Warsaw conference debates WWII Katyn massacre
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
11.04.2018 12:43
Historians and experts were on Wednesday taking part in an international conference in Warsaw about the Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviets during World War II.
A monument to the victims of the Katyń massacre, located in Poland's Świętokrzyskie mountains. Photo: Goku122/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Historians from Poland, Russia, Britain, Germany and Argentina were taking part in the meeting at the Royal Castle in the Polish capital.
The conference has been organised to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the publication by Germany of information about the discovery of mass graves of Polish army officers.
A Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre is marked every year on April 13.
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, thousands of Polish officers were deported to camps in the Soviet Union.
On April 3, 1940, the NKVD - a forerunner of the Soviet Union's secret police organisation the KGB - transported 4,400 Poles to the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, western Russia, where each was shot in the back of the head.
There followed transports to other locations in a campaign that lasted a little over a month. Killings took place at various points across the then Soviet Union.
The 22,000 dead were mainly Polish army officers but among them were also policemen, artists, doctors, teachers, lawyers and other members of the intelligentsia.
The Katyn Massacre was officially kept under wraps by the Soviet Union, and later Russia until 1990.
(pk/gs)
Source: IAR