October 10, 2013
Ms. Rose C. Cali
Michael L. Carter
Dr. Francis M.C. Cuss
Mr. Mitchell E. Hersh
Mr. George J. Hiltzik, Vice Chair
Mr. Douglas L. Kennedy
Mr. Ralph A. LaRossa, Chair
Mr. Thomas Maguire
Mr. John L. McGoldrick
Mr. William T. Mullen
Ms. Christine L. Padilla
Mr. Preston D. Pinkett III
Mr. J. Thomas Presby
Mr. Robert Van Dyk
Trustees of Montclair State University
Susan A. Cole PhD.
President
Provost Willard Gingrich
Montclair State University
1 Normal Ave
Montclair, New Jersey 07043
Dear Trustees,
President Cole and Provost Gingrich:
I am in receipt of your response in which you claim that the factually and historically undocumented statements presented on the pages of Montclair State University comprise historical research.
I have to
wonder if you have bothered to read the material which you are defending as
research - actually it is clear you have not.
There are
various points of the subject essay that lack any logic, documentation or
factual reality. I will allow myself to
present a few – as a full analysis would require a lengthy document. Among them
are the following:
- Mr. Furr alleges in a blanket statement
that the government of Poland (which was a government in exile: as the
various portions of the country were either, incorporated into the Reich,
reformatted as the General Gouvernement under German command, or
incorporated by the Soviets into the USSR) collaborated with the Nazis,
without presenting any evidence. To
make such a ludicrous assertion, about a period when the British and US
governments were dependent on the network of Polish agents in occupied
Poland and throughout Europe, and further, while Polish airmen were flying
as part of the British Air Force and troops were fighting throughout
Europe and the Middle East, strains credibility.
It would be reasonable to expect the
author to document his allegations, yet he does not do so. Yet you accept this as research.
- The author avoids discussion of the
Nazi-Soviet (Ribbentrop-Molotov) Non-Aggression Treaty of August 23, 1939
and its various protocols including one in which the invasion of Poland by
both parties, the Nazis and Soviets is discussed and the map of Poland is
clearly split into two. Instead he
misrepresents the historical facts by claiming that the Soviets wanted to
stop incursion by the Germans. If
that were the fact there would be no signed map delineating the border
between Germany and the USSR and there would not exist a film showing a
joint military parade of the two great allies celebrating the conquest of
Poland and filmed in Brześć nad Bugiem. These items being but two of a
multitude of documents and materials confirming the Nazi-Soviet Alliance.
- Given that the author spends much time
elaborating on the report from Włodzimierz Wołyński, you should be made
aware that Dr. Dominika Siemińska’s work is misquoted, and in fact it is
manipulated to present his desired position. Dr. Siemińska, in correspondence with me,
has graciously wondered if the author’s knowledge of Polish is so lacking
that he might have erroneously totally misconstrued her position. Regrettably, based on his choice of
sentences, it is clear that the author had clearly decided to misrepresent
facts.
Since Dr. Siemińska’s material is
available on the internet – it would be but a small effort to verify this fact.
- The author writes that Dr. Siemińska has
placed herself at risk – in an essay written in 2013 he refers to
materials published by a government institution and written by Dr.
Siemińska in 2012 – he has chosen to create an illusion of danger for Dr.
Siemińska – however, the reality is (and a reputable scholar would have
noted) that Dr. Siemińska is continuing her work for the Rada Ochrony in
Włódziemierz Wołyński during the 2013 period. Clearly, she has not suffered for her
statements.
Thus, these insinuations are a falsehood. - The Katyn Massacre involved over 24,000
individuals with whom ALL contact was lost no later than May of 1940 and
from among whom none ever either joined the Polish Army under British
Command, the Polish Army under Soviet Command and finally, none of whom
ever returned to Poland in the postwar period. Yes, there were some
individuals who were separated off from the various imprisoned groups, the
most famous (aside from those who elected to serve the Soviet Union) being
Professor Stanisław Swianiewicz, an economist who specialized in studying
the German economy. When his Kozielsk group arrived at Gniezdowo, the
Katyn station, he was selected out from the group and saw his fellow
prisoners being trucked away. You
can if you wish view filmed interviews with him. Historians can list the ones who were
separated off by name and even give the reason why.
Yet based on the discovery of
three items, the author has determined that 24,000 individuals were either sent
to Soviet work camps (GULAGs) or were in some indeterminate way individually
shot by the Germans. At best this lack
of logic would lead one to ask – if they were sent, as the author alleges, to
work camps – then at least a certain number of them should have joined the
Polish Army under Soviet command – as the Soviets were desperate for Polish
officers and soldiers for that army, and accepted whoever would join to that
army, while others should have survived the GULAG and returned to Poland in the
late 1940’s or early 1950’s. But this
issue is not raised.
- Mr. Furr, by engaging in a vitriolic ad
hominem attack on Professor Anna Cienciala, alleges that she has mistranslated
documents which were included in Katyn:
A Crime Without Punishment which was coauthored by Natalia Lebedeva
and Wojciech Materski. This volume was published by Yale University Press,
and it would appear thereby, as is implied, that the co-authors reneged on
their intellectual responsibility and that Yale does not vet the work that
it publishes. I would wonder that
Montclair State deems it appropriate to attack the scholarly credibility
of materials published by Yale University.
Perhaps, in a desire for
scholarly accuracy, the President and Provost of Montclair should advise Yale
University Press of the error of its ways?
I will allow myself to inform you,
that this English language work is a summary of the 4 volume Katyn Dokumenty Zbrodni, which was a
joint publication of the:
- National Archives of Poland AND the
- Russian National Archival Services in
Moscow, the
- Contemporary History Institute, the
- Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies,
the
- Institute of Military History and the
- Central Archives of the Federal Security Bureau,
with the aforementioned 5 being official
Russian organizations.
There were seven Russian editors
of these volumes, among who were members of the internationally hailed Memorial
Society.
Thus, any allegations that the
Soviet documents presented in these volumes, numbering 217 in just the first
volume, were manipulated would be highly preposterous. Yet, here, in this first volume of materials
co-edited by the various agencies, institutions and individuals listed above,
with translations clearly vetted by the Russian side, in doc. 216 appears a group listing of all the individuals
who were under discussion and in paragraph 2) the clear order that these individuals shall be executed by
being shot.
How then can the Provost and
President of Montclair allow the good name of Professor Cienciala be defamed on
its pages – when clearly, even the FSB of Russia concurred to the issuance of
these materials and approved the translation which definitively states that the
prisoners were to be executed and that the document was signed by Stalin and
the members of the Politbureau.
- Mr. Furr fails to mention that the Technical Committee of the Polish Red Cross worked on the site of the Katyn Massacre between April 12 and June 7, 1943 and these individuals worked on identifying the bodies of the officers and cadet officers who were buried in Katyn. They retrieved not three, not three hundred but thousands and thousands of individual items which identified not only the officers, but dated the last period when they were alive.
To assuage your concerns, I will
advise you that the Technical Committee never submitted a report to the Germans
as they saw that as an act that was not acceptable. Thus their reports went to
the underground in Warsaw and then London.
- The author also fails to mention, not
only the
- various groups of journalists from
throughout Europe (France, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Denmark, Italy,
Belgium, Netherlands, etc.)
- in addition to the members of the International Medical Commission
who visited the site in April-June 1943.
Interestingly, none of these
individuals ever withdrew or altered their opinion that the crime was committed
by the Soviets, with the exception of the two who lived behind the Iron Curtain
after the war. The International Medical
Commission members, forensic scientists, based their decision in part on the calcification
inside the skulls, which is a process that would have taken well over two years
to occur.
There were, additionally Polish
POWs who were brought there, who also never issued a statement to the German
media. So much for Polish collaboration.
- Finally, the author fails to mention the group of eight English-speaking POWs who were brought to Katyn by the Germans. They included four officers, three enlisted men and one civilian. Five of them left various forms of testimony (the enlisted men appear not to have left such records) – be it reports, articles, books, videos and audio tapes – the last recorded in 1995 – each of them confirming that the site evidence convinced them that the Soviets had committed the crime – based on the condition of the bodies as well as on the condition of the uniforms on those bodies.
None of the eight witnesses ever
spoke publicly during the war, despite being given opportunity by the Germans. Instead those who could; sent coded messages
advising the Western Allies that the Soviets were guilty.
Two of the officers were West
Point graduates, and they affirmed in postwar reports, testimony (1952),
correspondence with the US Army (1950) and in the previously mentioned audio
and video material that based on the time period when the crime was committed,
it had to be the Soviets. They also
clearly stated that they had arrived at the site with a belief that the Soviets
were the Allies and therefore this could not be. Yet, as one of the US Army officers stated on
a video – as he pulled out one of the boots he had worn for 18 months and
displayed what condition they were in – and compared this to the condition of the
boots on the corpses – he stated that no one could have worn their boots daily
for a period of two years (since the Furr/Soviet claim is that the officers
were killed in the fall of 1941) and be in the excellent condition they were
in.
Indeed, it is highly probable,
that the plans for a full-fledged escape of the POW officers from Oflag 64,
where the Americans were held, and which was organized by the US Army officers
for June of 1944, as the Soviet Army headed west, and was approved of by MIS-X
in Washington, was planned because of what these two officers had seen in
Katyn. (vide – Shoemaker – The Escape
Factory)
Would the position of Montclair
State be that the US Army officers continued to perjure themselves for over
forty years? If so – then where is the
proof?
It is
possible for me to continue listing the failures in scholarship, the
manipulation of statements and the sheer illogicality of what the author has
written. I would simply wonder if Montclair
has any logicians and if they could consider the various facts listed above,
with hundreds of documents released by the Russian government and FSB with the
probability of three pieces of material (i.e. the badge and the two other
items) countermanding all the other facts.
However, it
is clear from your response that Montclair has not reviewed any of the
scholarly material that disputes these unfounded allegations, that you have not
bothered to (as I asked you to) review Katyn:
A Crime Without Punishment by Cienciala, Lebedeva and Materski, which was
published by Yale University Press or any of the other material available to
you.
As one of
the professors who has corresponded with me on this issue (and they are located
worldwide) has written – it appears that Montclair is willing to allow anything
to appear on their pages without subjecting it to scholarly peer review – thus
destroying its own credibility as a scholarly institution.
More
regrettably, by publishing defamatory words about the underground Polish
government in calling it collaborationist – Montclair insults the memory of the
tens of thousands of Polish airmen, sailors and soldiers as well as agents who
died in service to the Allied effort in fighting Nazi Germany during World War
II.
It appears that the presentation of facts and truth is not a
quality valued by Montclair State University.
Instead lack of scholarship and veracity is clouded in the illusion of
freedom of speech.
Yours,
Krystyna
Piórkowska
English-speaking Witnesses to
Katyn
