Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Katyn Massacre, 12 April 2026
Katyn Museum, Warsaw

Distinguished Guests, Dear Katyn Families,

Today, I do not seek quiet reflection. Instead, we must issue a warning that has increasingly resonated within the Katyn Families in recent years: Memory is not for sale.
Some of us, brought up in the previous era, remember well the slogan: April – the month of national remembrance. We experienced official ceremonies and school assemblies as part of communist propaganda. Many of the “commemorated” events were distorted and falsified, just like the history textbooks of that time. We owed the true lessons to our families and banned publications.
After 1989, a painstaking process of “recovering memory” began, especially that which had been absent for decades — falsified or erased. Back then, no one cried out: Memory is not for sale, because memory was yours and mine, the most precious possession, carefully protected. The truth about the Katyn Massacre and the restoration of remembrance of its Victims — our loved ones — were among the first subjects of this reclaimed history. Yet have all the lessons been learned? The further we move from the events we are meant to remember, the harder it becomes.
When asked about memory, artificial intelligence lists, in a fraction of a second, its types, contents, and characteristics. It is striking that this helpful yet ambiguous companion of our daily lives speaks in the same breath of memory as recollection and commemoration, and of technological memory — a computer component used for storing data. The latter, of course, is certainly for sale: we purchase it every day so that our computers and phones can keep pace with the race of civilisation.
But what of the memory of the Katyn Massacre and its Victims? It is growing weaker because we, the Katyn Families, are growing weaker. We still strive: we continue to gather data, record memories, and scan documents and photographs in order to reach as widely as possible through new media. Yet will we not be lost in the flood of information? Will our memory truly endure when we are no longer here?
For years, on the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Katyn Massacre, we have gathered here, at the Katyn Museum, because we chose this place as a home for our mementoes. We entrusted the curators with our most precious gifts — preserved through the difficult times of the Katyn lie. We believe they have been placed in good and honest hands. Yet not everything has found its way here. With growing alarm, we observe how mementoes of our loved ones are disappearing.
Items appear at online auctions, which, often under unclear circumstances, vanish from family homes and now resurface on the market. When we say: Memory is not for sale, the auction price rises, because we inadvertently make sellers aware that these “antiques” are indeed worth something. Sometimes members of our Families pass away without descendants, and the person clearing the property simply throws away what remains. The darkest scenario is that boxes of documents or albums of yellowed photographs end up in the rubbish — lost forever. It also happens that a distant heir, uninterested in family history or unaware of the value of archival materials, goes to the nearest antiquarian and sells priceless collections for a pittance.
The Federation of Katyn Families is launching a project whose heart and purpose will be the preservation of our material heritage. We do not wish to provoke hostility towards those who decide to sell such mementoes: this may result from circumstance, lack of knowledge of history, or ignorance of the significance of the items in their possession. Our aim is to minimise losses and to raise awareness that the rightful place of these objects is in archives and in the Katyn Museum. Alongside the relics recovered from the death pits of Katyn, Kharkiv, Mednoye, and Bykivnia, this deposit was entrusted to the Museum years ago by the Katyn Families. We hope that here they will remain safe, never to be dispersed or destroyed. This is the responsibility we have entrusted to the Museum.
We wish to raise awareness anew — and ever more widely — of the historical value of these mementoes.
A pre-war photograph, with a description of who is depicted, along with place and date, is sometimes the only surviving portrait of a Victim of the Katyn Massacre.
A school certificate, a university diploma, a report from professional or military training — each such seemingly modest document broadens our knowledge of who these people were.
A preserved military decoration documents their participation in the struggles of the Great War or the Polish–Soviet War of 1920.
A dated letter from Kozelsk is invaluable proof that a Polish prisoner of war, known by name, was in that NKVD special camp at a specific time.
A telegram sent from Starobilsk confirms that someone dear to us was still there in April 1940. And then a postcard, sent to the camp address, returned to the family marked “addressee unknown.” That terrible stamp is proof of the crime. It must not be lost in some random archive of an accidental collector.
We appeal to the Katyn Families — while there is still time, take care of your heritage, deciding who will look after it and ensuring they know how to do so. If it is your wish, let the mementoes remain within your families. If you seek a safe place where conservators will care for them, entrust them to the Katyn Museum.
We appeal to the young — when browsing online auctions, report any mementoes of our loved ones that you encounter: documents, photographs, decorations, letters, and postcards from the camps. We appoint you as guardians of the memory of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre.
We appeal to the media — pay attention to the antiquarian market, for when witnesses pass away, traders in memory are already waiting for their legacy. They must be stopped.
Memory is not for sale.
Artificial intelligence, when asked what memory is, added at the end: Memory is often associated with identity and the capacity for conscious functioning. Prompted by human curiosity, I sought to confirm whether AI knew the author of the phrase: Nations, by losing memory, lose their life. I was astonished by the variety of answers, and since they did not match my own recollection, I searched further. It turned out that the sentence attributed to Ferdinand Foch in fact reads: For a man without memory is a man without life. And a nation without memory is a nation without a future (Parce qu’un homme sans mémoire est un homme sans vie, un peuple sans mémoire est un peuple sans avenir).
This beautiful saying by the marshal of three nations breathes hope, for it does not link memory with death and passing, but with the future. It is worth remembering it in this form.

Izabella Sariusz-Skąpska, President of the Federation of Katyn Families