Dr Bartłomiej Bydoń and Dr Andrzej Zawistowski in Conversation: Katyn – Truth, Lies and Memory
Dr Bartłomiej Bydoń – Senior Curator, military historian, museologist and Head of the Research Section at the Katyn Museum – and Dr Andrzej Zawistowski of the Pilecki Institute discuss the Katyn Massacre, the Katyn lie, historical truth and the importance of remembrance in the unique setting of the Katyn Museum. We invite you to watch the latest podcast produced by the Pilecki Institute.
The conversation not only recalls the circumstances of one of the most tragic crimes in Polish history but also highlights the importance of historical research, the preservation of documentary evidence and the cultivation of the memory of the victims.
The Katyn Massacre has become a symbol of Stalinist crimes against humanity committed against citizens of the Second Polish Republic. In April and May 1940, the NKVD murdered nearly 22,000 Polish citizens – around 15,000 officers of the Polish Army and the State Police held in the prisoner-of-war camps at Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobilsk, as well as approximately 7,000 people imprisoned in the eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic occupied by the Soviet Union. The victims were executed with a shot to the back of the head and buried in mass graves at Katyn, Mednoye, Kharkiv and Bykivnia. The burial place of the victims listed on the so-called Belarusian List remains unknown to this day.
For almost half a century, the truth about the massacre was systematically falsified by the authorities of the Soviet Union and communist Poland.
Podcast in Polish.
