Katyn

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Dmitry
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Katyn

#1

Post by Dmitry » 11 Aug 2004, 17:17

[Split from "Soviets 'help' or help for the Warsaw uprising?"]


Victor wrote: Anyway I do not see how it can be debatable, since, if I am not mistaken, Gorbachev himself admitted it back in 1989. Btw, weren't there other massacres beside Katyn? I believe some 25,000 Poles were shot in total.

I know in the West there are a plenty of Gorby-fan but in post-Soviets countries he is bare of credit.

Summarily... In Russia there is an opinion that Gorbachev had 'admitted' the Katyn case in his usual unilateral-concessions policy (in fact treacherous policy) and his henchmen (like A.Yakovlev) deliberately faked 'documents' with Stalin signature. There were no examination of these 'documents' by independent experts.

There was no trial on this case. Nothing was proved yet. So it is not fact that it were Soviets who killed them.

Now we have results of three commisions on that matter.
1 Hitler-Goebbels' commision
2 Soviet-Burdenko commision
3 Present-day anty-Soviet commission of General prosecutor's office.

So, it's up to you to whom you wish to believe. Why should I believe in Hitler and Gorby words? I prefer to believe in report of respectable Soviet doctor Burdenko.





I cannot pursue the subject there because all my posts that had no any rudeness were deleted by David Thompson just because our opinions are at variance . So it's impossible to discuss anything when someone has right to tie tongues.
Bye-bye!
Last edited by Dmitry on 12 Aug 2004, 04:56, edited 1 time in total.

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Liluh
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#2

Post by Liluh » 11 Aug 2004, 17:54

Dmitry wrote:
Victor wrote: Anyway I do not see how it can be debatable, since, if I am not mistaken, Gorbachev himself admitted it back in 1989. Btw, weren't there other massacres beside Katyn? I believe some 25,000 Poles were shot in total.

I know in the West there are a plenty of Gorby-fan but in post-Soviets countries he is bare of credit.

Summarily... In Russia there is an opinion that Gorbachev had 'admitted' the Katyn case in his usual unilateral-concessions policy (in fact treacherous policy) and his henchmen (like A.Yakovlev) deliberately faked 'documents' with Stalin signature. There were no examination of these 'documents' by independent experts.

There was no trial on this case. Nothing was proved yet. So it is not fact that it were Soviets who killed them.

Now we have results of three commisions on that matter.
1 Hitler-Goebbels' commision
2 Soviet-Burdenko commision
3 Present-day anty-Soviet commission of General prosecutor's office.

So, it's up to you to whom you wish to believe. Why should I believe in Hitler and Gorby words? I prefer to believe in report of respecable Soviet doctor Burdenko.
The fact that current Russia goverment has no guts to admit it, doesn`t change the fact that it were Soviets who did the massacre and there`s absolutely no doubts about it. First of googled pages, CNN:
by Bruce Kennedy
CNN Interactive Writer

In 1943, German soldiers discovered a mass grave in the Katyn forest near Smolensk in western Russia. The grave held the bodies of between 4,000 and 5,000 Polish army officers. Hoping to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and its Western allies, Nazi officials publicized the grave and accused the Soviets of the massacre. Moscow denied the charge and claimed the Germans were attempting to cover up their own atrocity.

Despite evidence that the Kremlin was indeed behind the massacre, Britain and the United States chose to look the other way. London's wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, opposed a call by the Polish government-in-exile for an investigation by the International Red Cross into the incident.

Following the war, at the Nuremberg war crime tribunals, the issue of Katyn was originally included on the list of crimes attributed to the Nazis. But it was later dropped, apparently out of concern that any revelations about the massacre would embarrass the Soviets.

It wasn't until 1990 that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev admitted Soviet involvement in the Katyn forest massacre. Two years later, the Russian government handed over to Polish President Lech Walesa previously secret documents showing that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had directly ordered the killing of the Polish army officers.

Most of the victims in Katyn forest were Polish army reservists -- lawyers, doctors, scientists and businessmen -- who were called up to active service following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. But instead of fighting the Germans, about 15,000 Polish officers found themselves prisoners of the Red Army, which had occupied eastern Poland under the terms of a secret Moscow-Berlin treaty.

In the spring of 1940, about 4,500 of these officers were taken by their Soviet captors to the Katyn forest. Most were then gagged, bound, shot once in the head and buried on the spot. The other Polish POWs were taken to other locations, where many of them were also executed. The mass liquidation killed off much of Poland's intelligentsia and facilitated the Soviet takeover of the nation.

The memory of the massacre was an open wound in Soviet-Polish relations throughout the Cold War, and it continues to strain ties between Warsaw and Moscow.

In 1995, Walesa and relatives of the Katyn forest victims attended a memorial service at the site of the massacre. Boris Yeltsin was invited to take part in the ceremonies but declined. The Polish media denounced the Russian president's decision.

"Boris Yeltsin's absence leaves a deeply unsettling message," said the Zycie Warszawy newspaper. "There has been no apology of the kind that Germany has long since made. This day could have been a symbol of reconciliation between two nations tragically marked by communism. Instead it is a bitter shame, and Katyn forest continues to cast its dark shadow."
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/ep ... spotlight/

I wonder, do you mean that German troops were executing POWs taken by Soviets, in some forest around Smolensk in 1940? You of course know that there should be no German troops around that area till 1941, right?
Germans had enough Polish POWs on their own.

Answering your question, would I believe a man responsible for genocide of millions of people - Hitler, or man who gave Russia democracy and dismissed communistic Soviet Union (may it rott in hell) - Gorbachev? I believe Gorbachev more than later never sobber Yeltsin or old KGB agent Putin.


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Sergey Romanov
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#3

Post by Sergey Romanov » 11 Aug 2004, 18:42

Ha ha. A bunch of Katyn deniers. Western Holocaust deniers should take a look at this. 8)

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#4

Post by Rarog » 11 Aug 2004, 18:47

За базаром следи.

(Watch your language)
Last edited by Rarog on 11 Aug 2004, 18:51, edited 1 time in total.

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#5

Post by Marcus » 11 Aug 2004, 18:48

Rarog wrote:За базаром следи.
Please write in English and provide a translation of the above.

/Marcus

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#6

Post by Liluh » 11 Aug 2004, 18:49

Sergey thank you! Thank you very much. You just gave me a strong proof that there are some reasonably thinking Russian members on this forum.

Best regards.

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#7

Post by Marcus » 11 Aug 2004, 18:56

Two posts were split off into a new thread entitled "Did the Soviets help the Nazis to defeat Poland?" in the WW2 in Eastern Europe section.

This thread is on Katyn, so please stay on that topic.

/Marcus

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#8

Post by Ogorek » 11 Aug 2004, 19:00

Something to make you Neo-Stalinists happy..... So do have a nice day

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/st ... ory=548796

Polish fury as Russia refuses to charge Katyn massacre suspects
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
07 August 2004


More than 60 years after 22,000 unarmed Polish soldiers were murdered by the Soviet secret police in one of the Second World War's most infamous massacres, Russia has infuriated Poland by refusing to prosecute the surviving suspects.

The so-called Katyn atrocities, which were personally ordered by Stalin in 1940, saw the NKVD (the forerunner of the KGB) kill 21,587 Polish Army reservists in cold blood on the spurious grounds that they were "hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority".

The killings took place at three different locations but the massacre took its name from just one, the Katyn Forest near Smolensk in western Russia. The murders decimated Poland's intelligentsia; among the dead were officers, chaplains, writers, professors, journalists, engineers, lawyers, aristocrats and teachers.

The event has soured Russo-Polish relations for the past six decades with Warsaw accusing Moscow of deceit, a lack of remorse and brutal indifference. It was only in 1989 that the then President Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the killings had been perpetrated by Stalin's secret police.

Before that the then USSR blamed the atrocities on the Nazis, even going to the trouble of reburying bodies and bulldozing evidence in an elaborate attempt to deflect the blame. Poland, which regards the killings as a crime against humanity, has long been pressing for a proper investigation and wants the surviving suspects prosecuted.

Professor Leon Kieres, head of Poland's Institute for National Remembrance of the War, came to Moscow this week with Polish war crimes prosecutors. He was cruelly disappointed. Russian prosecutors told him that the crimes took place too long ago to be acted upon and refused to even divulge how many of the suspects were still alive. While promising to share some information with Warsaw, the Russians insisted that the crime could not be classified as genocide, a move that would allow prosecutions to go ahead.

The Polish side was furious. "This was genocide, whether they want to call it that or not. That is the reality, the painful reality for us and for them," Anna Wolinska, who lost her father and uncle in the massacres, told TV Polonia.

Professor Kieres said Poland may now begin its own inquiry.

The incident is the second serious blow to Russo-Polish relations in as many weeks. On the recent 60th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising in which 200,000 civilians and 10,000 soldiers were massacred by the Nazis, Poland's Foreign Minister demanded an apology from Russia. The Red Army, close to Warsaw, halted its advance and did not help the Poles.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said, however, that there would be no apology. "We consider it inappropriate and blasphemous to the memory of the fallen to get into public polemics on this score," it said.
11 August 2004 11:53

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#9

Post by Liluh » 11 Aug 2004, 19:54

Russian source about Katyn massacre with Stalin`s orders transcription togheter with other stuff:

http://katyn.codis.ru/kdocs1.htm#beria

Use babelfish to translate:

http://babelfish.altavista.com

Other sources describing Soviet atrocity on Polish POWs:

http://www.geocities.com/katyn.geo/

Historian about the massacre

http://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/1/1/ ... 31-42.html

US Institute of Historical Review interesting article

http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/about_holo ... 940_4.html

Yad Vashem on the topic, briefly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_Massacre

Wikipedia on the topic, with a note Roosvelt helped to cover it up for Stalin

http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pag ... 9114089000

British goverment offical statement

http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art6.html

CIA on the topic, also whipping FDR like wikipedia


I`m enough of providing these sites, there are hundreds, aswell as books, also diaries and memories. All goverments, historians and intitution agree - SOVIETS MASSACRED POLISH POWS IN KATYN FOREST - maybe except some individuals in Russia and current Russian authorities (sadly but due to change in the future). There`s enough of evidence.

Yet, I`m awaiting for our neo-communistic friends to prove otherwise if they are able to provide some seriouse evidence. I`m still waiting for the figures of 75.000 men, Soviet POWS, starved after 1920 war. Katyn and Sept 17th was surely a Soviet revenge, but not for starving their POWs but for defeating Bolsheviks in 1920 by Poles.

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#10

Post by Liluh » 11 Aug 2004, 19:58

Dmitry wrote:
Sergey Romanov wrote:Ha ha. A bunch of Katyn deniers. Western Holocaust deniers should take a look at this. 8)
Tell me what trial convicted Soviets, eh?

So anyone free to have his own opinion. And I may say that those who believe in Hitler version of events are real Katin-deniers.
Give us free hand and we will put quite a lot of former Soviets soldiers, generals, politicians on trial... And they`ll have chance to defend, not like those in Katyn.

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#11

Post by Liluh » 11 Aug 2004, 20:22

Rarog wrote:
Russian source about Katyn massacre with Stalin`s orders transcription togheter with other stuff:

http://katyn.codis.ru/kdocs1.htm#beria
Validity of the documents is questioned.
Even without it there`s enough evidence.

Maybe you care to elaborate why you`re questioning these documents? Any reason why Gorbachev should fake the guilt of Soviet Union? Actually, why should Russians fake their own guilt? It`s like putting yourself under the wall with hands tied back. Even so, having in mind Gorbachev admitted the Soviet responsibility, and current authorities accept this line, they are not willing to admit it was an atrocity and crime against humanity - my question, if not that, what was it? An accident? I guess that the whole plot leads to too many people who should be put on trail and judged for what Russia will not allow.

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#12

Post by David Thompson » 11 Aug 2004, 20:26

From the H&WC section rules:
Claims and Proof

The fifth rule of the forum is: "When quoting from a book or site, please provide info on the source (and a link if it is a website)."

If a poster raises a question about the events, other posters may answer the question with evidence. If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.

Undocumented claims undercut the research purposes of this section of the forum. Consequently, it is required that proof be posted along with a claim. The main reason is that proof, evidence, facts, etc. improve the quality of discussions and information. A second reason is that inflammatory, groundless threads attack, and do not promote, the scholarly purpose of this section of the forum.

This requirement applies to each specific claim. In the past, some posters have attempted to evade the proof requirement by resort to the following tactics, none of which are acceptable here:

A general reference to a website, or a book without page references; citations or links to racist websites; generalized citations to book reviews; and citations to unsourced articles.

Noncomplying posts are subject to deletion after warning.

Opinions

Since the purpose of this section of the forum is to exchange information and hold informed discussions about historical problems, posts which express unsolicited opinions without supporting facts do not promote the purposes of the forum. Consequently, such posts are subject to deletion after a warning to the poster.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962
The purpose of this section of the forum is to hold intelligent and informed conversations on matters of historical fact. The claims that the USSR was not involved in the Katyn Forest massacre are neither intelligent nor informed. Delusional opinions or ignorant notions based on speculation have no place here.

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#13

Post by Sergey Romanov » 11 Aug 2004, 21:24

As denying Holocaust is forbidden here, so denying Katyñ massacre should be forbidden too, IMHO.
I dunno. On the one hand these wackos may spoil the Russian reputation on this forum. On the other hand they're useful to show to the Western Holocaust deniers their own methods at work. After all Katyn is Western deniers' favorite hobbyhorse to "discredit" all other Soviet (and even Allied) evidence for the Holocaust.
Last edited by Sergey Romanov on 11 Aug 2004, 21:28, edited 1 time in total.

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#14

Post by Sergey Romanov » 11 Aug 2004, 21:26

I've read very intelligent and very informed claims that the USSR was not involved in the Katyn Forest massacre.
Virtually the only source Russian-speaking Katyn deniers use are Jurij Mukhin's books. Mukhin denies practically everything - Soviet guilt at Katyn, Holocaust, genetics, moon landings, etc, etc., etc. He's a nutcase, pure and simple.
Last edited by Sergey Romanov on 11 Aug 2004, 21:29, edited 1 time in total.

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#15

Post by Sergey Romanov » 11 Aug 2004, 21:28

Marcus asked:
Rarog wrote:
За базаром следи.


Please write in English and provide a translation of the above.
It is a very rude way to say "Watch your language".

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