| The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, mord katyński, 'Katyń crime'; Russian: Катынский расстрел), was a mass murder[1] of Polish nationals carried out by the Soviet secret police NKVD in April--May 1940. It was based on Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps, dated 5 March 1940. This official document was then approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including its leader, Joseph Stalin.[2][3] The number of victims is estimated at about 22000, the most commonly cited number being 21768.[4] The victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkov prisons and elsewhere.[5] About 8000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest being Polish doctors, professors, lawmakers, police officers, and other public servants arrested for allegedly being "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests."[4] Since Poland's conscription system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,[6] the NKVD was able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, Jewish, Georgian,[7] and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship.[8] The term "Katyn massacre" originally referred specifically to the massacre at Katyn Forest, near the villages of Katyn and Gnezdovo (ca. 19 kilometres (12 mi) west of Smolensk, Russia), of Polish ... |
