From O Insurgente (video in English inside):
In March 1940 Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered the executions of 22,000 Polish army and police officers, intellectuals and clergy. The killings took place in the spring of the same year in the Katyn Forest. The victims, mostly from POW camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostaszkow, were shot in the back of the head. The Nazis discovered the mass graves during their march on Moscow in the fall of 1941, but Soviet propaganda blamed the deaths on Adolf Hitler and punished anyone speaking the truth with harsh prison terms. In 1990, Moscow admitted that dictator Josef Stalin’s secret police were responsible.
From Ventos de leste:
“Katy?”, directed by Andrzej Wajda, is the first Polish film about the Katyn’s massacre. The film is based in some real stories which were written down by Major Adam Solski in his diary and it tells the how this man had to give the news of the destiny of four fictious persons when he had to tell their families the truth.
Katyn’s massacre in Wikipedia:
Since April 3, 1940, at least 22,436 POWs and prisoners were executed: 15,131 POWs (most of them from the three camps)[17] and at least 7,305 prisoners in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine.[18] A 1956 memo from KGB chief Alexander Shelepin to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev contains incomplete information about the personal files of 21,857 murdered POWs and prisoners. Of them 4,421 were from Kozielsk, 3,820 from Starobielsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov and 7,305 - from Belarusian and Ukrainian prisons. Shelepin’s data for prisons should be considered a minimum, because his data for POWs is incomplete (he mentions 14,552 personal files for POWs, while at least 15,131 POWs “sent to UNKVD” are mentioned in contemporary documents).
Those who died at Katyn included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 3,420 NCOs, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 43 officials, 85 privates, and 131 refugees. Also among the dead were 20 university professors (including Stefan Kaczmarz); 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists as well as about 200 pilots. In all, the NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps.[1] Altogether, during the massacre the NKVD murdered 14 Polish generals:[19] Leon Billewicz (ret.), Bronis?aw Bohatyrewicz (ret.), Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanis?aw Haller (ret.), Aleksander Kowalewski (ret.), Henryk Minkiewicz (ret.), Kazimierz Orlik-?ukoski, Konstanty Plisowski (ret.), Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski (ret.), Leonard Skierski (ret.), Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczys?aw Smorawi?ski and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). A mere 395 prisoners were saved from the slaughter,[4] among them Stanis?aw Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski.[1] They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then down to Gryazovets. They were the only ones who escaped death.
Up to 99% of the remaining prisoners were subsequently murdered. People from Kozelsk were murdered in the usual mass murder site of Smolensk country, called Katyn forest; people from Starobilsk were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kharkiv and the bodies were buried near Piatykhatky; and police officers from Ostashkov were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kalinin (Tver) and buried in Miednoje (Mednoye).
Detailed information on the executions in the Kalinin NKVD prison was given during the hearing by Dmitrii S. Tokarev, former head of the Board of the District NKVD in Kalinin. According to Tokarev, the shooting started in the evening and ended at dawn. The first transport on April 4, 1940, carried 390 people, and the executioners had a hard time killing so many people during one night. The following transports were no greater than 250 people. The executions were usually performed with German-made Walther PPK pistols supplied by Moscow, but Nagant M1895 revolvers were also used.[20][21]
The killings were methodical. After the condemned’s personal information was checked, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with a felt-lined door. The sounds of the murders were also masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night. After being taken into the cell, the victim was immediately shot in the back of the head. His body was then taken out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside. The procedure went on every night, except for the May Day holiday.[22] Near Smolensk, the Poles, with their hands tied behind their backs, were led to the graves and shot in the neck.
After the execution was carried out, there were still more than 22,000 of the former Polish soldiers in NKVD labor camps. According to Beria’s report, by November 2, 1940 his department had 2 generals, 39 lieutenant-colonels and colonels, 222 captains and majors, 691 lieutenants, 4022 warrant officers and NCOs and 13,321 enlisted men captured during the Polish campaign. Additional 3,300 Polish soldiers were captured during the annexation of Lithuania, where they were kept interned since September 1939.[23]
3,000 to 4,000 Polish inmates of Ukrainian prisons and the ones from Belarus prisons in Kurapaty, were probably buried in Bykivnia.[24]
por. Janina Lewandowska, daughter of Gen. Józef Dowbor-Mu?nicki, was the only woman executed during the massacre at Katyn.[22][25][26]
No comments needed. All dictatorships, whether of the past or of the present, are just the same, regarding brutality, injustice and disrespectful of human rights and of freedom.
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O Insurgente postea sobre la película del realizador polaco Andrzej Wajda sobre la matanza rusa en la población polaca de Katyn. El vídeo está en el link de arriba.
En marzo de 1940, el líder soviético Stalin ordenó la ejecución de 22.000 oficiales del ejército polaco, intelectuales y clero. Las ejecuciones tuvieron lugar en la primavera de ese mismo año en el bosque de Katyn. Las víctimas, en su mayoría de los campos de prisioneros de Kozielsk, Starobielsk y Ostaszkow, fueron asesinadas de un tiro en la nuca. Los nazis descubrieron las fosas comunes durante su marcha sobre Moscú en el otoño de 1941, pero la propaganda soviética echó la culpa a Adolf Hitler y castigó a todos los que dijeran la verdad con penas de prisión duras. El año 1990, Moscú admitió que la policía secreta del dictador Josif Stalin fue la responsable.
De Wikipedia:
Hasta el 99% de los prisioneros restantes fueron subsecuentemente asesinados. Las personas de Kozielsk fueron asesinadas en el lugar habitual de ejecuciones en masa de Smolensk, llamado el bosque de Katyn. Las de Starobielsk fueron asesinadas dentro de la prisión del NKVD de Kharkov y los cuerpos fueron enterrados cerca de Pyatikhatki; y los oficiales de policía de Ostashkov fueron asesinados en la prisión del NKVD de Kalinin (Tver) y enterrados en Miednoje.
Durante la vista de Dimitrii S. Tokarev, anterior jefe de la Junta del Distrito del NKVD en Kalinin, se ofreció información detallada acerca de las ejecuciones en la prisión del NKVD de Kalinin.
Según con Tokarev, los fusilamientos empezaban por la tarde y terminaban al amanecer. El primer transporte, el 4 de abril de 1940, trajo 390 personas, y los verdugos se encontraron con un trabajo duro por tener que matar a tantas personas en una sola noche. Los siguientes transportes no llevaron más de 250 personas. Las ejecuciones fueron realizadas con pistolas tipo Walther de fabricación alemana y suministradas por Moscú.
Las ejecuciones fueron metódicas. Después de revisar la información personal del condenado, éste era esposado y llevado a una celda aislada. Los sonidos de las ejecuciones eran enmascarados con máquinas ruidosas (tal vez ventiladores) durante la noche. Tras ser metido en la celda, la víctima era inmediatamente disparada en la nuca. Su cuerpo era sacado por la puerta de enfrente y depositado en uno de los cinco o seis vagones que esperaban, de donde era cogido el siguiente condenado. El procedimiento se desarrollaba cada noche, excepto en la fiesta del 1 de mayo.
Cerca de Smolensk, los polacos, con sus manos atadas a la espalda, eran conducidos a las fosas y disparados en la nuca.
Aquí teneis las fotos de la exhumación de los cuerpos en 1943 por los nazis.
Pero es que:
Un gran número de las primeras fosas comunes de víctimas del sistema soviético también han sido halladas allí, como si el bosque de Katyn hubiera sido usado durante mucho tiempo como un lugar de ejecución para ciudadanos soviéticos.
O sea es una gigantesca fosa común de la dictadura soviética…
Lo que significa que da igual que la dictadura sea del pasado o del futuro, todas se caracterizan por la injusticia, la brutalidad y una profunda falta de respeto por los Derechos Humanos y la libertad.
Será una película interesante.
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