Katyn war cemetery (russian: Мемориальный комплекс «Катынь», pl, Polski Cmentarz Wojenny w Katyniu) is a Polish

military cemetery A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. Definition The term "war grave" does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to be ...

located in Katyn, a small village 22 kilometres away from

Smolensk Smolensk ( rus, Смоленск, p=smɐˈlʲensk, a=smolensk_ru.ogg) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest c ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, on the road to

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Viciebsk (russian: Витебск, ; be, Ві́цебск, ; , ''Vitebsk'', lt, Vitebskas, pl, Witebsk), is a city in Belarus. The capital of the Vitebsk Region, it has 366,299 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-largest ci ...

. It contains the remnants of 4,412 Polish officers of the

Kozelsk Kozelsk (russian: Козе́льск) is a town and the administrative center of Kozelsky District in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Zhizdra River (Oka's tributary), southwest of Kaluga, the administrative center of the oblast. Populatio ...

prisoner of war camp, who were murdered in 1940 in what is called the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...

. Except for bodies of two Polish generals exhumed by German authorities in 1943 and then buried separately, all Polish officers murdered in Katyn were buried in six large

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

s. There is also a Russian part of the cemetery, where some 6,500 victims of the Soviet

Great Purges The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

of the 1930s were buried by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

.Official site of Katyn memorial
/ref> The cemetery was officially opened in 2000. The cemetery is a large, irregular area covering roughly 22 hectares of forest. All mass graves are located on both sides of the main alley. There is also a circular alley with thousands of names of the officers who perished in the massacre. At the end of the main alley there is a

war memorial A war memorial is a building, monument, statue, or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or (predominating in modern times) to commemorate those who died or were injured in a war. Symbolism Historical usage It has ...

and an

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

with a memorial bell located underground.

History

Initially, after the exhumation of 1943, the Germans had permitted the

Polish Red Cross Polish Red Cross ( pl, Polski Czerwony Krzyż, abbr. PCK) is the Polish member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Its 19th-century roots may be found in the Russian and Austrian Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwea ...

to build a cemetery on the spot. However, following the Soviet re-taking of the area it was destroyed and most evidence removed. The area was again forested and civilians were banned from entering the area. As the knowledge of the massacre was suppressed in Communist countries, in 1976 the

Polish Government in Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

awarded the Katyn Memorial in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

with the cross of

Virtuti Militari The War Order of Virtuti Militari (Latin: ''"For Military Virtue"'', pl, Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari) is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war. It was created in 1792 by Polish King Stan ...

, the highest Polish military award. Following Soviet admittance of the crime in 1990, the exhumation and archaeological works were resumed. In 1994 a bi-lateral treaty on war cemeteries and war memorials was concluded between

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

and

. This paved the way for a construction of a proper war cemetery in Katyn. After several years of construction it was opened to the public on July 28, 2000. That year also similar cemeteries were opened at other mass murder sites of Piatikhatki (near Kharkiv),

, and Mednoye. The Virtuti Militari awarded to the monument in London was then transferred to Katyn, which became one of the very few places in the world among its recipients. During the opening ceremony the spot was visited by the highest Polish and Russian authorities. Among them were the Prime Ministers

Jerzy Buzek Jerzy Karol Buzek (born 3 July 1940) is a Polish politician and Member of the European Parliament from Poland. He has served as Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001, since being elected to the European Parliament in 2004, he served as Pre ...

and

Viktor Khristenko Viktor Borisovich Khristenko (russian: Виктор Борисович Христенко; born 28 August 1957) is a Russian politician who was chairman of the board of the Eurasian Economic Commission from 1 February 2012 to 1 February 2016. He ...

, as well as Marshals of Sejm (

Maciej Płażyński Maciej Płażyński (; 10 February 1958 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish liberal-conservative politician. Biography Płażyński was born in Młynary. He began his political career in 1980 / 1981 as one of the leaders of the Students' Solidar ...

) and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

(

Alicja Grześkowiak Alicja Grześkowiak (born 10 June 1941) is a Polish politician who served as Marshal of the Senate of Poland from 21 October 1997 to 18 October 2001. Biography and career She graduated with a law degree from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in ...

). The ceremony was opened by the Polish Chief of General Staff, General

Henryk Szumski Henryk Szumski (6 April 1941 – 30 January 2012) was a Polish general, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces between 1997 and 2000. Life Education He is a graduate of the Military Academy of the Armored Forces in Poznań (1961 ...

, and concluded with a Catholic mass celebrated by the

primate of Poland This is a list of archbishops of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, who are simultaneously primates of Poland since 1418.Józef Glemp Józef Glemp (18 December 192923 January 2013) was a Polish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Warsaw from 1981 to 2006, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983. Biography Early life and ordination Józef Glemp was ...

, while the Orthodox ceremony was conducted by

Metropolitan bishop In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan (alternative obsolete form: metropolite), pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis. Originally, the term referred to the b ...

Cyril Gundyaev. There were also prayers of other denominations held, as there were also

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

and

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

victims of the NKVD buried there. On April 10, 2010, the Polish President

Lech Kaczyński Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he prev ...

, his wife and another 94 people including many of his top staff members, more than a dozen members of the Parliament and leaders of the military died when the presidential plane went down about a half mile from the runway in the Russian city of

. The Polish delegation was on its way to take part in a ceremony there to commemorate the Soviet massacre of more than 20,000 members of Poland's elite 70 years ago.

Other cemeteries

Mednoye, Tver Oblast Mednoye (russian: Ме́дное) is a village in Kalininsky District of Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Tvertsa River, 28 km west of Tver, by the Moscow– St.Petersburg highway. Population: 3,047 (1992). Mednoye was first m ...

(Russia) *

Piatykhatky, Kharkiv Oblast Piatykhatky ( uk, П'ятихатки; russian: Пятихатки en, Fivehouses) is a neighborhood of Kharkiv, Ukraine, former khutir. The neighborhood is part of the Kyivskyi District of Kharkiv city. In the 1950s it became part Kharki ...

(Ukraine) *

Bykivnia , image = , caption = Bykivnia central monument , image2 = , caption2 = Map of Bykivnia grave site , header1 = , data1 = , label2 = Location , data2 = Kyiv, Ukraine , label3 = Founded , data3 = April 30, 1994 (as a complex). , label4 = Purpos ...

(Ukraine) * No data about Belarus cemeteries, possibly

Kurapaty Kurapaty ( be, Курапаты, ) is a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, in which a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 during the Great Purge by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. The exact count of victi ...

Notes

References

* RMF/PAP,
Katyń: Otwarcie polskiego cmentarza wojennego
', Interia.pl, 28 July 2000 * Jagienka Wilczak,
Rdza jak krew: Katyń, Charków, Miednoje
', Polityka, 31/2010 *
Polskie Cmentarze Wojenne: Cmentarz Wojenny w Katyniu
' {{Authority control 2000 establishments in Poland Soviet military memorials and cemeteries Polish military memorials and cemeteries Katyn massacre memorials Cultural heritage monuments in Smolensk Oblast Objects of cultural heritage of Russia of regional significance