Visit of the Katyn Family from the Czech Republic to the Katyn Museum
On 30 September 2026, the Katyn Museum welcomed representatives of the Katyn Family in the Czech Republic. The visit took place as part of the ‘Ties with Poland’ programme, made possible with the support of the Senate of the Republic of Poland and the Jan Olszewski Foundation for Assistance to Poles in the East.
Our compatriots, many of them descendants of the victims of the Katyn massacre, visited the Museum’s permanent exhibition and the temporary exhibition “… and you will hear no birdsong here”, which had opened the previous day, with great interest. They were guided through the exhibitions by Sebastian Karwat, Director of the Katyn Museum, and his Deputy, Dr Bartłomiej Bydoń, who presented the history of the Katyn massacre, the stories of its victims and the significance of the personal effects and other artefacts preserved in the Museum. The visit also included a presentation of archival materials recovered during survey and exhumation work carried out in Miednoje in the 1990s. Among the materials shown were documents relating to the inhabitants of Cieszyn and the surrounding area who were victims of the Katyn massacre. The presentation provided an opportunity to demonstrate how documents preserved in the Museum’s collections make it possible to reconstruct the individual stories of victims and their families.
The visitors also laid wreaths at the Katyn Epitaph, paying tribute to the victims of the Katyn massacre and commemorating those whose stories have remained part of their families’ history for generations.
The visitors then met with the management of the Katyn Museum.
The culmination of the visit was the donation of family memorabilia relating to the victims to the Museum’s collection. The valuable gifts included dozens of documents relating to Senior Constable Józef Pilich of the Silesian Voivodeship Police and Reserve Captain Fryderyk Dominik Król, donated by Ms Halina Pijarska on her own behalf and on behalf of Ms Janina Patyńska, who was unable to attend. The donation also included copies of photographs of Police Constable Emil Pindel of the Silesian Voivodeship Police and Constable Rudolf Węglorz, donated by Hedvika Pindejová; accounts by Józef Sikora concerning Constable Jan Kożusznik; and a study by Dagmar Kubicová concerning her grandfather, Police Constable Bogusław Burdyn. Following cataloguing and the necessary conservation treatment, these materials will be displayed in the Museum’s permanent exhibition.
A particularly exceptional gift is a banknote donated by Ms Otilie Tobolová. It was recovered during the exhumation work carried out in Katyn in 1943 and picked up from a pile of documents by Antoni Walica, a forced labourer working on telegraph lines who had been deported by the Germans from the Zaolzie region to the Eastern Front. Years later, at the age of 95, he recalled his visit to the Katyn Forest, which he had made despite the Germans’ prohibition. At the time, the Germans were bringing numerous foreign and representatives from occupied territories to the exhumation site: We came across several small excavations. Human remains were lying in them too, but they were not being disturbed. […] Paper money was scattered all around. It was Polish. I picked up a hundred-zloty banknote from the ground, but the guide noticed it and told me to leave it. So, when he was not looking, I picked up another one, and this time I managed to hide it. So I have a keepsake from one of the victims who lay in that grave. Recalling these events, he added: When we later asked the Russians about it, they would usually reply: we know nothing, we did not see anything. They were rarely willing to talk. Russian railway workers said that trains arrived at Gniezdowo at midnight. Never during the day. The people on those trains were ordered to leave everything in the carriages; they were allowed to take only their haversacks.
For decades, these memorabilia were kept by the families as their most precious reminders of their loved ones. Their donation to the Katyn Museum is of particular significance. It not only enriches the Museum’s collection, but above all represents the entrusting to us of family testimonies and histories that have been carefully preserved across generations. The donation of victims’ personal memorabilia by their families is also a testament to the special role played by the Katyn Museum as a place of remembrance and a space close to the Katyn Families – their ‘Home’.
We thank everyone for this shared meeting and for entrusting us with these precious memorabilia. For the Katyn Museum, they represent a lasting deposit of memory of the victims of the Katyn massacre.
