The Katyn Forest Massacre

[Scout]

I was just reminded by that, as the Polish Army Museum in Warzaw was mentioned previously. They have a display about this sad event. They were sent some items from the wreck of the plane.

[Cenowski]

Both super sad events, one murder and the second despite the theories at the moment, there is no hard facts that it was a russian act. For sure there is something off about many things but i think with time more will be known. The smoleńsk air disaster is part of Katyń now, as one will never be mentioned without the other..... Cześć ich pamięci

[Krakow1]

If that poster was designed for Polish audience most likely "Jude" would have not been the word they would use. The Polish word of that time period would be "Zyd", or in that context maybe "Zydowskie NKVD" .

[StefanM]

If that poster was designed for Polish audience most likely "Jude" would have not been the word they would use. The Polish word of that time period would be "Zyd", or in that context maybe "Zydowskie NKVD" .

I agree, the Germans would have used Polish language or both, so I wonder who it was designed for? A German audience I don't think would be remotely interested in Katyn or NKVD which made me question who the "JUDE-NKVD" heading was aimed at?

[Krakow1]

If in fact that poster was issued during WW2 it would most likely in that edition be aimed at german speaking population, it was post Stalingrad, tide was starting to turn, germans needed all the public support they could get at home, also to show how evil the "Jewish NKVD" really was and what would and could happen in germany if they lost the war.

[Gary J]

On Stalin's personal signed orders, the cream of the Polish officer corp captured in the campaign of the 17th September 1939 were clinically executed with no hesitance.
These soldiers were executed, many with hands tied by barbed wire, and their greatcoats pulled over their heads to lessen their struggle.

These "individuals" were deemed a threat to future Soviet plans, and had no worth for this world.

Their barbaric end ...... belatedly exposed in the depths of the NKVD files, is truly sorrowful.

At least ... now, their suffering has been exposed ...

May they all see daylight again.

[Wagriff]

Sorry but IMHO Stalin would not have cared one bit!

In March 1940 at the time of the Katyn war crime Stalin wasn't expecting that his then ally, Hitler, was planning to invade the USSR. Had Germany not invaded the USSR who would have discovered the forest graves? Stalin and his regime were used to previous mass deportations, mass exterminations, mass starvation on an truly gargantuan scale why would he have been concerned with a few thousand Poles being discovered?

I have to disagree...I believe that Stalin would have cared quite abit. Stalin was the leader of what he believed to be the most powerful nation on Earth and was Constantly striving to show off to the World just how advanced and powerful the USSR was. He always had huge show projects going on that he took great care to make sure were well publicized and attended to by media and diplomats from around the World. His "Five Year Plans" built enormous and costly projects like the infamous White Sea canal and when finished were Always careful to have public shows and ceremonies to brag about them to the World. The so-called Writers Brigade tour of the White Sea canal by hundreds of authors and artists, set up by Gorky, were but one example of his pandering for World admiration. Anyone That concerned with proudly showing off how superior Russia was would never have wanted such a black mark to be casually shrugged off and ignored. It's proof enough that it took decades for the facts to be brought to light-and even today, there are still those who champion the "Germans did it" version. Somehow I can't imagine Stalin saying "Come see our wonderful achievements made possible by the strength and dedication of the Soviet people and the Soviet system-but pay no attention while you're here to those rumors of 20,000 plus Poles that were killed by us...and besides, it was the Germans that did it anyway...and they were only Poles anyway, so who cares if we did anyway? " No, I believe that Stalin, as always, knew Exactly what he was doing and how to handle it. Stalin never missed a publicity stunt opportunity. It was from this era that the old jokes began to appear of the marvelous Russian inventors. Wright Brothers first flight? Nope...a Russian invented it. Radio? A Russian invented it...and on and on.
In the Soviet Union of the era, there was the Politburo, the endless committees, and some extremely high powered military men, but the bottom line was Always that there was One true Power at the top and that power was answerable to No one. Stalin was the law unto himself and it took years after his death for anyone Still to dare say anything publicly disparaging of anything he'd done. Even dead, he held the USSR in an iron grip.

[StefanM]

I have to disagree...

We will have to agree to disagree on this always lively topic

But the point I was trying to make was that Stalin was not expecting his German allies to invade and occupy the USSR and Soviet occupied territories at the time of the "Katyn" executions so why would he have cared that the "Katyn" graves might be discovered when there were potentially countless other graves also waiting to be discovered across the USSR? Why would the graves of around 4,500 Polish officers in the Katyn forest be more significant to him above all the other mass graves of his regime?

It's proof enough that it took decades for the facts to be brought to light-and even today, there are still those who champion the "Germans did it" version.

On 15 April 1943 General Sikorski met Churchill to discuss the Katyn revelations. The Polish record of Churchill's thoughts on the issue:

"Unfortunately, therefore, the German revelations are perhaps true. We know what the Bolsheviks are capable of and how they know how to be cruel; I know all this and I understand your many difficulties. I often, very often, share your point of view. However, no other policy is possible. Our duty is to proceed in such a manner to save the fundamental aims agreed by ourselves and to serve them as effectively as possible."

But as Churchill declared at the time ‘there is no use prowling morbidly round the three-year-old graves of Smolensk.’

He was brutally correct.

[StefanM]

If in fact that poster was issued during WW2 it would most likely in that edition be aimed at german speaking population, it was post Stalingrad, tide was starting to turn, germans needed all the public support they could get at home, also to show how evil the "Jewish NKVD" really was and what would and could happen in germany if they lost the war.

I think it is a big "IF" because would the German speaking population really care about what might or might not have happened to Polish prisoners at the hands of the Jewish NKVD? How would they be able to relate to the poster image itself?

The Poles were "untermensch" to the Germans, their factories and businesses were already filled with Polish forced workers wearing the racially discriminatory "P" patch and the Germans had been killing them en masse for years before, so I don't quite see this poster being for German consumption even with the German language heading.

A German anti-"Jewish NKVD" poster IMO would be much more likely to show a hooked-nosed Jewish-Bolshevik NKVD beast gobbling up beautiful doe-eyed helpless and ravaged German mothers clutching their dead babies in arms etc. etc rather than Polish PoWs being shot which the German population would not be able to relate to.

It's a puzzle.

[Scout]

It's proof enough that it took decades for the facts to be brought to light-and even today, there are still those who champion the "Germans did it" version.

Presumably the same ones who believe, that the moon landing was a hoax and who also believe that they have been abducted by aliens in a previous incarnation.

"Unfortunately, therefore, the German revelations are perhaps true. We know what the Bolsheviks are capable of and how they know how to be cruel; I know all this and I understand your many difficulties. I often, very often, share your point of view. However, no other policy is possible. Our duty is to proceed in such a manner to save the fundamental aims agreed by ourselves and to serve them as effectively as possible."

But as Churchill declared at the time ‘there is no use prowling morbidly round the three-year-old graves of Smolensk.’

He was brutally correct.

If there ever was a believer in 'realpolitik,' it was Churchill.

I think it is a big "IF" because would the German speaking population really care about what might or might not have happened to Polish prisoners at the hands of the Jewish NKVD? How would they be able to relate to the poster image itself?

The Poles were "untermensch" to the Germans, their factories and businesses were already filled with Polish forced workers wearing the racially discriminatory "P" patch and the Germans had been killing them en masse for years before.............................

Yes, Poland was between a rock and a hard place for a looong time.