SOVIET RESPONSES TO PRESSURE AND KOMBRIG ZARUBIN

During their period in the camps, the officers were all subject to lengthy interrogations, as the NKVD attempted to determine who of them could be coopted, who would possibly agree to work with and for the Communists, additionally, the repeated questionings allowed the Soviets to create a more complete database about the prisoners.  The questioning period ended on March 5, 1940 when Stalin and the members of the Politburo signed the order calling for the liquidation of the intransigent enemies of the Soviet State.  

It was during the period of November to mid-March 1940, that the officers in Kozielsk were questioned by Kombrig Zarubin (AKA Zublinin), he was described as being extremely cultured, well read, multi-lingual and knowledgeable about Polish culture, customs and history.  His questioning process was therefore (from the victim’s viewpoint) even more insidious or (from the NKVD viewpoint) more effective – he was courteous and elicited trust.  The earlier questioners had only evoked contempt in the majority of the officers.

Yet, presumably, his reports on the individual men, more than any else’s, since they were the final ones, decided on whether they would be sent to Malachowka (Villa of Bliss near Moscow) or to Kozie Gory.  Zarubin left just before the transports started.  Shortly after Kozielsk was liquidated, Zarubin and his wife (also an agent) were sent to the United States, where he served as Station Chief in Washington of the NKVD illegals in the United States.  His is one of the names linked to the Venona Files and his cable from Washington confirms the level of anxiety, nay hysteria that the Rezident was in as a result of the German announcement. 

It is shortly after that when the liquidations in all three camps began to occur.  Because of a number of exceptional circumstances more is known about the immediate Kozielsk to Katyn (or actually Kozie Gory – which is where the massacre site is located) process than is known about the other two sites.  Three of the factors are that:

·         individual officers, whom the Soviets thought to be malleable were separated from the main group during the questioning process and brought to Malachowka near Moscow, and they survived;

·         for some reason the Soviets did not remove pen and pencil from the officers, who kept mini-diaries, in some cases until they arrived at the very site of Kozie Gory and these materials were not stripped from the bodies.  The most famous of these diaries was written by Major Solski, and it was secured from his body in the early days of the German exhumation, the paper was treated and stabilized (to be precise, in the body’s decomposition process fats are produced and they destabilize the readability of the pencil lead on paper) and finally;

·         one man, who was brought on April 29, 1940, as part of a group to the very station of Gniezdowo, lying only several kilometers from Kozie Gory, and was separated off from the group, was able to peer through a crack in the railroad cars walls and observe how the off-loaded officers were loaded into lorries and transferred away from the station, with the lorries returning for additional victims.  That was Stanisław Swianiewicz, an extremely well known economist, specializing in the German economy, who had not disclosed this aspect of his identity during questioning.  Clearly, his fellow officers had also not disclosed this secret, and presumably, since victim lists were prepared, it was only during a final check in Moscow, that someone determined who this individual was and the message was sent to separate him from the group.  In this case, despite Stalin’s oft quoted blindness to German preparations to attack Soviet Russia, someone else must have opined that it was better to hold onto this economist, since he could always be liquidated at a later time, and in the interim his knowledge might prove useful.   Stanisław Swianiewicz testified in front of the Madden Committee in 1952.

Although, many of the first group never accommodated the Soviet desire for collaboration and joined the Polish Army in Russia (as it was then known), they could not present any testimony about the last days or hours, nonetheless, they submitted witness statements which were collected by the Polish Army – these were not, for obvious reasons available to the Germans.  Similarly, Prof. Swianiewicz’s statements were not available to the Germans.

However, the notebooks and diaries of the victims proved invaluable to not only the Germans, but to the Technical Committee of the Polish Red Cross and they were quoted in various wartime reports prepared by the Polish Underground for the Polish Government in Exile.

In the interim the ICRC had attempted to propose an alternative, given that it appeared clear that the Soviets did not appear to be moving towards agreement for an investigation, and similar responses were sent to both the Polish and German Red Cross representatives in Berne

The Int. Red Cross suggests that we endeavour to obtain the consent of the Soviet Union either directly or through the intermediary of one of the Allied States and the possibility of a direct intervention is not ruled out. In my opinion the latter would be most advisable.  The Commission would be under the Chairmanship of a Swiss and would include members of Swedish, Portuguese and Swiss nationality.

By now the Soviet Union was now placing pressure on its British and US Allies to silence the Polish Government, yet to be clear its ultimate intent was not controlling the Poles about the Katyn Massacre, rather, this was a test by Stalin to see how maleable the Western Allies would be when it came to betraying the interests of their Central European Allies, among whom the Poles formed the largest fighting contingent.

©Krystyna Piórkowska

INITIAL RED CROSS REFUSAL

In the first days of World War II representatives of the belligerent parties met with the International Committee of the Red Cross and on September 12, signatories agreed to allow investigatory bodies to enter on their territory to verify any allegations.  The Soviet Union did not sign this agreement, and given the fact that it had not officially entered the war by that date, they were not formally belligerents.  

The Soviets had also never signed the Hague Convention, and this impacted not only on how their captured troops were treated by the Germans, but also how the Soviets allowed themselves to treat their POWs. In the case of the Polish troops, officers were separated from enlisted men, who were generally released, and the officers, border corps, police, prison guards, and even forest rangers were sent to separate camps. Three of the camps were located inside what had been Russian Orthodox monasteries, which by their very nature as walled compounds, were meant to keep outsiders at bay.  No Red Cross inspection visits occurred, and in fact, given the fact that the camps were not controlled by the Army, but by the NKVD, the secret police, there was no option for inspection at any time during the period of 1939-43, thus seemingly,  there was no way to know when the three specified camps were vacated.

With the Polish and German requests before them, the Red Cross attempted to determine what the procedure should be.  By April 19^th Pravda had published its article condemning the Polish government and refusing cooperation with the “Nazi collaborators”. On April 20 Izvestia and Tass reprinted that material with the information that it fully reflected the position of the Soviet government. Given that the Soviet Union had accused the Germans of the crime, it would have appeared logical for them to, in fact, invite an IRC committee to investigate, and in such a case as a party to the discussions, the USSR could probably have even set conditions as to the composition of the committee.  As the Polish Government in Exile analysis stated

The Soviet government could easily have asked for suitable guarantees on such matter as the composition of the International Red Cross Commission, passes for its own representatives or the protection of the International Red Cross for the witnesses, etc., and have opposed the investigations if these guarantees had been refused or have interrupted the investigations, had these guarantees not been honoured. Instead of this the Soviet Government at once rejected, without any discussion, the proposal to have the affair investigated by an international institution.

This document also reviewed the period, some seven months later, when the Soviet Union occupied the area, and considered the options open to the Soviet Union at that time.  That, also, was a moment when the Soviet Union could have invited the Red Cross to come in and study the corpses.  That did not, of course, occur.

When, on April 17, the Polish representative to the Red Cross had handed the Polish note to M. Rueger of the ICRC,

the International Red Cross representative told M. Radziwill that the proposals would most probably be considered by the Executive Council of the International Red Cross and announced that a meeting of a special commission of the International Red Cross would be held on 20.4.43 to appoint a neutral delegation. This meeting, however, did not take place, and the attitude of the International Red Cross changed as a result of Russian opposition.

On April 20, the ICRC wrote to the Polish representative noting that:

1) the Polish proposal had been studied with the greatest care and that decisions as to the further course of action to be taken would be communicated as soon as possible;

2) International Red Cross was already prepared to supply families with information concerning the identification of officers as this information became available

3) pointing out that the spirit of the memorandum of 12.9.39 did not permit it to consider sending experts to take part in the technical procedure of identification except with the agreement of all interested parties.

Clearly the Soviets had protested to the Red Cross, and it is even possible that pressure was brought by the Western Allies – who believed that at all and any cost, the Alliance must be maintained.  In any case, the ICRC suggested that Poland attempt to apply for the assistance of the Puissance Protectrice.  Perhaps this agency, charged with representing the interests of POWs could engage in an investigation.  Although it is not clear if the Polish government approached the Puissance Protectrice it is clear that some 12 days later, letters would be sent to the Puissance Protectrice from Oflag IX A/Z, in which the senior US Army officer in Oflag IX A/Z would protest the German orders to travel to Katyn.  A similar protest was filed by the Senior South African officer in Oflag IX A/Z who had also been ordered to travel.  

On April 17, (if one accepts the theory that Goebbels wrote in his diary on the date listed), the Reich Minister noted that if these ten to twelve thousand Poles had offered their lives as victims, presumably, not as innocent ones, given that they had actually provoked this war – then at the least they could now serve the purpose of opening European eyes as to the nature of Bolshevism.  The dead Polish officers were clearly beginning to trod the road from missing to victim to politically inexpedient object.

And on April 20, 1943 the initial ICRC refusal was on record and clearly the Soviets would not consider any request for access, the Western Allies were remaining silent and the Soviets could see a clear route to success in this matter.

 

©Krystyna Piórkowska

SECOND GROUP OF FOREIGN JOURNALISTS VISITS KATYN

The second group of journalists, which visited on April 19, also included a German author and later playwright, they were:

Karl Thielke – Headed the Delegation

Örnulf Tigerstedt - Finnish poet and writer

Ferdinand Vercknocke - Flemish writer

Filip de Pillecijn - Flemish writer

Pierre Hubermont – Walloon, writer

Jaabo Neppo (Leppo?) – Finnish writer

Enrico Massa – Italian writer

Gimenez Caballero -Spanish university professor

František Kožík - Czech writer

Leon Kozłowski – Polish professor, pre-war minister, then residing in Berlin

Filip Lützkendorff – German dramatist

Aside from the German, Spaniard and Italian, these men primarily represented national groups that were seeking to ensure their nation’s existence, a policy that the Soviets opposed in the USSR and clearly had opposed in the Finno-Soviet War.   They also noted their shock at what they had seen in Katyn.

The Propaganda Ministry was working in all possible manner to ensure that the information about Katyn was publicized; not only in the Reich produced Signal, a biweekly which was produced in 25 languages, and in a moment of rare sensitivity, which appeared incongruous, given that the Warschau Ghetto had just been liquidated, the Nazis were careful not to print the June issue containing graphic photos of the exhumation site and the visit of the IMC in Polish.  Additionally, materials appeared in the Vichy produced Tout La Vie, in the Portuguese Boleten Semanal and in other publications issued in pro-Nazi countries.  

Truly, as Goebbels had noted in his diary – by June, the Nazis had lived off the Katyn Massacre for a number of weeks, but in reality, by that time, the steady list of defeats on the Eastern and North African fronts had placed Katyn in a less important position, in fact, one could posit that even by mid-May Katyn’s propaganda half-life, had been significantly reduced.

Nonetheless, in mid-April, the members of the 689 PropagandaKompanie were working diligently to produce broadcasts, films and photos.  It is at this time that we encounter the person of Joe Heydecker, who had authored a book prior to the war, and had developed an affinity for photography and who was assigned to the PK.  He is best known for his images taken in the Warschau Ghetto, which many authors claim to show his sensitivity as Jews are seen in a positive light.  It is totally unclear as to if or how his photographic skills were utilized in Katyn, as Heydecker’s own memoir does not mention this, however he does note his presence in Smolensk.  However, his presence there bore fruition in images of the three “Americans” who were assigned to the PK; while in a collection of his images we can also find 1964 intimate images of Horst Adolf Eichmann and his home in Buenos Aires – which serve to raise more questions about Heydecker’s personal beliefs and the reason he chose to emigrate to South America in the early 1960s. Given that at least one member of the 689 PK was located and testified to the Madden Committee, it is curious that Heydecker did not.

According to Professor Buhtz's report and other statements, the bodies were lifted from the grave by Russian civilian workmen under the supervision at first, of professional German medical personnel, but later—from the second half of April—Poles, namely the Polish Red Cross team. That team, under the direction of the senior assistant of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Cracow, Dr. Marian Wodziński, consisted of three officials of that institute and the Institute of Pathological Anatomy at Cracow and 5 members of the Polish Red Cross from Warsaw. The exhumation of the bodies which were lying in the upper layers did not present the sort of problem that the bodies in the lower layers did – the graphic descriptions of the Russian (sometimes described as auxiliary) workmen needing to use hooks to remove the corpses, as well as Jaederlund’s statement about the earlier visit

…In a large pit, we saw dead bodies, clad in uniforms, lying in several layers. They were sticking together like leaves. Certain dead bodies were taken out of the pit in our presence and examined. They were in a good state of preservation, probably owing to the nature of the soil—so to speak, half mummified…

However, the bodies in the lower levels were in a different state, as Lt. Kramer noted

…because further down it was impossible, you could not expect any human being to actually climb down into the pits, because the stench was so terrible, the whole thing, that nobody could actually go down there, they could only be pulled out with hooks, or something like that.

This concurs with John Van Vliet’s testimony, which gives other more graphic detail than the average reader can stomach.

But that POW visit was still over three weeks away – meanwhile, on April 19, the second group of journalists arrived on site.  Once again, the group was assembled in Berlin and flew into Smolensk.  By this time, Jaederlund’s story, bylined the 17^th but printed the 18^th, had appeared as had others.  It is not clear if anyone from the second group had read that material.

 

©Krystyna Piórkowska

CONTRAPOSITING THE GHETTO AND KATYN – COMPARTMENTALIZING WARSAW

The Nazis created the Warschau Ghetto in an October 2, 1940 order, it  listed streets and cordoned off sections of the city center and erected walls around the area. Given the large Jewish population of Warsaw, some Orthodox, others Reform, and a significant ‘assimilated‘ population, there were Jews living in areas that the German declared to be Aryan sections and Christians living in what was now the Ghetto.  This meant that there had to be a translocation of residents in both directions – both into and out of, what had become the Ghetto, in a city which had seen 25% of its buildings damaged or destroyed in the first months of the war.  Christian Poles living inside the Ghetto had until October 31, 1940 to relocate with the threat of forcible relocation and a penalty of being allowed only one refugee parcel and bedding – they were not allowed to live in “German“ sections of the city.  Similarly, Jewish Poles had to conclude their transfer by the same date, with but one parcel and their bedding, and the Elder of the Judenrat assigning apartments.  In either case, the relocatees were occupying units vacated by members of the other faith.

By October 1942 and continuing through November and early December of 1942, the Polish Government in London presented various protests concerning the treatment of Jews in Poland. It culminated in the issuance of a White Paper by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs which was entitled

The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland

Note

Addressed to the Governments of the

United Nations on December 10^th, 1942,

and other documents.

It is that document which chronicles the creation of the Warschau Ghetto as well as various actions and orders of the Germans.  Couched in diplomatic language, in its last paragraph (21) it calls on the United Nations to find a means to “restrain“ Germany from mass extermination.

The Polish Government – as the representatives of the legitimate authority on territories in which the Germans are carrying out the systematic extermination of Polish citizens and of citizens of Jewish origin of many other European countries – consider it their duty to address themelves to the Governments of the United Nations, in the confident belief that they will share their opinion as to the necessity not only of condemning the crimes committed by the Germans and punishing the criminals, but also of finding means offering the hope that Germany might be effectively restrained from continuing to apply her methods of mass extermination.

A bombed out city, now sectioned into German, Christian Polish and Polish Jewish sectors, with regulations concerning living, working and travelling in or out of each sector, included severe penalties for any transgression.  This then was the city where the news about Katyn was being processed and transferred.  It was also where the Żydowski Związek Wojskowy (ŻZW) and the Żydowska Organizacja Bojownicza (ŻOB) had determined to resist any reattempt by the Nazis to liquidate the Ghetto, which entry then led to the Uprising which started on the 19^th.  The spring moon was late that year, the day was Easter Monday, and also the eve of Pesach, and both were therefore holy days for each religious group, and thus an opportune time for any military action.

Strangely enough, the two main Jewish military groups did not consolidate forces, and only the ŻOB is well known in the West, although it was the smaller group.  The ŻZW was formed in 1939, immediately after the German invasion, not only by Jewish Polish Army officers but also by elements of Betar, Hatzohar and the Revisionists and it worked in cooperation with the AK, the general underground; while the ŻOB was formed during the summer of 1942, by people involved with the Bund and others working closely with communist groups and cooperated with the Armia Ludowa (AL) organized by the Soviets.  The ŻZW had some 400 people engaged in battle, while the ŻOB had half that number.

That there was communication between the Christian and the Jewish sectors is clear, and the tunnel leading under Muranowska is well chronicled.  Information and news was passed through, and specific theories have been raised about both the timing of the German action as well as the reason that the ŻZW and the ŻOB did not form a joint command.  Although Goebbels does not make any correlative statement in his diaries between Katyn and the Ghetto, the thought is that the Nazis, who had clearly had the Katyn materials for almost two months had decided to release it at a most opportune time – one theory is that they simply wanted to disrupt the Alliance and sue for peace with the British and the US, while continuing the war with the Soviet Union, while the other is that the Germans announced Katyn in effort to distract attention from their liquidation actions in the Ghetto. 

However, only one paper has proposed that both actions were correlated, although in a subsequent fashion, and that Himmler who communicated with Stroop about various particulars in the liquidation, most specifically about the fact that the ŻOB had placed two flags – the Polish and the Jewish Star of David on one of the buildings, wanted to achieve a particular goal, while others in Reich government may have had another goal – yet they both intersected quite precisely, and both dealt with Poland and the Soviet Union.  I would propose that the decision was correlated.

What then of the USSR? Moscow was certainly aware of the Aktion planned for the Ghetto, and articles in Pravda entitled „Hitler’s Polish Collaborators“  appeared on the 19^th and 20^th.  The Nazis had not been able to restrain themselves and had placed all the blame for the Katyn Massacre on Soviet Jews, and this played perfectly into the Soviet denial and counter-attack. The ŻOB was unwilling to distance itself from the Soviets while the ŻZW understood the perfidy of the Soviets and so the surmise is that this created the disaffection between the two groups.

This then, was occuring in a world where a resolution, concerning the Punishment of War Crimes had been affirmed (January 13, 1942) at St. James Palace in London; it asserted that:

...acts of violence thus perpetrated against the civilian populations are at variance with accepted norms concerning acts of war and political offences, as these are understood by civilized nations.

Take note of the declaration, made in this respect on October 25, 1941, by the President of the United States of America and the British Prime Minister

The punishment, through the channels of organized justice, of those guilty and responsible for these crimes, whether they have ordered them, perpetrated them, or in any way participated in them.

Civilians, whether Christians or Jews could take some illusional hope, but the families of the victims – be they Christian or Jewish had no hope at that time that there would be justice for their menfolk.  Perhaps only, if this crime were adjudged to be a war crime, violating Hague Conventions, but in such a case, the Conventions only applied to belligerents who had officially declared war and who had signed the Convention on the treatment of prisoners. In the case of Poland, the Soviet Union had not done either.  

 

©Krystyna Piórkowska

 

REQUEST FOR IC RED CROSS INVESTIGATION

Staff of C.-in-C.

Intelligence Department.

Ref. No. 1847/Int./43.

In the field 21. IV. 1943.

 

Urgent

The Ministry of National Defense,

Chief of Political Department.

delivery of diplomatic note 

"…On April the 17th 1943 at 4.30 p. m. Radziwill delivered a Note to the International Red Cross which he handed to Rueger [former Swiss envoy in Rome]with a request to send a delegation to Smolensk. Thirty minutes earlier a similar Note had been delivered b}' the German delegate.

Rueger told Radziwill that the request will be taken into consideration only because it had been received from both sides. [Memorandum of 13 September 1939.]

Probably on the 20th of April a Commission will assemble which will appoint the delegation.

I shall inform of its composition the moment its members will be chosen.

Further details via the I. R. C. will be disclosed after the return of the Commission from Smolensk.

Within the I. R. C. prevails the opinion that the German informations are true.

I shall watch closely the whole case and send on any information I receive…”

Chief of Intel. Service

Zychoń mjr.

This cable confirms the submission of the very document which led to the severance of Polish-Soviet relations by the Soviet side.  The Polish Red Cross representative in Berne, Stanisław “Stash” Radziwiłł had delivered a note to the International Committee of the Red Cross requesting an investigation – a similar note had been submitted by the Germans – various reports place the German note as being submitted first, others that the Polish note was submitted first – in either case the time span between the note delivery is described as being at most but a day or two apart.  Presumably the Poles were not aware that the Germans were preparing to submit a note of this nature at the very same time.

The Technical Commission of the Polish Red Cross, then consisting of three members who had travelled to Katyn with the second Polish delegation and remained behind, were: Ludwik Rojkiewicz, he inspected documents that had been removed from already exhumed bodies at the Field Police Secretariat, while Stefan Kołodziejski and Jerzy Wodzinowski, were responsible for checking the bodies for documents, both nightmarish tasks when one realized the physical conditions they would work under for the next seven weeks.

Yet on that first day, they also encountered the group of Polish POWs, Cavalry Lt. Col. Stefan Mosser, Capt. Stanisław Cynkowski, 2^nd Lt. Stanisław Gostkowski, Capt. Eugeniusz Kleban, 2^nd Lt. Zbigniew Rowiński (air corps) and Captain Konstanty Adamski (armored division) who had all been brought in from Oflag II (C,D and E/K sub-camps).

Nonetheless, the Propaganda Ministry Plan did not succeed in having the Polish POWs speak to the media about what they had seen.  The only tangible results were that the Polish Red Cross was aware of the POWs presence as was noted by Dr. Wodziński and that the skeleton crew of the Technical Committee was left on site.

The first Soviet denials of the Katyn massacre appeared on April 17^th, in “Soviet War News”, which was published by the Sovinformburo, and distributed by the Soviet Embassy in London.  And precisely as the Wehrmacht had expected, the Soviets began to refer to the archeological digs in Gniezdowo and started conflating the Neolithic tumbrels with the recent graves.

The following days saw an escalation of anti-Polish attacks by the Soviets and criticism of the Poles by the British and the US government representatives.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Harrison Salisbury, who had just received his passport in mid-February 1943, had barely arrived in London, was working for the United Press, wrote disparagingly of the Poles in his aide-de-memoire noting that it was outrageous for them to make any demands for an explanation of what had happened to their officers.  Salisbury’s overtly expressed disdain and contempt for the Polish forces and people are remarkable in their approach to a victim nation.

The spiraling effect of these various comments, which the Soviets had to have been aware of, must have empowered them in threatening Poland over the issue of Katyn and led them to a confidence that the severance of diplomatic relations would be meekly accepted by the Western Allies.

 

©Krystyna Piórkowska

POLISH AND ENGLISH-SPEAKING POWS LEARN OF THE CRIME

The Germans were moving rapidly to try to get witnesses to Katyn – the news had appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter – and Polish POWs held in Wodenburg reported that they had read about the Katyn news in the press. Together with POWs from other camps, they were brought to Stettin (Szczecin) where the group totalled eight men – the exact same number as the English-speaking witnesses, who ultimately made it to Katyn, and the Senior Officer, Colonel Mosser was asked to sign a parole – and he refused, just as the SO of the later POW group, Lt. Colonel Stevenson, would refuse to sign. Thus the group, consisting of Colonel Mossor, Major Nowosielski, Captain Adamski, and Witold Rowiński was taken under guard to Berlin on April 16 and then on to Smolensk.

In the POW camps the officers were of one opinion, and once the group arrived in Smolensk, the night before going to Katyn, they were given a number of crime scene photographs, according to Witold Rowiński:

…We all believed that most probably the Germans constructed this mass grave, put into the grave the bodies perhaps not even of Poles, but other bodies, then put the Polish uniforms on the bodies and that they just filled it in. This was the general opinion of the camp. Therefore, we decided to try and find out the truth and to get our own impression about this.

By this time the POWs in the Oflags in Rotenberg am Fulda, Eisenstaedt, Rottweil and in other locations had heard of the Katyn announcement, and their opinion was no different.  The British officers, who had in some cases been POWs for almost three years camp, had an extensively developed program of code users and had, as well, been receiving equipment concealed in aid packages.  Thus Oflag IX A/Z, where Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet, Jr. and Captain Donald B. Stewart were initially held, together with 125 other US Army officers captured at the battle of Kasserine Pass, on February 17; also had radios, and it is possible that they also heard of it that way, in addition to the German press campaign. Captain Stewart noted that they arrived in the camp at the end of March, and both officers as well as Captain Stanley S.B Gilder from Rottweil reported that they learned of the crime in the Oflag.

However, the largest number of witnesses that would be brought to Katyn during the approximately three months the exhumations took place would be the Axis soldiers, and a lengthy procession of official delegations wended their way through Katyn. 

Contrary to what can be imagined, i.e. that the Kozie Gory forest was a desolate place imbued solely with the presence of a miniscule number of live souls (predominantly medical personnel conducting autopsies), it was in fact full of movement and activity.  In addition to the medical teams and the reporters; as well as Polish and English-speaking POWs; large groups of Wehrmacht soldiers; as well as members of the Vichy French Foreign Legion known as the Charlemagne Division; and the Spanish División Azul (Spanish) [Blaue Division (German), Divisão Azul (Portuguese) – the name by which the  Wehrmacht 250 Infantry Division (also the División Española de Voluntarios) was known, formed during the summer of 1941, its members were Spanish and Portuguese volunteers, they fought on the Eastern Front in 1941-3, including the battle of Krasny Bor (near Leningrad). There was a special Spanish Medal awarded for service on the Eastern Front, and their presence there is acknowledged in the museum at the Alcazar.], they were brought there, so that they might see what awaits them, if they were to be taken prisoners by the Soviet Army.

Paul Vogelpoth, who served in the 689 PropagandaKompanie, and was responsible for security in the Katyn Forest, estimated, in his testimony to the Madden Committee, that between the end of March through June 1943, Katyn was visited by some 200,000 individuals.

Witold Rowiński, had been a criminal prosecutor in pre-war Poland and thus was familiar with Dr. Buhtz’s work on traffic accidents, and when the second Polish group arrived at Kozie Gory the next day, he mentioned that work to Buhtz. This statement understandably impressed Buhtz and he began to question Rowiński about his pre-war experience, when he learned that he had worked as a prosecutor, he seemingly adopted Rowiński as a junior partner in studying the crime scene.

So, first of all, when we had all the documents and all the photographs of the documents found in the grave, we started to examine them and tried to find out if they could be forged. The general impression was that they were genuine, especially because there were a lot of Polish savings-bank books, a lot of them. They were quite distinct; you could see the stamps of the different places where the money was drawn.

 

©Krystyna Piórkowska

REPORTS AND LISTS

The first two line news item that appeared in “The New York Times” appeared on April 16, 1943 and was headlined Nazis Accuse Russians, presenting the information which had appeared in London on April 15^th.  These delays might seem extensive to a Twitterer, however, given that all news stories had to pass through the censors office, it is surprising that news appeared with the speed it did.  Thus stories originating in Germany were either prepared by the Propaganda Ministry or it lackeys, or went through that censor’s office there, and in the case of the New York Times or other US Press then passed through the Office of War Information (OWI) which oversaw not only print but radio and film media, Britain had a similar Censor’s office.

News needed to not only present the facts, but it also needed to maintain national esprit d’corps and could not impact on the bonds of the Allies – and this last item became of increasing significance as the days passed and suddenly Poland’s continuing questions were seen as exacerbating.

To be very clear, the Polish Government in London, as well as the Polish Army in Russia (as it was then called) had been asking questions and attempting to locate its officers since the moment the army was allowed to form in August 1941.  With some 60,000 soldiers, the army only had a bit over a 1,000 officers and the fact that there were officers missing was clear – not only to the soldiers, but to each of the officers.  In fact, Józef Czapski, an artist and reserve officer, who had been held in Starobielsk, was designated as point-man, and led the effort to locate the missing men.  Every officer, who joined the army, prepared a name list of men, those whom he had known in the pre-war army or had been imprisoned with.  Lists were checked and counterchecked and Czapski as well as others travelled (as much as the Soviets allowed them to) throughout the USSR seeking these men – this was, despite all logic a reasonable move, since Stalin had stated that these officers were, among others, being held north of the Arctic Circle in Franz Josef Land, that they had escaped their camps and en masse, and on foot travelled across the USSR to Manchuria (!?!?!).  Each of the various Kremlin reports needed to be checked out as did the statements of the various arrivées to the army camp.

To be precise, reports detailing the available information about Katyn began being issued every two to three months since the fall of 1941 - these reports were not only internal documents - they had been passed on to US and British officers and officials, while some of them were created by them, yet none appeared to evoke much pressure on the Soviets:

1.       February 7, 1942 – report submitted to the Department of State, by Admiral Stanley,  and prepared in Moscow, enclosing Józef Czapski’s report.;

2.       June 2, 1942 – US Ambassador to the Government of Poland in London, Anthony Drexel Biddle’s report (dépêche no. 158-9) sent directly to President Roosevelt, copied to the Secretary and Undersecretary of State;

3.       June 11, 1942 – Report of the US Military Attaché assigned to the Government of Poland in London, containing information obtained from General  Władysław Anders;

4.       June, 1942 – Secret report of Lt. Colonel Henry Szymanski, US Military Liaison officer to the Polish Army in the East, sent from Cairo together with British Colonel Hull’s report

The enormous propaganda effort mounted around the investigation of the Katyn Massacre, which had been undertaken by Goebbels, and at his behest, by the entire Propaganda Ministry of the III Reich, had but one defined purpose according to Goebbels.  In his diary, he noted on several occasions that his essential premise was the exploitation of the murdered officers in an anti-Bolshevik propaganda effort – not only in Germany itself but also throughout all of Europe.  The Soviets gruesome massacre served Goebbels’ purpose and he bridled when the Wehrmacht forced through the removal of a film clip of the exhumations at Katyn from the weekly film chronicle Die Deutsche Wochenschau.

Goebbels and his compatriots accurately appraised the innate great potential of the discovery of the graves in Katyn.  Truth be told, it occurred shortly after the German defeat at Stalingrad; thus there was no surprise that the anti-Bolshevik aspect was so prominent.  Thousands of Axis soldiers were brought to Katyn in order to ensure that they were aware of what awaited them if they were taken prisoner.

Equally important for Goebbels was the opportunity to show Europe the „real face of Bolshevism” and to ensure that unoccupied Europe was aware of it as well.  Both he and his Propaganda staff – and even his rivals – sought to make sure that news of the massacre was spread wide and far and made as credible as possible.  That was the purpose of bringing the neutral reporters prior to the announcement of the discovery of the graves.  That was the purpose for the formation of the International Medical Commission.  That also was the reason why POWs – first Polish and later the English and Americans were brought to Katyn.

©Krystyna Piórkowska