Collections of the Katyn Museum
The Katyn Museum is the first institution of its kind in the world: a martyrological, museum, and research centre dedicated to documenting the Katyn Massacre. This crime claimed the lives of nearly 22,000 prisoners of war and detainees held in Soviet camps and prisons between 1939 and 1940.
The Museum also constitutes a unique military-type exhibition on a global scale. Its collections serve as material evidence of the crime while commemorating the martyrdom of Polish prisoners of war and detainees — officers of the Polish Army, members of uniformed services, and veterans of the struggles for Poland’s independence and borders (1914–1921).
As a public institution, the Museum serves society by preserving the memory of the crime, interpreting the past, and shaping the historical awareness of future generations. It fulfils the long-standing aspirations of Katyn families and communities worldwide. For decades, families of the victims safeguarded personal belongings — often treated as relics — of their murdered relatives. During the communist period in Poland, when open commemoration was restricted, these items were preserved and displayed informally, often in places of worship.
In accordance with its statutory mission, the Museum collects movable artefacts that constitute material historical sources. These are catalogued, analysed, and made available for scholarly research. The Museum also functions as an archive, acquiring and processing written historical records for academic use.
Main Collections
The holdings of the Katyn Museum include the following principal collections:
- A collection of documents recovered from mass graves during exhumation works in Kharkiv, Katyn, and Mednoye, inscribed in 2024 on Poland’s UNESCO Memory of the World National Register. The collection comprises 2,649 items in Polish, Ukrainian, English, German, and Russian. It includes personal documents (identity cards, military record books, certificates, official attestations), Polish and Soviet banknotes, newspapers, cigarette papers bearing handwritten notes, official printed forms, and fragments of books.
- A collection of artefacts recovered during exhumations in Kharkiv, Katyn, Mednoye, and Kyiv-Bykivnia. It encompasses identification tags (so-called “dog tags” and police badges), personal belongings of the victims — both jewellery and items of personal hygiene — decorations and orders, devotional objects, coins, elements of military equipment, as well as bowls, mugs, and spoons used by prisoners, and fragments of uniform fabrics. These objects provide evidence of the (national) origins of the victims, their identities prior to captivity or imprisonment, and aspects of their daily lives in camps or prisons. The majority of these archaeological artefacts cannot be attributed to specific individuals; only a small proportion bear numbers or inscriptions enabling identification of the victim to whom they belonged or who possessed them temporarily.
- A collection of camp art and objects of applied art preserved by surviving prisoners of war.
- A collection of camp correspondence and clandestine notes (grypsy) sent by victims of the Katyn massacre from places of detention or addressed to them.
- Personal legacies of the victims of the Katyn massacre, as well as individual artefacts related to their creative and professional activities — including service in the Polish Armed Forces and other uniformed formations. These include photographs documenting the victims’ family and professional lives; militaria associated with their military service, as well as orders, decorations, and badges awarded to them; creative works such as artworks and literary or scholarly writings; and devotional objects belonging to the victims (including collections and individual items associated with victims of the Orthodox faith, which — since September 2025 — have held the status of third-class relics in the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church).
- Personal legacies of surviving prisoners of war, including accounts of their imprisonment in the POW camps at Kozelsk, Starobilsk, and Ostashkov.
- Collections of documents and individual artefacts relating to efforts to determine the fate of the forcibly disappeared, including records produced in legal proceedings to have them declared deceased.
- Collections of documentation and propaganda prints relating to the 1943 exhumations in the Katyn Forest, the Soviet exhumations of 1944, the examination of the case of the extermination of prisoners of war by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, and the work of the United States Congress Select Committee to Investigate the Katyn Massacre.
- Collections of anti-communist underground publications relating to the Katyn massacre and the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939.
- Collections of émigré publications addressing the Katyn massacre and the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939.
- Collections relating to the commemoration of the victims of the Katyn massacre, including design, technical, cost-estimate, and photographic documentation of memorial projects.
- A collection of documentation from survey and exhumation works conducted at sites of mass graves and former prisoner-of-war camps, including field diaries and reports, photographic, cartographic, and geodetic records, as well as forensic expert analyses.
- A collection of items gathered as evidentiary material for investigations aimed at determining the legal classification of the crime, identifying perpetrators, and examining human rights violations affecting the families of the forcibly disappeared, conducted by judicial authorities of the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, and international courts.
- Testimonies — also in audiovisual and audio formats — concerning the victims of the Katyn massacre and their relatives, collected for documentary purposes.
Collections in External Repositories
In the collections of the Katyn Museum, there are two large bodies of documentation produced by social organisations (the so-called non-state archival holdings), transferred in 2023: 1) the so-called legacy of Bożena and Jerzy Łojko (previously held on deposit since 2012, for which the Museum possesses only a compiled guide – an inventory of 523 archival units, excluding unregistered photographs and albums); 2) the archives of the Polish Katyn Foundation (Polska Fundacja Katyńska, PFK) and the Independent Historical Committee for the Investigation of the Katyn Crime (Niezależny Komitet Historyczny Badania Zbrodni Katyńskiej, NKHBZK) (445 folders and boxes). Other organisations are also interested in transferring their archives to the holdings of the Katyn Museum, foremost among them the Warsaw Katyn Family Association. These archives constitute the so-called registered non-state archival holdings, in accordance with Article 44 of the Act of 14 July 1983 on the National Archival Holdings and Archives. They include textual records, photographic documentation, and video materials. Selected photographic materials are available via the Community Archives archiwaspołeczne.pl portal.
The Katyn Museum, as a martyrological institution established to commemorate the victims of the Katyn massacre, documents who the victims were, when and under what circumstances they fell into Soviet captivity, what their imprisonment was like, and what became of their relatives. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, accounts from the relatives of the forcibly disappeared have been collected — initially through Professor Jędrzej Tucholski, editor of the Catholic family weekly “Zorza”, and through Katyn families themselves. The collection currently comprises approximately 5,600 testimonies, including questionnaires, memoirs, and scholarly studies. Selected accounts — together with English translations — are available in the Chronicles of Terror database, maintained by the Pilecki Institute.
Preserve the Memory of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre
By donating personal mementoes to the Museum’s collection, you offer far more than material support — you help preserve the memory of the victims and contribute to the creation of a unique and invaluable collection of historical significance.
Become a donor to the Katyn Museum and entrust us with these priceless testimonies to the past.
The continued growth of our collection of personal keepsakes and historical artefacts enables us to expand our educational programmes and present a wider range of objects in our permanent exhibition as well as temporary displays. We invite you to join us in discovering the stories of the victims and the objects that bear witness to their lives.
All donated items will be carefully digitised and made accessible in digital form, ensuring that their historical value can be preserved and shared with future generations.
Together, we can save them from oblivion.
Conservation work is often the unseen aspect of museum practice, yet it plays a vital role in safeguarding our collection. Documents, photographs, and personal mementoes inevitably deteriorate over time and require specialist care to protect them from the effects of age and environmental damage.
Every item entrusted to the Museum is placed in the hands of expert conservators dedicated to preserving our shared heritage.
Support us today in safeguarding the history of the victims of the Katyn Massacre for generations to come.