Katyn Forest Massacre Monument in Katowice, Poland

Polish Arts Club of Trenton, New Jersey Katyn Forest Massacre Page

See our collection of Katyn Forest Massacre Memorials Around the World

The murder of 22,000 Polish soldiers and members of Poland's professional class was a top-down, top-secret operation ordered by Stalin – but for decades the Soviets tried to pin the massacre on the Nazis.   In 1943 the Nazis exhumed the Polish dead and blamed the Soviets.  In 1944, having retaken the Katyn area from the Nazis, the Soviets exhumed the Polish dead again and blamed the Nazis. The rest of the world took its usual sides in such arguments. In 1989, with the collapse of Soviet Power, Premier Gorbachev finally admitted that the Soviet NKVD had executed the Poles, and confirmed two other burial sites similar to the site at Katyn. Stalin's order of March 1940 to execute by shooting some 25,700 Poles, including those found at the three sites, was also disclosed with the collapse of Soviet Power. This particular second world war slaughter of Poles is often referred to as the "Katyn Massacre" or the "Katyn Forest Massacre".    Although the total of the Stalin order is given as 25,700, a 3rd March 3, 1959 KGB report by KGB head Aleksandr Shelepin, gives the figure of 21,857 as the number of Poles actually shot as a result of this order.     * 4,421 in the Katyn Forest (Smolensk region)     * 3,820 in the Starobelsk camp (near Kharkov)     * 6,311 in the Ostashkovo camp (Kalinin region)     * 7,305 in other camps and prisons in western Ukraine and western Belorussia

Here is a collection of pages, pictures and links about the Katyn Forest Massacre.

Katyn Forest Massacre Memorials Around the World

The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field - Studies in Intelligence Winter (1999-2000) by Benjamin B. Fischer

God's Eye: Aerial Photography and the Katyn Forest Massacre - Studies in Intelligence Vol. 46 No. 3 (2002)

Information on the Katyn Forest Incident - Unclassified documents, Katyn pictures, personal correspondance.

Hoover exhibit revisits mass murder of Polish soldiers in 1940 - Stanford University

Hoover Archives and the Katyn “Smoking Gun” - Or maybe not...

Hoover oral histories and newly declassified documents revive interest in Katyn Massacre

The Hoover Institution Archives on The Katyn Forest Massacre - Comprehensive collection of documents

Records Relating to the Katyn Forest Massacre at the National Archives

Caught in the act: A 1944 Luftwaffe photograph captured a Soviet bulldozer excavating mass graves in the Katyn Forest in preparation for moving the corpses to another site.

Largest of seven mass graves. Five layers of 500 murdered Polish officers buried here by the Soviets. From the National Archives.

Map illustrating the eastern USSR and showing the main camps where Polish prisoners of war had been held from 1939 to 1941, and giving the location of Katyn, relative to contemporary geographical boundaries. From the National Archives.

Maps showing the region of the villages of Katyn and Gnezdovo, the location of the Polish officers graves, and a detailed plan of the 8 mass grave locations. From the National Archives.

Exhibit XVII. This map was drawn by Gregor Slowenczik, a reporter for the German Army who had documented the Katyn excavations and provided material to the US Counter Intelligence Corps in 1946. After his death, his wife, Maria (nee Wagner) provided this map, along with photographs and other testimony remaining from her husband s visit to Katyn, to the United States Forces in Austria. Exhibits V through XVII described in Maria Slowenczik s deposition, L-25994, to the United States Forces in Austria Record Group 319, Department of the Army, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, S-Series Dispatches And Cables, S-LETTERS AUSTRIA, Report - Information on the Katyn Forest Incident (1 May 1952) [National Archives Identifier 6256952] are filed within the document immediately previous to it, Record Group 319, Department of the Army, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, S-Series Dispatches And Cables, S-LETTERS AUSTRIA, Report - Information on the Katyn Forest Incident (19 May 1952). [National Archives Identifier 6256951]; it is unknown when this misfile occurred. From the National Archives.

Map of the Katyn Forest in relationship to Poland.