Katyn 1940

Dedicated in Honor and Memory "Golgotha Of the East" Dedicated to The Martyrdom of the Poles, Who gave their lives For The Fatherland - Hostages of the War Slain in 1940 by the Soviet NKVD.

In Memory of Those Poles who had to dig their own grave... and were killed because their only fault was… they were Polish…

Time - April - May 1940 Place – Katyn Forest near the Russian town of Smolensk Victims - almost 22,000 Polish citizens- Officers of The Polish Army, Spiritual Leaders, Intelligentsia, Police Officers, Soldiers and Border Patrol from Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobelsk interment camp shot by NKVD This NKVD “operation” became known as “the Katyn Crime”

But Why???? The Victims were the best educated Poles : spiritual leaders, officers of the Polish Army, doctors, professors, scientists, lawyers, teachers and priests - they were the future of Poland… but the Soviets didn't want Poland to have a future, so they took them and tied them up and blindfolded them and shot them in the back of the head…

The Poles, with their hands tied behind their backs, were led to the graves and shot in the neck - shot in the back of the head.

5 March 1940 memo from Lavrentiy Beria to Joseph Stalin, proposing execution of Polish officers

They were buried in mass graves.

Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in The revelation led to the break up of diplomatic relations between Moscow and the London –based Polish government – in exile. The Soviet Union continued to deny the massacres until 1990, when it finally acknowledged the perpetration of the massacre by NKVD.

Mass Graves at Katyn War Cemetery

Father Peszkowski Father Peszkowski was himself a POW at the camp in Kozielsk. He miraculously escaped the execution and joined General Anders' Army. After the war he undertook studies at the Oxford University and later moved to the USA to continue his education and enter a seminary. He graduated in philosophy and theology.

He became a leading advocate for the remembrance of the Katyn massacre and the murder of Poles elsewhere in the country during the war. He also became a chaplain for Polish families of the Katyn massacres. He preached forgiveness for the perpetrators of Katyn. He called for forgiveness for those who killed Polish army officers during a speech at Warsaw's Unknown Soldiers' Grave in 1995.

Katyn Memorial and monuments for Poles deported and killed by Russians and Soviets during WWII

Katyn-Kharkov-Mednoye memorial

Toronto "Flame of Freedom" -- Katyn Monument in Baltimore, MD

Wroclaw

Near the Milwaukee Ave Entrance to St Adalbert's Cemetery, Niles, Illinois

Warsaw

The Katyn tragedy is a scar on national Polish memory.

We must forgive but we mustn’t forget… Music: Zbigniew Preisner Pps A..a