April 3, 1940: The Katyń Massacre

April 3, 1940: The Katyń Massacre takes place. It was, as far as is known today, the greatest horror perpetrated in the European Theater of Operations in World War II by someone other than the Nazis.

On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany, Fascist, and the Soviet Union, Communist, signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, named for each country's Foreign Minister and main negotiator. It was a "non-aggression pact," basically saying that if you stay out of our way, we will stay out of yours. It also agreed to carve up the Republic of Poland, established the day of the Armistice that ended World War I, November 11, 1918.

The German invasion from the west began on September 1, 1939, 8 days after the Pact signing. The Soviet invasion from the east began on September 17. By October 6, the overmatched Polish Army was defeated, and the government had fled to exile in London.

For their part, the Soviets took captive or arrested over 240,000 Poles, including about 10,000 Army officers. Contrary to all international conventions, they handed prisoners over to the NKVD security services. (Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. It became the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or MVD, in 1946.) 

On March 5, 1940 -- oddly, 13 years to the day before he would die -- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin received a note from NKVD head Lavrentiy Beria, recommending the murder of all Polish prisoners of war. Stalin gave his enthusiastic approval. The order included the signatures of Beria, Foreign Minister Vyaceshlav Molotov, and Stalin allies Anastas Mikoyan and Lazar Kaganovich, both of whom were resourceful enough to be allowed to continue in positions of influence after Stalin's death.

And so, on April 3, in the Katyń Forest, outside Smolensk in western Russia, the NKVD executed 21,857 Polish prisoners, including thousands of Polish officers. As per Beria's recommendation to Stalin, the prisoners were not read the charges against them, there was no trial, there was no permission to make any statement of defense or to question the order, and they were all shot in the back of the head and buried in mass graves.

A little over 3 years later, on April 13, 1943, retreating from their foolish attempt to try to conquer Russia after violating the non-aggression pact, the Nazis announced the discovery of the mass graves in the Katyń Forest. Since they hadn't been there at the time, this was one atrocity against the people of Europe, and against the people of Poland in particular, for which they could legitimately profess their innocence.

On April 13, 1990, on the 50th Anniversary of the event, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev finally admitted that the war crime was committed by the Soviets.

In 1991, a monument to the massacre was erected on the waterfront of Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City, as a stand-in for the struggles of Poles and Polish-Americans. It shows a soldier, in full dress uniform, with medals, but gagged, with his hands tied behind his back, and being stabbed in the back with a bayonet.

This photo was taken between the destruction of the original

World Trade Center, and the construction of the new one.

There are plaques on 2 sides, one in English and one in Polish, with this inscription:

KATYN - A MACABRE TREASURY, AND IN IT THE MURDERED

    FLOWER OF THE POLISH NATION, THE ARMY, THE

    YOUNG INTELLIGENTSIA, THE CREATORS AND THE

    HEROES WHO ARMED WITH SWORDS THREW

    THEMSELVES ON TANKS.

KATYN - A TREASURY OF LIES, STALINISTIC AND POST-

    STALINISTIC, A SUBTERFUGE BY GOVERNMENTS,

    INTERNATIONAL COMMISSIONS, WRITERS - A

    TREASURY OF INFAMY.

KATYN - A BANISHMENT OF GOD FROM ONE'S MEMORY.

KATYN - A TRESURY OF TRUTH...

GOD GRANT PEACE TO THE SOULS OF THE INNOCENT

    ASSASSINATED IN KATYN.

-- EXCERPT OF POEM BY A. WOZNIESIENSKI, 1989

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE 15,400 POLISH OFFICERS,

INTELLECTUAL LEADERS, AND PRISONERS OF WAR BRUTALLY

MASSACRED BY THE SOVIET N.K.V.D. IN THE SPRING OF 1940 AND

BURIED IN MASS GRAVES IN THE KATYN FOREST NEAR SMOLENSK

AND IN OTHER UNDISCLOSED SITES IN THE SOVIET UNION.

...THIS COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY FINDS BEYOND ANY QUESTION OR

REASONABLE DOUBT THAT THE SOVIET N.K.V.D. (PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT

OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS) COMMITTED THE MASS MURDERS OF THE

POLISH OFFICERS AND INTELLECTUAL LEADERS IN KATYN FOREST

NEAR SMOLENSK, RUSSIA...

-- COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES REPORT No. 2505 WASHINGTON, 1952

IN REMEMBRANCE OF MY BROTHERS - "VIRTUTI MILITARI" CROSS FROM

MONTE CASSINO, 1944 - FROM 2ND LT. EMIL KORNACKI, SURVIVOR OF OSTASZKOW CAMP.

This event should not be confused with the Khatyn Massacre: On March 22, 1943, outside Minsk, Belarus, 175 miles to the west of the Katyń Forest, Nazi soldiers, mostly Ukrainian collaborators killed 157 people, all of them civilians, in retaliation for an attack on German troops by Soviet partisans.

This attack is considered one of the reasons why Russian dictator Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. Well, Ukraine and Poland fought a war against each other in 1918 and 1919, after World War I, but Poland still came to Ukraine's aid over a century later.

UPDATE: On April 1, 2025, I visited the memorial at Exchange Place, and took pictures, but was not satisfied with the results, and so I did not post them here.

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April 3, 1940 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

But there was 1 score on this historic day, in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals: The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. Bryan Hextall, who would become the father of 2 NHL players and the grandfather of another, scored 3 goals. Ten days later, in overtime of Game 6, he would score the Cup-winner for the Rangers. They have won just 1 Stanley Cup in the 82 years since.