Interview with Dr Tomasz Szczepański for “Echo Katolickie”
On the eve of the commemorative events marking the 85th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, the Siedlce-based Echo Katolickie published an interview with Dr Tomasz Szczepański.
In the interview, Dr Szczepański discusses what is known about the Katyn massacre and what still remains to be established. One of the key topics is the so-called Belarusian Katyn List – documents containing the names of people deported from prisons and murdered on the basis of the decision of 5 March 1940. To this day, we still do not know the complete list of their names or the burial places of all the victims. The conclusion is also the title of the article: “The Belarusian List Remains a Mystery.” Even if the originals were indeed lost during the evacuation of Minsk in 1941, important documents had copies in Moscow. It is therefore possible that they still exist, argues Dr Tomasz Szczepański.
The interview also addresses questions about when the so-called Katyn decision to murder Polish prisoners of war was made, the fate of those who survived the death transports, and documents concerning the victims that may still be held in Russian archives.
Dr Tomasz Szczepański also talks about the collections of the Katyn Museum, including archival materials recovered from the mass graves at Katyn, Kharkiv and Mednoye, identity tags, uniform buttons and personal mementoes donated by the victims’ families.
We encourage you to read the full interview in “Echo Katolickie”.
