported that police badge number 1099/II belonging to Senior Police Constable (starszy posterunkowy) Ludwik Małowiejski had been found in the Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy mass graves.26 It had been assumed that, like Kuligowski, Małowiejski was a ―Katyn Massacre‖ victim whose body was buried in a mass grave at Mednoe near Kalinin, where – it has been assumed – other ―Katyn‖ victims shot by the NKVD in 1940 are buried. Małowiejski‘s name is also on the recent Polish lists of Katyn victims.27 Like Kuligowski he is memorialized in the ―Mednoe Cemetery Book‖ – in this case, Volume 2, page 541:

His transfer record with the word ―Mord‖ (Murder) added, like Kuligowski‘s, is also on the same official Polish Katyn website:28 / 111 /

13

Polish poster replicating the German propaganda style.

25 Photos available at http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/polskie_guziki_pagon_VV2012.jpg ,from the Polish archaeological report.
26 ―Kolejny policjant z Listy Katyńskiej odnaleziony we Włodzimierzu Wołyńskim..‖ [Another policeman on the Katyn List is found in Volodymyr-Volynsky]. At http://www.itvl.pl/news/kolejny-policjant-z-listy-katynskiej- odnaleziony-we-wlodzimierzu-wolynskim

http://www.ornatowski.com/index/katyn.htm
28 The following text is ffrom http://www.indeks.karta.org.pl/pl/szczegoly.jsp?id=11445

14

Like Kuligowski‘s, Małowiejski‘s name is also on the Russian lists of prisoners shipped out of the Ostashkov camp.29

In 2011 it was still assumed that the mass graves at Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy were those of victims of the Soviet NKVD. Therefore this apparent discrepancy about the place of burial of one victim received little attention. Since then the Polish archaeological team has definitively dated the site as 1941 at the earliest and argues that it is an SS Einsatzgruppe mass murder site, meaning late 1941 or 1942. This in turn means that Kuligowski, Małowiejski, and perhaps others – perhaps many others – were killed by the Germans in 1941, not by the Soviets in 1940.

The article by Sergei Strygin cited in note 1 above contains photographs of the memorial tablets of both Kuligowski and Małowiejski at the special memorial cemetery at Mednoe. These, and the thousands of other memorial tablets at this site, reflect the assumption that the ―transit lists‖ were really ―execution lists‖ – an assumption that the discovery at Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy proves to be false. It is clear today that neither man‘s body is buried at Mednoe. The question now is: Are any of the Polish POWs whose memorial tablets are there alongside those of Kuligowski and Małowiejski really buried there? At present there is no reason to think so. / 112 /

29 Tucholski p. 887 No. 76. Małowiejski was in a transport of 100 Polish prisoners sent to the Kalinin NKVD on April 27, 1940. Of course his name is also on Tucholski‘s alphabetical list (p. 322, col. 2) as is Kuligowski‘s, and on other official lists of Katyn victims.

Where Does This Leave Us?

So where does this leave us? By ―us‖ I mean those researchers who are fascinated by the uncertainty and the political contentiousness, the challenge of all the contradictory evidence and the mysteriousness, of what I have come to call ―the Katyn Forest Whodunnit.‖ What does this mean for people who want to know the truth no matter what it may be, ―no matter whose ox is gored‖?

Briefly, here‘s the status of this question at present, as I understand it:

* There is no evidence that the 14,000+ Polish POWs who were transferred out of Soviet POW camps in April and May 1940 were in reality being sent to be shot. This assumption has been one of the main supports of the ―official‖ version of the Katyn Massacre. It must now be rejected. Since Kuligowski and Małowiejski were on those transportation lists and survived to be killed in 1941 by the Nazis, then others could have as well. There is no basis to think that only a few of the Polish prisoners were not shot by the Soviets in April-May 1940 and that, just by chance, two of this group have been identified. Rather it is likely that most of the Polish POWs were not killed by the Soviets but remained in Soviet captivity to be captured and shot by the Nazis sometime after the middle of 1941.

* The ―smoking gun‖ documents from ―Closed Packet No. 1 are linked to the assumption that all the POWs shipped out of the camps were being shipped to execution. The fact that they were not shipped to execution in April-May 1940 is an additional reason to suspect that these documents may indeed be forgeries, as some have long argued.

* The confession-interviews of the three NKVD witnesses, Soprunenko, Tokarev, and Syromiatnikov, strongly suggest that the NKVD did execute some Poles. Their testimony is inconsistent – as is to be expected from 50 year-old remembrances of men in their 80s. What‘s more, they testified under threat of criminal prosecution and so may have elaborated their confessions in order to please their interrogators. But even researchers who contend that the Germans shot the Poles whose bodies were disinterred by the Germans at Katyn in April-June 1943 do not claim that the Soviets shot no Poles at all.

* In 2004 the Russian Prosecutor‘s office announced that it had closed the criminal investigation on the grounds that there was no evidence that a crime had been committed. This announcement is contained / 113 / in the following statement on the Prosecutor‘s web page dated April 7, 2011:

21 сентября 2004 г. уголовное дело по обвинению должностных лиц НКВД СССР в совершении преступления, предусмотренного п. «б» ст. 193-17 УК РСФСР (1926 г.), т.е. превышения власти, выразившегося в принятии незаконных решений о применении в отношении 14 542 польских граждан расстрела, прекращено на основании п. 4 ч. 1 ст. 24 УПК РФ – за отсутствием события преступления.

This appears to say that the investigation found that no crime had been committed. This is different from Cienciala‘s interpretation, which is ―that no one would be charged with the crime. (259) The Prosecutor‘s text plainly states that there was no crime in the first place. Nevertheless Russian officials, including President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev, have continued to state that the Soviets are guilty of killing all the Poles.

The Burdenko Commission

The fact is: A Polish POW‘s name on a ―transit list does not mean that he was executed by the Soviets in April-May 1940 or indeed at any time. This forces us to take a closer look at the Soviet Burdenko Commission Report of January 1944. The Burdenko Commission report contains the following information about materials it allegedly found on a body unearthed from grave No. 8 at Katyn:

4. На трупе No 46: Квитанция (No неразборчив), выданная 16 дек. 1939 г. Старобельским лагерем о приеме от Арашкевича Владимира Рудольфо / 114 / вича золотых часов. На обороте квитанции имеется отметка от 25 марта 1941 г. о том, что часы проданы Ювелирторгу.

…
6. На трупе No 46: Квитанция от 6 апреля 1941 г., выданная лагерем No 1-ОН о приеме от Арашкевича денег в сумме 225 рублей.
7. На том же трупе No 46: Квитанция от 5 мая 1941 г., выданная лагерем No 1-ОН о приеме от Арашкевича денег в сумме 102 рубля.

4. On body No. 46: A receipt (number illegible) issued 16 Dec. 1939, by the Starobelsk camp testifying receipt of a gold watch from Vladimir Rudolfovich Araszkewicz. On the back of the receipt is a note dated 25 March 1941, stating that the watch was sold to the Jewelry trading trust. 6. On body No. 46: A receipt dated 6 April 1941, issued by camp No. 1-ON, showing receipt of 225 rubles from Araszkewicz.

7. On the same body. No. 46: A receipt dated 5 May 1941, issued by Camp No. l-ON, showing receipt of 102 rubles from Araszkewicz.30

16

Włodzimierz Araszkiewicz is on the Polish lists of victims of Katyn, and also on the earlier list of Adam Mosziński, Lista Katyńska (GRYF, London 1989).31 His father‘s name, Rudolf, is on his transfer record:32

As often with these Polish lists there are contradictions. Mosziński, Lista Katyńska, has Araszkiewicz in the Starobelsk camp, while the „Indeks‖ / 115 / record (above) puts him at the Ostashkov camp, while Tucholski has him at both Kozel‘sk and Ostashkov!33 Here is Araszkiewicz‘s memorial from Volume 1 of the ―Mednoe Cemetery Book,‖ page 11:

According to the Burdenko Commission report Camp No. 1-ON, origin of the receipt found on body No. 46 and bearing Araszkiewicz‘s name, was one of three labor camps named No. 1-ON, 2-ON, and 3-ON, where ―ON stands for ―osobogo naznacheniia‖ (special purpose or assignment). These camps were near Smolensk. The ―special purpose‖ was road construction.

The Special Commission established that, before the capture of Smolensk by the Germans, Polish war prisoners, officers and men, worked in the western district of the region, building and repairing roads. These war prisoners were quartered in three special camps named: Camp No. 1

31 ―Czę ć Pierwsza. Obóz w Kozielsku. Groby w Lesie Katyńskim,‖ p. 3 (pages unnumbered).
32 The following text is from http://www.indeks.karta.org.pl/pl/szczegoly.jsp?id=8437
33 Araszkiewica at Kozel‘sk: Tucholski p. 68 col. 2 (the alphabetical list). In the Russian-language ―transit lists‖ that take up almost 400 pages of Tucholski‘s book, Araszkiewicz‘s transfer from Ostashkov to Kalinin is recorded on list No.062/2 of May 19, 1940, the last shipment of prisoners out of Ostashkov: p. 907, No. 7.

17

O.N., Camp No. 2 O.N., and Camp No. 3 O.N. These camps were located 25 to 45 kilometers west of Smolensk.

The testimony of witnesses and documentary evidence establish that after the outbreak of hostilities, in view of the situation that arose, the camps could not be evacuated in time and all the Polish war prisoners, as well as some members of the guard and staffs of the camps, fell prisoner to the Germans. (Burdenko Comm. 229)

Katyn: Stalin accused.

According to the ―official version this story must be false, part of a putative Soviet coverup. The Nazis had begun their Katyn propaganda campaign on April 15, 1943.34 By January 1944 the Katyn issue had been public for nine months, plenty of time for the Soviets to manufacture a false version.

However, in their very first response of April 16, 1943 the Soviets had already claimed that Polish officers were involved in construction in the Smolensk area.

Немецко-фашистские сообщения по этому поводу не оставляют никакого сомнения в трагической судьбе бывших польских военнопленных, на / 116 / ходившихся в 1941 году в районах западнее Смоленска на строительных работах и попавших вместе со многими советскими людьми, жителями Смоленской области, в руки немецко-фашистских палачей летом 1941 года после отхода советских войск из района Смоленска.35

The German-fascist communiqué on this matter leaves no doubt about the tragic fate of the former Polish POWs who in 1941 were engaged in construction works in the area to the west of Smolensk and who, together with many Soviet citizens, residents of Smolensk oblast‘, fell into the hands of the German-fascist killers during the summer of 1941 after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the Smolensk region.

This is essentially the same claim the Burdenko Commission made nine months later. But on April 16, 1943 no one knew exactly what the Germans would do or exactly what they would say. No one knew that Katyn would become a huge German propaganda campaign. The consistency between the Sovinformburo statement of April 16, 1943 and the Burdenko Commission report nine months later is therefore worthy of note, just as an inconsistency would have been. It might well be true.

The Burdenko Commission report also mentions finding similar documents on another body unearthed at Katyn: that of Edward Levandowski.

34 The New York Times published a very brief notice of the German claim on April 16, 1943; see ―Nazis Accuse Russians,‖ p. 4.
35 ―Совинформбюро. Гнусные измышления немецко-фашистских палачей‖ (Sovinformburo: Vile Fabrications of the German-Fascist Executioners), April 16, 1943. At http://tinyurl.com/sovinformburo041643

36 ―Czę ć Druga. Obóz w Ostaszkowie,‖ p. 13 (pages unnumbered).
37 The following text is from http://www.indeks.karta.org.pl/pl/szczegoly.jsp?id=1119 1

The Burdenko Commission report also mentions the following find:

9. На трупе No 53: Неотправленная почтовая открытка на польском языке в адрес: Варшава, Багателя 15 кв. 47 Ирене Кучинской. Датирована 20 июня 1941 г. Отправитель Станислав Кучинский.

9. On body No. 53: An unmailed postcard in the Polish language addressed Warsaw, Bagatelia 15, apartment 47, to Irene Kuczinska, and dated 20 June 1941. The sender is Stanislaw Kuczinski. (Burdenko Comm. pp. 246-247).

A Stanisław Kucziński is named in the Katyn victims list. The name is a common one. The record below is that of the only person by that name who is said in those lists to have been killed in the Katyn Massacres: / 118 /

This Stanisław Kucziński, son of Antoni, is also memorialized in the ―Mednoe Cemetery Book‖ I, p. 459:38

38 The following text is from http://www.indeks.karta.org.pl/pl/szczegoly.jsp?id=11001

Once again this victim is stated to have been transferred from the camp at Ostashkov to Kalinin and ―murdered there, though the Burdenko Commission stated that they found his body at Katyn.39

How can the Polish Katyn lists assert that Araszkiewicz, Lewandowski, and Kucziński were killed (―Mord) at Kalinin and buried nearby at Mednoe when their bodies were unearthed by the Burdenko Commission at Katyn? Only by assuming that the Burdenko Commission was lying when it claimed to have found these corpses at Katyn with papers from March, May, and June 1941 on them. But then the Soviets would have had to go to Kalinin, unearth these bodies and bring them to Katyn. Or they could have chosen the names of three victims they knew were buried at Kalinin and claim they had discovered their bodies at Katyn.

But why go to all that trouble when they could have just planted false documents on the bodies of persons they knew to have been shot at Katyn? After all, if the Soviets had shot all these men they knew not only who was buried at Kalinin but also who was buried at Katyn.

So why not use the bodies, or at least the identities, of three men who really were buried at Katyn? Why use the names of three men buried hundreds of miles away?

No objective historian would make such an assumption. One only has to assume that the Burdenko Commission was lying if one has already made the prior assumption that the transportation lists are really ―death lists. That is, the second assumption entails the first: it is ―an assumption based upon an assumption.  If it were definitely the case that the ―transfer lists really were lists of Poles being shipped to execution, then we could confidently state that these assertions by the Burdenko Commission were fabrications – lies intended to blame on the Germans murders that the Soviets had in fact carried out. But the discoveries at Volodymyr- Volyn‘skiy have proven that the ―transfer lists were not lists of persons being shipped to execution. Moreover, there is no evidence that the Soviets did any of this.

PP, posterunek Pruszków‖). It appears that Mosziński and the other two sources are indicating different men.
40 The names of these three men are not on the list of 4143 bodies, some of them nameless, in the German report Amtliches Material.

21

45 Km from Smolensk – their corpses brought to Katyn as part of the Nazi propaganda campaign to split the Allies. A number of witnesses testified to the Burdenko Commission that they saw German trucks loaded with corpses being driven in the direction of Katyn.41

This is the only scenario that accounts for the facts as we now know them. Moreover, it is strengthened by a discovery the Germans themselves made. The 1943 German report on Katyn states that the following item was found in one of the mass graves:

eine ovale Blechmarke unter den Asservaten vor, die folgende Angaben enthält T. K. UNKWD K. O. / 120 /
9 4 24
Stadt Ostaschkow42

The text of the original badge would have been, in Russian, like this:

Т. К. УНКВД К. О. 9 4 24
г. Осташков

A probable English translation would be:

Prison Kitchen, NKVD Directorate, Kalinin Oblast‘ [prisoner, or cell, or badge number] 9 4 2 4
town of Ostashkov43

None of the ―transport lists‖ from the camp at Ostashkov were for transport to Katyn or anywhere near Smolensk. All these lists state that the Polish prisoners were sent to Kalinin. Therefore the person buried at Katyn who had this badge in his possession had been shipped to Kalinin. But, obviously, he was not shot there. The badge was unearthed at Katyn. Therefore, the owner of this badge was also shot at Katyn, or nearby.

There seems to be just one way these men, and doubtless many more, could have ended up shot and buried at Katyn. They must have been transferred from Kalinin to a labor camp near Katyn, where the Germans captured and shot them. This hypothesis fits the scenario as outlined by the Sovinformburo statement of April 16, 1943, and by the Burdenko Commission. It also offers independent confirmation of the main conclusion of this article: that the prisoners transferred out of the POW camps in April-May 1940 were not being shipped to execution.

What really did happen?

The discoveries in the mass graves at Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy constitute a lethal blow to the ―official version of the Katyn Massacre. This is something that should interest all of us.

Katyn has been the most famous crime alleged against Stalin and the Soviet government. It has been the crime most firmly grounded in documentary evidence. For example, it is unlike the alleged Holodomor, the supposedly deliberate starvation by Stalin of millions of Ukrainians in the famine of 1932-1933, for which no evidence has ever been found.44

All the post-Soviet states today employ Soviet atrocities narratives to justify the pro-fascist, anti-semitic, and pro-Nazi actions of the forces that sided with the Germans against the Soviet Union before, during, and after World War 2.  Katyn is the keystone of contemporary right-wing Polish nationalism. Katyn is also a key component of anti-Stalin, anti-Soviet, and anticommunist propaganda generally.

Until now, it has been the best known such alleged atrocity and by far the best documented one. Katyn has been the best proven ―crime of Stalinism.‖ That is no longer the case.So what really did happen? In my view – and here I am following a number of the very competent Russian researchers who have likewise concluded that the ―official‖ version is wrong – the Soviets did execute some Poles.We know that after occupying Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine, formerly Eastern Poland, in September 1939 the Soviet NKVD searched for Poles who had been involved in the 1920-21 war in which Poland had taken these territories from the Russian Socialist Republic, which had been exhausted by four years of civil war and Allied / 122 / intervention, typhus epidemic, and famine.45 Imperialist Poland had deprived the majority populations – Belorussians, Ukrainians, and Jews – of many of their national and civil rights.46 The Polish government had sent ―settlers‖ (osadnicy), mainly former military officers, to ―polonize‖ (―make more Polish‖) the lands, giving them estates and making them government officials and teachers. Poland had violently repressed the communist movement and the Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Jewish minorities in these lands, as well as in Poland proper. Moreover: during the Russo-Polish war of 1920-21 somewhere between 18,000 and 60,000 Red Army POWs had died in Polish captivity.

45 See, for example, Piotr Kołakowski, NKWD i GRU na ziemiach polskich 1939-1945 (Warsaw: Bellona, 2002), 74, which discusses NKVD searches and arrests: ―nazwiska osób walczących o granice II Rzeczypospolitej
w latach 1918-1921‖ (names of persons who fought for the boundaries of the Second Republic in 1918-1921), ―nazwiska wszystkich ochotników, którzy wojowali z bolszewikami w 1920 r.‖ (names of all volunteers who had fought the Bolsheviks in 1920), i.e. in the war which forced Soviet Russia to cede all of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia to Poland in the Treaty of Riga (March 1921).

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I predict that in ―mainstream‖ – i.e., anticommunist – academia the discourse about the Katyn Massacre will change very little. Mainstream anticommunism is motivated far more by ―political correctness‖ – by political motives – than by any desire to discover the truth. When mainstream anticommunist scholarship does mention the Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy discoveries it will be only to try to dismiss them. One way of attempting to do so is demonstrated in the Ukrainian archaeological report cited below – to claim that the NKVD carried out these executions. Other similar subterfuges can be invented. The central importance of these discoveries for an objective understanding of this infamous historical event will be denied at all costs.

Perhaps the Polish archaeologist‘s report anticipated this by relegating the finding of Kuligowski‘s badge to a footnote. It could be considered a principled and even courageous act by this archaeologist, Dr. Dominika Siemińska, to reveal the discovery of the badge and to give the important details about it in the report, no matter how minimized and downplayed. No one compelled her to insert this information, which directs the attentive reader to the contradiction between the discovery at Volodymyr-Volyns‘skiy and the ―official‖ version of Katyn. Questioning of the ―official‖ version is not tolerated in the public sphere in Poland. One hopes that Dr. Siemińska‘s career will not suffer because of her adherence to scientific objectivity.

The report of the Ukrainian part of the same team does not mention the discovery of either badge. Moreover, the Ukrainian report goes out of its way to suggest that the Soviets might still somehow be responsible for the mass executions. It protests the finding of the Polish

47 For an introduction to this heated question see the section ―Polish Massacres of Russian POWs 1919-1920‖ on my ―Katyn Forest Whodunnit‖ page (note 5).
48 Ukrainian nationalist forces allied with the Germans massacred roughly 100,000 Polish civilians in German- occupied Western Ukraine in 1943 and 1944. This is known in Poland as ―Rzeź wołyńska,‖ the ―Volhynian massacres,‖ in Ukraine as ―Волинська трагедія,‖ the ―Volhynian tragedy.‖

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Додатково хочеться відмітити, що даний метод розстрілів не можна називати «системою Єкельна», на який посилаються наші польські колеги. Цей нацистській метод не передбачав страти у поховальній ямі. До того ж його почали застосовувати лише наприкінці 1941 – на початку 1942 р. у Ризі, що хронологічно не відповідає володимирській страті.

The Ukrainian report mentions the fact that the German shell casings found were from 1941, but then states ―It is known that Soviet organs of the NKVD used German weapons in mass executions of Polish citizens.‖49

У поховальних ямах виявлено ідентичні гільзи , головним чином калібру 9 мм. Більшість з них мають позначки dnh (виробництво заводу Верк Дурлах в Карлсрує, Німеччина) та kam (виробництво фабрики Hasag у Скаржиці Кам‘яній, Польща) 1941 р. Проте виявлені і декілька гільз радянського зразка. Все це потребує додаткових досліджень, оскільки стверджувати про те, що розстріли проводилися гітлерівцями при наявності в поховальних ямах гільз радянського зразка– не є об‘єктивним. Відомі факти (зокрема дані розстрілів польських військових у Катині), що радянські органи НКВС використовували при розстрілах німецьку зброю.

In the burial pits were found identical shells, mainly of 9 mm caliber. Most of them have the mark ―dnh‖ (production of the factory Werk Drulach50 in Karlsruhe, Germany) and ―kam‖ (production of the Hasag factory in Skarżysko-Kamienna,51 Poland) of 1941. However a few shells of Soviet type were also / 125 / found. All this requires further research, inasmuch as it is not objective to affirm that the shootings were carried out by the Hitlerites when shells of Soviet type were found in the pits. Facts are known (including the facts of the shooting of Polish military men at Katyn) that the Soviet organs of the NKVD used German weapons in shootings.

Details of the shells, 150 in all, found in grave No. 1 are given in footnote 3, page 8 of the Polish report but are absent from the Ukrainian report:

49 ―ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ВИЯВЛЕНИХ РЕШТОК ЛЮДЕЙ , РОЗСТРІЛЯНИХ В 1941 РОЦІ НА ГОРОДИЩІ ― ВАЛИ‖ У ВОЛОДИМИРІ- ВОЛИНСЬКОМУ .ЕКСГУМАЦІЙНІ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ 2012 РОКУ‖. (Investigation of discovered remains of persons shot in 1941 at the ̳Shafts‘ site at Volodymyr-Volyns‘kiy. Investigation of exhumations of 2012.) (Doslizhdennia) At http://volodymyrmuseum.com/publications/32- publications/naukovi-statti/170-doslidzhennya-vyyavlenykh-reshtok-lyudey-rozstrilyanykh-v-1941-rotsi-na- horodyshchi-valy-u-volodymyri-volynskomu-ekshumatsiyni-doslidzhennya-2012-roku

50 The correct name for this German munitions factory was Rheinisch-Westfalische Sprengstoff AG Dürlach Werk. A specialized Internet database on German ordnance states that the Dürlach factory was actually in Baden: see German WWII Alphabetic Ordnance Codes: c-e, at http://www.radix.net/~bbrown/codes_full_alpha_c-e.html
51 A town south of Warsaw about halfway between Radom and Kielce. The German munitions factory was HASAG Eisen und Metallwerke G.m.b.H. According to the database cited in the previous note this was the Hugo Schneider AG, Werk Skarżysko Kamienna, Poland.

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