Forest of the Dead

Some time ago I ordered a book on the history surrounding the Katyn Massacre, one of the countless massacres in WWII. At the time I placed my order I thought it would bring more insight into the details of how just one of those horrific events took place. However, due to the all-too-common supply and shipping delays that resulted from the world’s response to COVID, it arrived only recently. The timing could not have been better had I planned it myself! Not only am I learning a lot about the past, I am able to see the clear parallels in our world today with warring propaganda machines and an outright hot Russian-Ukrainian war.

Recall that in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union agreed to split Poland in two before WWII, each taking a half. In September 1939, Hitler and Stalin set that devastating global conflict in motion when they sent their armies streaming into Poland from the west and east, respectively. Poland was overwhelmed and was forced to surrender.

The misdeeds executed by the Nazis in Poland are well-documented and at least superficially known by the layman. Less known are the equally barbaric actions of the communists. In the 1930’s BEFORE the war, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens of Polish descent were arrested and over half were shot. Then, just weeks after the Soviet invasion, 1/10 of the population of eastern Poland was in overcrowded prisons. Homes, businesses, and farms were seized by the Soviet state. A million Poles were sent on the arduous journey to Siberian camps where most died. It was so awful in eastern Poland, that many residents made the misguided attempt to steal away into western Poland.

On to the specifics of the Katyn massacre. Thousands of Polish military officers were captured by the invaders and sent to overcrowded, unheated, unsanitary camps spread over western Russia near Smolensk. The prisoners spent the first couple months forming illegal groups for worship, language lessons, and exchanging news within the camps. They received letters from home and were allowed to send heavily censored replies back to family. Despite their swift military defeat and the deplorable conditions, the mood in the camps at this point appears to have been fairly upbeat.

And so, when the lengthy interrogations began in earnest, the officers were forthcoming on all subjects that would not impair their own homeland’s interests. They answered that they were proud to have served Poland’s military. The prisoners made no efforts to hide their political leanings as they clearly relied on past relics ranging from the Geneva Convention to the gentlemanly code of treatment from a bygone era.

But it was indeed a new era. In the end, the interrogation chiefs deemed that some 25,000 officers and high officials would never be turned into Soviet puppets. In a letter signed by Stalin, Molotov, and other Soviet officials the fate of these men was sealed. The prisoners would not be officially arrested. They would not be accused of any crimes. There would be no investigation, no trial, and no official guilty verdict. The State had already decided.

Some were killed in soundproof rooms and hauled away. Some were taken by train, then by truck, and finally by foot. Every one of them received a single bullet at the base of the skull and was summarily dumped into mass graves in the forest of Katyn.

And we might never have known their fates had the National Socialists under Hitler not opened a new front against the Bolsheviks. The blitzkrieg thundered eastward, gobbling up territory until Katyn and beyond were under Nazi control.

Throughout 1941, ’42, and ’43 the Polish government in exile in London repeatedly petitioned the Soviet government as to the whereabouts of the missing officers. When their requests weren’t ignored, they received vague, conflicting answers.

Then, in 1943 a German colonel observed a wolf digging into the ice and snow of Katyn and tugging out what looked like a human bone. After waiting for the spring thaw, excavations began. It was soon apparent that the Third Reich had a propaganda bonanza on their hands.

Time and again over the ensuing years of the war, the Nazis attempted to use the massacre as a wedge between their enemies. Meanwhile, the Soviet propaganda outlets did the opposite, manufacturing news to fit their version of events – it was a massacre done by the National Socialists, they said!

Churchill was under no illusions of Stalin and communist brutality, but he forced himself to overlook it for the sake of the alliance. Roosevelt, on the other hand, often stated that he trusted Stalin and that he didn’t believe him capable of such atrocities. In either case, the alliance stood and we all know the outcome – a military victory over one enemy, followed by a decades-long Cold war with another.

Following the war, it took many years for the full truth of the horrendous massacre in the Katyn forest to come to light. The Soviet government did all in its power to keep the facts hidden. Even Gorbachev, a man I’ve met, denied the massacre. And even though most of the history and forensics have been corroborated many times over by now, there are those apologists and revisionists who work hard to erase the events. Vladimir Putin himself is among them.

I’m struck with the thought that humans are humans, living in a fallen world. We like to delude ourselves that we know better than our ancestors. But here we are today, in 2022, conjuring fake versions of fake truths, invading neighbors and killing one another. Seems we have more in common with our forebearers than we’d like to think.

Until next time!

Execution of a Polish officer.