c. ‘The Germans staged numerous round-ups of those war prisoners who had escaped from the camps’. – The Soviet Report admits that numerous PoWs escaped into the forests as the Germans overran Katyn. If we bear in mind that these were principally officers, desperately anxious to avoid capture; that the area was in a state of intense confusion; that the neighbouring forests offered ideal conditions for survival undetected; is it not incredible that not a single Pole appears to have remained at large?
d. ‘Of the documents discovered by the experts in forensic medicine, the following deserve special attention’. – The Soviet report makes much of the discovery of nine documents dating to the summer of 1941. If genuine, these documents would seem to indicate that the victims were still alive in late 1940, even 1941, when the Germans were in control of Katyn.
The first point about the description of the documents in both the Russian and the English versions of the Soviet Report is that the Russian draft of the English translation were prepared by persons who had only a very vague knowledge of Polish names. We are supposed to believe that there are Poles with names like ‘Edward Adamovich Lewandowsky’, ‘Jadwijna’ and ‘Irene Kuczinskaya’. There are no patronymics in Polish; on the other hand I imagine it is just possible that some Russian camp official insisted that Poles invent patronymics simply because Russians have them. The spelling of the English version is curious. For example, the Russian version of items Nos 3 and 8 of the name ‘Lewandowski’ is identical. In the English version, item 3 is almost Polish – ‘Lewandowsky’, as is item 8 – ‘Lewandowski’, but neither of them achieves the correct Polish version ‘Lewandowski’. The Russian version of No 8 is E Lewandowsky, but the English version is Z Levandowsky. The paper ikon No 5 may perhaps be a corruption of ‘Jadwiga’ which to a Russian observer, not fluent in Polish, might appear to be ‘Jadwinja’, that is, the ‘g’ in Jadwiga has been misinterpreted as ‘nj’, No 9 is alleged in the English version to be a postcard in Polish to ‘Irena Kuczinskaya’. This seems to be a primitive attempt to transpose into Polish ‘Irena Kuczyńska’.
6. It seems more likely that the so-called ‘documents’ have been described (in rather unintelligent fashion) by propagandists who were neither interested in correct translation nor even in making the names credible. But perhaps I could go even further and hazard a guess as to the origin of each of the nine.
i. The letter in Russian from Warsaw is probably quite genuine. The Moscow Post Office stamp and the note in red ink in Russian are credible. The point is, however, that this document could quite easily have been placed with the corpses as though it had been found on a body, whereas in fact it could have been kept simply among items not deliverable because the address had been liquidated.
ii. The postcard from Tarnopol is almost certainly a doctored document. We are told:– ‘The manuscript text and the address have been lost.’ This means presumably that they are illegible.
iii. and iv. These two camp receipts dated late 1939 were probably quite genuine, but it is doubtful whether the two recipients were Poles at all, since their names appear to be more Russian than Polish. What is probably quite spurious are the comments on the backs of the receipts – annotations dated 14 March 1941 and 25 March 1941, to the effect that the objects concerned (both watches) had been sold to some individual called ‘Yuvelirtorg’ [Glaviuvelirtorg, Main Jewellery Trade Commission]. This gentleman’s name is certainly not Polish.
v. This paper ikon may be genuine and the name ‘Jadwiga’ perhaps has been misrepresented as ‘Jadwinja’. The date ‘1941’ has almost certainly been added on.
vi. vii viii. Probably quite fraudulent or at the very least doctored receipts from the non-existent camp numbered 1-ON, all relating to sums of money allegedly deposited.
ix. This postcard is possibly genuine. Critics have pointed out that of the very few ‘Polish’ names actually mentioned in the Soviet Report, only that of Stanislaw Kuczinsky bears any relation to any known Polish prisoner of war at the three known Polish PoW camps. In correct Polish, his name would be ‘Stanisław Kuczyński’. There was a Captain Kuczyński; he was at Starobielsk. He was however removed by the NKVD in December 1939 and was never heard of again. The probability is that the postcard is genuine, but the date has been forged.
7. Against these nine documents which the Soviet report believes to be so important, it should be borne in mind that the Germans have produced several hundred names, which they published in the (German controlled) Polish press, as well as large quantities of documents, including nine cases containing several hundred pieces of documentation which were sent to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Krakow for study by Polish scientists (under strict German control) over a period of months. None of these documents, which included diaries, letters and other official papers, contained references or dates beyond May 1940.
8. My conclusion from all this is that the evidence in the Soviet Report is:
a. simply incredible,
b. of pretty shoddy and inept propaganda production.
9. I mentioned above the hitherto un-translated report by Mr Skarżynski, Secretary General of the Polish Red Cross, I attach a translation of his purely personal conclusions. Generally, Mr Skarżynski’s report is a very eloquent and at the same time very scrupulously objective account of the two months stay of the ten members team of the Polish Red Cross Society at Katyn. I do not know whether this report has been published in another context or not. If it were to be released in the public records, although it does not appear to contain any new facts, it is a very moving document.
10. In the light of the above, it does not surprise me that the Russians seem so desperately keen to suppress the whole affair.[7]
CHAPTER TWELVE
ACTIONS AND REACTIONS IN POLAND
In Poland, the word ‘Katyn’ could not be spoken in public, but there were churches where families and others would gather for prayers and lay flowers under secretly erected plaques dedicated to the dead officers. Attempts were also made to erect a symbolic cross at Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery, which was dismantled overnight on the order of the UB, the security police. In spite of these restrictions, an unofficial ‘Katyn Institute’ began its activities in Kraków in April 1979. Set up by nameless delegates from Gdańsk, Katowice, Lublin, Łódz, Poznań and Warsaw, the Institute received moral support from the newly formed resistance movements, the forerunners of the Solidarność such as KOR (Komitet Obrony Robotników – The Committee in Defence of Workers) and ROBCiO (The Committee in Defence of Human Rights). Their activities were co-ordinated through an independent periodical called Spotkania (Meetings) and in spite of censorship, which was strictly applied, somehow a book was published in 1980 under the pseudonym Leopold Jerzewski; written by a young historian Jerzy Łojek, entitled Dzieje Sprawy Katynia (A Historical Account of the Katyn Affair). It contained all the post-war material, the US Select Committee deliberations as well as the attempt by the communist authorities in 1945 to prepare a lawsuit against Germany accusing them of murder. Apparently a Polish prosecutor, Dr Roman Martini, was burdened with this task and when he had studied all the documents, he came to a different conclusion. The case was abandoned – but this did not save Martini who was found murdered, allegedly by burglars, in March 1946. Łojek and other opposition speakers such as Adam Wojciechowski, Wojciech Ziembiński and Wanda Ferens, who made public denunciations of the government’s silence on Katyn, had shown tremendous courage. Others patiently waited for a further ten years.[1]
7
TNA FCO 28/1947 ENP 10/1, comments on Butler’s report by D. Tonkin (EE&SD), sent to Julian Bullard 1 November 1972. Copies were sent to: Sir Thomas Brimelow and Bernard Cheesman, Thomas Barker, head of the Information and Research Department, George Walden, Clive Rose and Rohan Butler.
1
Zdzisław Jagodziński,