The investigation into all the circumstances of the massacre of Polish soldiers, which went down in history as the "Katyn massacre", still causes heated discussions both in Russia and in Poland. According to the "official" modern version, the murder of Polish officers was the work of the NKVD of the USSR. However, back in 1943-1944. a special commission headed by the Chief Surgeon of the Red Army N. Burdenko came to the conclusion that the Nazis killed the Polish soldiers. Despite the fact that the current Russian leadership agreed with the version of the “Soviet trace”, there are indeed a lot of contradictions and ambiguities in the case of the massacre of Polish officers. In order to understand who could have shot the Polish soldiers, it is necessary to take a closer look at the very process of investigating the Katyn massacre.

In March 1942, residents of the village of Kozy Gory, in the Smolensk region, informed the occupying authorities about the mass grave of Polish soldiers. The Poles who worked in the construction platoon unearthed several graves and reported this to the German command, but it initially reacted to the news with complete indifference. The situation changed in 1943, when a turning point had already occurred at the front and Germany was interested in strengthening anti-Soviet propaganda. On February 18, 1943, the German field police began excavations in the Katyn forest. A special commission was formed, headed by Gerhardt Butz, a professor at the University of Breslau, the "luminary" of forensic medical examination, who during the war years served with the rank of captain as head of the forensic laboratory of Army Group Center. Already on April 13, 1943, German radio reported on the found burial place of 10,000 Polish officers. In fact, the German investigators “calculated” the number of Poles who had died in the Katyn Forest very simply - they took the total number of officers of the Polish army before the start of the war, from which they subtracted the “living” - the Anders army. All other Polish officers, according to the German side, were shot by the NKVD in the Katyn forest. Naturally, the anti-Semitism inherent in the Nazis was not without - the German media immediately reported that Jews participated in the executions.

On April 16, 1943, the Soviet Union officially refuted the "slanderous attacks" of Nazi Germany. On April 17, the government of Poland in exile turned to the Soviet government for clarification. It is interesting that at that time the Polish leadership did not try to blame the Soviet Union for everything, but focused on the crimes of Nazi Germany against the Polish people. However, the USSR broke off relations with the Polish government-in-exile.

Joseph Goebbels, the "number one propagandist" of the Third Reich, managed to achieve an even greater effect than he had originally imagined. The Katyn massacre was passed off by German propaganda as a classic manifestation of the "atrocities of the Bolsheviks." Obviously, the Nazis, accusing the Soviet side of killing Polish prisoners of war, sought to discredit the Soviet Union in the eyes of the Western countries. The cruel execution of Polish prisoners of war, allegedly carried out by Soviet Chekists, was supposed, in the opinion of the Nazis, to alienate the United States, Great Britain and the Polish government in exile from cooperation with Moscow. Goebbels succeeded in the latter - in Poland, a lot of people accepted the version of the execution of Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD. The fact is that back in 1940, correspondence with Polish prisoners of war who were on the territory of Soviet Union. Nothing more was known about the fate of the Polish officers. At the same time, representatives of the United States and Great Britain tried to "hush up" the Polish topic, because they did not want to irritate Stalin at such a crucial period when Soviet troops were able to turn the tide at the front.

To ensure a larger propaganda effect, the Nazis even involved the Polish Red Cross (PKK), whose representatives were associated with the anti-fascist resistance, in the investigation. On the Polish side, the commission was headed by Marian Wodzinski, a physician from Krakow University, an authoritative person who participated in the activities of the Polish anti-fascist resistance. The Nazis even went so far as to allow representatives of the PKK to the place of the alleged execution, where excavations of graves took place. The conclusions of the commission were disappointing - the PKK confirmed the German version that the Polish officers were shot in April-May 1940, that is, even before the start of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union.

On April 28-30, 1943, an international commission arrived in Katyn. Of course, it was a very loud name - in fact, the commission was formed from representatives of states occupied by Nazi Germany or maintaining allied relations with it. As expected, the commission sided with Berlin and also confirmed that Polish officers were killed in the spring of 1940 by Soviet Chekists. Further investigative actions of the German side, however, were terminated - in September 1943, the Red Army liberated Smolensk. Almost immediately after the liberation of the Smolensk region, the Soviet leadership decided that it was necessary to conduct its own investigation - in order to expose Hitler's slander about the involvement of the Soviet Union in the massacres of Polish officers.

On October 5, 1943, a special commission of the NKVD and the NKGB was created under the leadership of People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov and Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Sergei Kruglov. Unlike the German commission, the Soviet commission approached the matter in more detail, including the organization of interrogations of witnesses. 95 people were interviewed. As a result, interesting details emerged. Even before the start of the war, three camps for Polish prisoners of war were located west of Smolensk. They housed officers and generals of the Polish Army, gendarmes, police officers and officials taken prisoner on the territory of Poland. Most of the prisoners of war were used for road work of varying severity. When the war began, the Soviet authorities did not have time to evacuate Polish prisoners of war from the camps. So the Polish officers were already in German captivity, and the Germans continued to use the labor of prisoners of war in road and construction work.

In August - September 1941, the German command decided to shoot all Polish prisoners of war held in the Smolensk camps. The direct execution of Polish officers was carried out by the headquarters of the 537th construction battalion under the leadership of Lieutenant Arnes, Lieutenant Rekst and Lieutenant Hott. The headquarters of this battalion was located in the village of Kozi Gory. In the spring of 1943, when a provocation against the Soviet Union was already being prepared, the Nazis drove Soviet prisoners of war to excavate graves and, after excavations, seized from the graves all documents dated later than the spring of 1940. So the date of the alleged execution of Polish prisoners of war was “adjusted”. The Soviet prisoners of war who carried out the excavations were shot by the Germans, and the local residents were forced to give testimonies favorable to the Germans.

On January 12, 1944, a Special Commission was formed to establish and investigate the circumstances of the execution by the Nazi invaders in the Katyn forest (near Smolensk) of Polish officers of war. This commission was headed chief surgeon Red Army Lieutenant General of the Medical Service Nikolai Nilovich Burdenko, and included in it whole line prominent Soviet scientists. It is interesting that the writer Alexei Tolstoy and Metropolitan Nikolay (Yarushevich) of Kiev and Galicia were included in the commission. Although public opinion in the West by this time it was already quite biased, however, the episode with the execution of Polish officers in Katyn was included in the indictment of the Nuremberg Tribunal. That is, in fact, the responsibility of Nazi Germany for the commission of this crime was recognized.

For many decades, the Katyn massacre was forgotten, however, when in the late 1980s. the systematic “shattering” of the Soviet state began, the history of the Katyn massacre was again “refreshed” by human rights activists and journalists, and then by the Polish leadership. In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev actually recognized the responsibility of the Soviet Union for the Katyn massacre. Since that time, and for almost thirty years now, the version that the Polish officers were shot by the employees of the NKVD of the USSR has become the dominant version. Even the "patriotic twist" Russian state in the 2000s did not change the situation. Russia continues to "repent" for the crime committed by the Nazis, while Poland puts forward increasingly stringent demands for recognizing the Katyn massacre as genocide.

Meanwhile, many domestic historians and experts express their point of view on the Katyn tragedy. So, Elena Prudnikova and Ivan Chigirin in the book “Katyn. A lie that has become history ”, draw attention to very interesting nuances. For example, all the corpses found in burials in Katyn were dressed in the uniform of the Polish army with insignia. But until 1941, insignias were not allowed to be worn in Soviet prisoner of war camps. All prisoners were equal in their status and could not wear cockades and shoulder straps. It turns out that Polish officers simply could not be with insignia at the time of death, if they were really shot in 1940. Since the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention for a long time, the maintenance of prisoners of war with the preservation of insignia in Soviet camps was not allowed. Apparently, the Nazis did not think through this interesting moment and themselves contributed to the exposure of their lies - Polish prisoners of war were shot already after 1941, but then the Smolensk region was occupied by the Nazis. This circumstance, referring to the work of Prudnikova and Chigirin, is also pointed out in one of his publications by Anatoly Wasserman.

Private detective Ernest Aslanyan draws attention to a very interesting detail - Polish prisoners of war were killed with firearms made in Germany. The NKVD of the USSR did not use such weapons. Even if the Soviet Chekists had copies of German weapons at their disposal, they were by no means in the quantity used in Katyn. However, for some reason, this circumstance is not considered by supporters of the version that the Polish officers were killed by the Soviet side. More precisely, this question, of course, was raised in the media, but the answers to it were given some unintelligible ones, Aslanyan notes.

The version about the use of German weapons in 1940 in order to “write off” the corpses of Polish officers to the Nazis really seems very strange. The Soviet leadership hardly counted on the fact that Germany would not only start a war, but also be able to reach Smolensk. Accordingly, there was no reason to "set up" the Germans by shooting Polish prisoners of war from German weapons. Another version seems more plausible - the executions of Polish officers in the camps of the Smolensk region were indeed carried out, but not at all on the scale that Hitler's propaganda spoke about. There were many camps in the Soviet Union where Polish prisoners of war were kept, but nowhere else mass executions was not carried out. What could force the Soviet command to arrange the execution of 12 thousand Polish prisoners of war in the Smolensk region? It is impossible to give an answer to this question. Meanwhile, the Nazis themselves could well have destroyed the Polish prisoners of war - they did not feel any reverence for the Poles, they did not differ in humanism in relation to prisoners of war, especially to the Slavs. To destroy several thousand Poles for the Nazi executioners was no problem at all.

However, the version about the murder of Polish officers by Soviet Chekists is very convenient in the current situation. For the West, the reception of Goebbels' propaganda is a wonderful way to once again "prick" Russia, to blame Moscow for war crimes. For Poland and the Baltic countries, this version is another tool of anti-Russian propaganda and a way to get more generous funding from the US and the EU. As for the Russian leadership, its agreement with the version about the execution of the Poles on the orders of the Soviet government is explained, apparently, by purely opportunistic considerations. As "our answer to Warsaw" one could raise the topic of the fate of Soviet prisoners of war in Poland, of which in 1920 there were more than 40 thousand people. However, no one is addressing this issue.

A genuine, objective investigation of all the circumstances of the Katyn massacre is still waiting in the wings. It remains to be hoped that it will make it possible to fully expose the monstrous slander against the Soviet country and confirm that it was the Nazis who were the real executioners of the Polish prisoners of war.

Slobodkin Yuri Maksimovich was born on November 7, 1939. In 1965 he graduated from Sverdlovsk legal institute. Since 1976 - Chairman of the Solnechnogorsk City People's Court. In December 1989, he was elected chairman of the Qualification Board of Judges of the Moscow Region. In November 1991, he joined the Russian Communist Workers' Party (RKRP). He was repeatedly elected a member of the Central Committee of the RKRP. In 1990-93 - people's deputy RF. Author of an alternative to the "Yeltsin" Draft Constitution of the Russian Federation. Slobodka project on Yu.M. was submitted to the Constitutional Commission of the Russian Federation, but, of course, was rejected by the "Yeltsinists".
Slobodkin Yu.M. talented publicist, regularly published in the newspaper Trudovaya Rossiya.

On the eve of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, a grandiose provocation is being prepared against the victors. It will defile and litter the Victory Day and the winners and all our difficult heroic past in Goebbels' shit. The beginning of this provocation was laid by the falsification by the Germans and the "London Poles" in 1943 of the so-called "Katyn case". The "Katyn map" of the Nazis, with the active complicity of the Polish government in exile in London, headed by General Sikorsky, contributed to delaying the opening of a second front and the final defeat of European fascism. In the 70-80s of the last century, the propaganda campaign of Hitler and Goebbels was revived by certain Polish forces and the Germans through their "agents of influence" in the USSR.

The proof that the vile brown vomit will be spewed out by the current Russian government and its Polish accomplices on the eve of Victory Day, in order to humiliate and “smear” the victorious people and whitewash the defeated fascists, is the publication in Komsomolskaya Pravda dated September 29, 2004 under more than symptomatic heading "Russia will reveal the secret of the Katyn forest" (it is customary for Russians to write "Katyn", that is, without soft sign and without a Polish accent). Even more significant is the subtitle of the mentioned publication - "Presidents Putin and Kwasniewski agreed on this yesterday in the Kremlin." There is no doubt about the essence of the presidents' agreements in the paragraph: “And one more noteworthy outcome of the meeting. After its completion, the President of Poland told reporters sensational news: “We received information that on September 21 the investigation into the Katyn massacre was completed. After the classification is removed, the documents can be handed over to the Institute of National Remembrance... We received such a promise.” The behavior and words of Kwasniewski confirm what conclusions the “Russian-Polish-German” side made as a result of its investigation: Stalin, Beria and the “NKVD troops” were guilty of the execution of Polish officers near Katyn, and Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and their henchmen were slandered by the “Stalinist regime” and subject to rehabilitation.

In general terms, the provocative version of Goebbels and those who support it today is presented as follows. The German authorities became aware of the execution of Poles near Smolensk as early as August 2, 1941, from the testimony of a certain Merkulov, who was in German captivity, but they did not verify these testimony. Then, according to this version, the graves of Polish officers were discovered and excavated in February-March 1942 by Poles from a construction battalion stationed in the Katyn region. Again, the Germans were informed about this, and again their burials "were not interested." They "interested" them only after the crushing defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad and a radical turning point in the war. Then, according to the lawyers of Hitler and Goebbels, the Germans energetically set about "investigating" and on February 18, 1943, carried out partial excavations, "discovering" several common graves of Polish officers. Then they “found” witnesses from local residents, who, of course, “confirmed” that the Poles were shot in the spring of 1940, when the Nazis were just finishing developing a plan for attacking the USSR. The Nazi leadership put their professor Gerhard at the head of the “international commission” for the exhumation of the corpses Butch and began a noisy anti-Soviet campaign Already on March 16, 1943, the Polish government in exile joined them. At the same time, the Poles did not even bother to ask their ally the USSR for any clarifications, but immediately joined Goebbels' propaganda campaign, justifying their vile behavior by the impression of "abundant and detailed German information regarding the discovery of the bodies of many thousands of Polish officers near Smolensk and the categorical assertion that they were killed by the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940.” This is not the cretinism of the "London Poles", but their conscious and prearranged complicity.

In order to give their slanderous fabrications greater impact, high-ranking figures of fascist Germany even discussed the issue of the arrival from Katyn of the head of the Polish government in exile, General Sikorsky: judging by indirect evidence, he was their long-standing and reliable agent. This is convincingly evidenced by the exchange of views between Himmler and Ribbentrop on this issue. In particular, Ribbentrop informs Himmler that this idea is seductive from a propaganda point of view, but "there is a basic attitude regarding the interpretation of the Polish problem, which makes it impossible for us to have any contact with the head of the Polish government in exile." In the correspondence between the two Nazi bosses, their complete confidence is amazing that General Sikorsky will not dare to disobey if he is invited to fly to Katyn. And the “basic attitude regarding the interpretation of the Polish problem” was formulated by Adolf Hitler in 1939: “The Poles should have only one master - a German. Two masters cannot and should not exist side by side, therefore all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia must be destroyed. It sounds cruel, but such is the law of life. According to the foreign author D. Toland, by mid-autumn 1939, three and a half thousand representatives of the Polish intelligentsia, whom Hitler considered "pedlars of Polish nationalism", were liquidated. “Only in this way,” he argued, “can we get the territory we need.” The terror was accompanied by the ruthless expulsion of more than a million ordinary Poles from their lands and the placement of Germans there from other parts of Poland and the Baltic states. This happened in winter, and more Poles died from the cold during the resettlement than as a result of executions. The cretinism of the majority of representatives of the Polish gentry consisted in the fact that, without doubting the victory of Nazi Germany, they counted on the preservation of their gentry privileges by the Nazis. They either didn't know or didn't want to know about the Germans' "basic directive" for solving the "Polish problem".

By the way, the Nazis also had “personal” claims against the Poles. When Nazi Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, the political and military leadership of the latter consoled itself with the thought that they were only dealing with a demonstration by the Germans of their power of a provocative nature. In response to the “provocation”, the Poles massacred the entire German population, including women and children, in the cities of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) and Schulitz located near the Polish-German border. The Nuremberg Tribunal named the destruction by the Nazis of Belarusian Khatyn, Czech Lidice, French Oradour as examples of war crimes against civilians, but if we follow the historical truth, the palm must be given to the Poles: in the Second World War they committed the first gravest crime against the civilian population. In the Soviet period, it was not customary to talk about this; we considered them our friends in the socialist camp and allies in arms. But now, when the rulers of bourgeois Poland have betrayed us, joined the aggressive NATO bloc and, together with the Russian “fifth column”, are hitting us backhand and slandering us, we, in the words of Chernyshevsky, must respond with blow for blow. By and large, our previous position was flawed. Because of her, over decades of friendship, we never demanded from the Poles an account of what they had done to 120,000 Red Army soldiers who were captured by them in 1920 due to the utter mediocrity and politicking of the "commander" Tukhachevsky. Even now they do not tell us anything intelligible on this score and are not going to tell us, and the Russian bourgeois government scatters pearls in front of them and lays the blame for the crime committed by the Nazis on the Soviet people.

And more about the real, not imaginary crimes associated with the pan-Poland. Stanislav Kunyaev, the author of the famous book "Poetry, Fate, Russia", tells about the events in Jedwabno, our border town before the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR. “... For almost two years Jedwabno was our frontier outpost. But on June 23, 1941, German troops again occupy Jedwabno. And then in the nearby towns of Radzivilov, Voneoshi, Vizne, Jewish pogroms broke out. Local Poles kill several hundred Jews, the survivors flee to Jedwabno. But on July 10, a total pogrom of the local Jewish community takes place in Jedwabno, along with refugees. At least 2,000 Jews were slaughtered…” The Polish historian of Jewish origin, Tomasz Gross, who wrote the book Neighbors, adds: “The main facts look indisputable. In July 1941, a large group of Poles living in Jedwabno took part in the brutal extermination of almost all the Jews there, who, by the way, made up the vast majority of the inhabitants of the town. At first they were killed one by one - with sticks, stones, tortured, cut off their heads, defiled the corpses. Then, on July 10, about one and a half thousand survivors were driven into a barn and burned alive. (Did the Nazis borrow this medieval method of execution from the Poles when they burned Soviet people living in barns, barns and houses?) After the publication of the book by T. Gross, the nationalist gentry was backed up to the wall And on September 21, 2001, President Kwasniewski, in the absence of local residents, in the absence of right-wing politicians and even a local priest, who had locked himself in his house, repented of Hardly before world Jewry on behalf of Poland.

Now the Poles are hungry for compensation: moral, psychological, political and material. And the Russian Katyn should become such compensation for them.

The traitors and their Polish-German customers were summed up by haste and an irrepressible desire to have the CPSU declared an "anti-constitutional" organization, to bury the "communist hydra" much deeper than the Nazis buried Polish officers near Smolensk. At a meeting of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on October 16, 1992, representatives of the Yeltsin side, S. Shakhrai and A. Makarov, filed a petition to attach to the case file the top-secret documents on the Katyn tragedy that had just been “discovered” in the archives, indicating that Polish officers were shot by decision governing bodies of the CPSU(b). According to S. Shakhrai, these documents were kept in a sealed envelope - package No. 1 and passed by the first secretaries and general secretaries of the Central Committee to each other from hand to hand. The entire press, which called itself democratic, chokingly wrote, and television broadcast about sensational finds and that the personal representative of the president in the person of the archivist R. Pikhoi handed these documents to L. Walesa on October 14, 1992. The Poles thanked the messenger B. Yeltsin, looked, turned over the documents and demanded that the Russian authorities provide the originals. Until now, the Russian side "provides" them.

In the autumn of 1992, the Russian media ran a brown wave against the Communist Party and the Communists with the same frenzy as the propaganda of the Nazis in 1943, which Goebbels taught: murder. The world needs to be shown these Soviet atrocities through the continuous presentation of new facts. In particular, it must be shown in the comments that these are the same Bolsheviks about whom the British and Americans claim that they allegedly changed and changed their political convictions. These are the same Bolsheviks who are prayed for in the so-called democracies and who are blessed in solemn ceremonial by the English bishops. These are the same Bolsheviks who have already received from the British absolute authority for domination and Bolshevik penetration into Europe. In general, we need to talk more often about 17-18-year-old warrant officers who, before being shot, still asked for permission to send a letter home, etc., since this works especially amazingly. From Goebbels' instructions it is clear that the fascists erected slander against the Soviet Union to achieve two goals. The first of these was to quarrel the allies over anti-Hitler coalition, and the second - in intimidation of the population of countries that were vassal dependent on Germany, and in its wider involvement in the war against the USSR on the side of the Nazis. We admit that the Nazis did not try in vain. In the short term, they managed to delay the opening of the second front for more than a year, and in the long term they realized all the goals of fascist Germany, because in 1946, W. Churchill, speaking in the small US university town of Fulton, laid the foundation for the Cold War between the former allies.

It is obvious that the Yeltsinists, having dumped their “original documents” more than once or twice, regretted this more than once or twice, having thrown out their “original documents” during the trial in the Constitutional Court, which lasted (with interruptions) from May 26 to November 30, 1992. To give a general legal assessment of the Katyn "documents" on behalf of the communist side was entrusted to the author of these lines and Professor Rudinsky F.M. We expressed doubts about the authenticity of the three main documents - a note by L. Beria dated March 5, 1940, an extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated March 5, 1940 and a note by A. Shelepin dated March 3, 1959 addressed to Khrushchev, stating that they should be subjected to a handwriting examination. One of the signs indicating the falsification of Beria's note and the extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was the complete coincidence of the dates of sending the note (March 5, 1940) and the Politburo meeting (also March 5, 1940). This has never happened in the practice of the Politburo. The gap in time between the date of sending this or that document with a proposal to consider some issue at a meeting of the Politburo and the meeting itself was at least 5-6 days.

For representatives of the presidential side, the accusation of falsifying documents was a real blow. They tried not to show confusion and even promised to present “genuine archival documents”, but, of course, they never presented any originals to anyone. And the Constitutional Court, in its decision of November 30, 1992, did not say a word about the Katyn tragedy and essentially rehabilitated the top Soviet party and state leadership. He indirectly recognized the validity of the conclusions of the commission of Academician N.N. Burdenko that among the more than 135 thousand people killed by the German fascists in the temporarily occupied territory of the Smolensk region, there were Polish officers who were in three forced labor camps near Katyn and were used during the period of the perfidious German attack on the Soviet Union for road work.

But our domestic Goebbels falsifiers, urged on by the Polish-German side, could not think of anything better than to continue moving in the same direction. They "corrected" the original fake. This was expressed in the fact that from Beria’s “note” to Comrade Stalin “they etched an indication of the number and the number “5” failed in no one knows where: it was “March 5, 1940”, and it became “... March 1940”. In this form, the “note” ended up in the sixth volume of the “Materials of the case on the verification of the constitutionality of the decrees of the President of the Russian Federation concerning the activities of the CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR, as well as on the verification of the constitutionality of the CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR.” I don’t know who exactly in the Constitutional Court became an accomplice of the presidential side in the repeated falsification, but it is obvious that the Yeltsinists had such opportunities that they could, without any difficulty, after exposure, replace a fake photocopy with another of the same dignity and value. Only manipulations with the notorious "note of Beria" are enough to conclude that all accusations against the Soviet leaders in the execution of Polish officers are a global lie.

The "work on the mistakes" of the slanderers of the workers' state required a lot of time and was accompanied by the rejection of many statements that they had circulated earlier. It became especially bad for them after the publication in 1995 of Y. Mukhin’s book “The Katyn Detective” (M., 1995), small in volume, but full of facts that were murderous for them. Among the many indirect evidence indicating that the murder of Polish officers was committed in the autumn of 1941, Yu. Mukhin names three direct evidence 1) The conclusions of forensic experts, including a number of those who in 1943 were on the commission of the German professor G. Butz, that that, based on the degree of decomposition of the corpses, the condition of their clothes and other signs, by the time they were exhumed by the Nazis, the dead had lain in the ground for no more than a year, at most one and a half, that is, the time of their murder dates back to the autumn of 1941. 2) The bullets and cartridge cases found in the graves of the buried have a caliber of 7.65 mm and 6.35 mm and are marked by the German cartridge factory "Genshovik", abbreviated as "Geko", that is, they were made in Germany. 3) Approximately 20% of the corpses had their hands tied with paper twine, which was not produced at all in the USSR before the war, but was produced in Germany.

Of considerable interest is how the Nazis prepared the Katyn provocation in the winter of 1943. This was done with German pedantry and thoroughness. The "necessary" writers, journalists, experts in the field of forensic medicine were selected. The territory of Kozy Gory, which before the arrival of the occupiers was a favorite place for festivities of the inhabitants of Smolensk, was made by the Nazis into a restricted area. By the beginning of the propaganda action, they had increased security; in addition to the Poles who served in the Wehrmacht, the SS began to carry it out. A German propaganda company was stationed in Katyn. Goebbels admonished his subordinates: “The German officers who will take over the leadership must be exceptionally politically trained and experienced people, able to act deftly and confidently. Some of our people should be there earlier so that everything is prepared when the Red Cross arrives and so that during the excavations they do not come across things that do not correspond to our line. It would be expedient to elect one person from us and one from the UWC who would already now prepare a minute-by-minute program in Katyn. Thus, Goebbels did not hide from his subordinates that the Katyn case was a fake and therefore demanded that they act "meaningfully."

The International Red Cross did not take part in the Goebbels provocation, despite the blackmail and threats of the Nazis. But the "London Poles", having entered into a shameful collusion with the Germans, sent the Technical Commission of the Polish Red Cross to Katyn, hereinafter referred to as the PC. - Yu.S.). She stayed there from April 17 to June 9, 1943. It was headed by the Pole K. Skarzhinsky, and at the final stage - by his compatriot M. Vodzinsky. They compiled reports on the work of the commission, which are kept in London. In their research, modern Goebbels prefer to give fragments only from Skarzhinsky's report, since they do not like Vodzinsky's excessive meticulousness of the latter, indicating, for example, that "all bullet wounds were made from a pistol using Geco 7.65 D brand ammunition." But they are also afraid to reproduce Skarzhinsky's report in full. The report contains details and details that indicate that the Germans assigned the Poles the miserable and humiliating role of extras, called upon by their presence to give the propaganda performance the appearance of an "investigation." The following excerpts from the report are characteristic: “The corpses carried out on a stretcher from the ditches were laid in a row and began to search for documents in such a way that each corpse was separately searched by two workers in the presence of one member of the PKK commission ... Members of the commission engaged in the search for documents did not have the right viewing and sorting them. They were only required to pack the following items: a) wallets with all their contents; b) all kinds of papers found in bulk; c) awards and memorabilia; d) medallions, crosses, etc.; e) shoulder straps; e) wallets; g) all kinds of valuable items. Thus, the scanned, sorted and numbered envelopes were put into boxes in the order of numbering. They remained at the exclusive disposal of the German authorities. Lists typed by the Germans on a typewriter German, could not be verified by the commission with the draft, since it no longer had access to them. During the work of the technical commission of the PKK in the Katyn forest in the period from April 15 to June 7, 1943, a total of 4243 corpses were exhumed, of which 4233 were removed from seven graves located at a short distance from one another and excavated in March 1943 by the German military authorities. Very carefully and throughout the entire territory, the probing carried out by the Germans in order to ensure that the figure of 12 thousand corpses announced by propaganda did not differ too much from reality, suggests that there will be no more graves. This probing of the territory revealed a number of mass graves of Russians in varying degrees of decomposition, down to skeletons. Skarzhinsky's report is remarkable not only because the Germans did not show the Poles from the Technical Commission a single document, that is, they treated them like cattle. In it, the Poles, as it were, inadvertently mentioned that in the territory probed by the Germans, where the graves of Polish officers were located, there were also graves with "mass graves of Russians."

A kind of allusion to the fact that the Poles were shot by the one who shot the Russians as well.

And the commission of forensic experts, headed by G. Butz, stayed in Katyn for only two days and, having opened nine corpses prepared in advance by the Nazis, flew to Berlin on May 1, 1943. But instead of Berlin, the plane landed on a remote, secluded airfield. Subsequently, the Bulgarian doctor Markov recalled: “The airfield was clearly a military one. We had lunch there, and immediately after dinner we were asked to sign copies of the protocol. We were offered to sign them right here, on this isolated airfield!” In addition to the general protocol, each member of the commission wrote his own conclusion. The Bulgarian Markov, in his conclusion, despite the pressure of the Germans, evaded the conclusion that the Polish officers were killed in 1940. In turn, the Czechoslovakian professor F. Gaek, who was also a member of the Butz commission, published in 1945 in Prague the pamphlet “Katyn Evidence”, where he presented impartial and scientifically impeccable arguments confirming that Polish officers could not have been shot earlier autumn 1941. As for G. Butz himself, his fate turned out to be sad. Our Goebbels are trying not to remember him, because they really don’t want to say that in 1944 Butz was killed by the Germans themselves, suspecting that he would reveal their scam with the Katyn burials.

And what happened to the “material evidence” in the form of documents and various items that the Germans, with the help of the Poles from the Technical Commission, packed in boxes in April-June 1943? After all, the entire “investigation” of the Germans, in addition to delusional medical conclusions, was based on collecting documents from corpses and asserting that there were no papers with dates later than May 1940 among them. These papers, either in 9 or in 14 boxes, numbering 3184 units, were transported on two trucks farther and farther into the territory of the "Reich", farther and farther away from the Soviet offensive. When it became clear that the defeat of Germany was inevitable, burned, in accordance with the order, the documents, ”as the famous modern Goebbelsian C. Madajczyk writes. A team of slanderers is trying to pretend that, they say, it's nothing special if the defendant destroyed the documents exculpating him. And I argue that the Germans burned these documents precisely because they contained evidence of their guilt.

In 1990-1991, the "historians" N. Lebedeva and Yu. Zorya, who were part of the academic part of the supporters of the Goebbels version of the fate of Polish officers, stated in their writings that "... in April-May 1940, more than 15 thousand Polish prisoners of war - officers and policemen - were taken out of the Kozelsky, Starobelsky and Ostashkovsky camps and transferred to the UNKVD of the Smolensk and Kalinin regions. This was their last route, the end points of which were Katyn, Mednoe and the 6th quarter of the forested park zone of Kharkov. Knocking out a tear from a gullible reader with passages “about the last route”, they expressed the idea that it was permissible “... to conclude that it is possible for the Special Meeting of the NKVD to pass a death sentence on prisoners of war.” Following the "scientists-experts", the idea of ​​the execution of the Poles by decision of the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR was picked up by narrow-minded investigators from the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the USSR In Mednoye, Tver Region, in the summer of 1991, "exhumers" from the investigative brigade of the Main Military Police Directorate of the USSR with the participation of the Poles dug up the entire cemetery. In fact, no shot Poles were found in Medny and could not be found, since no one shot them there, but they did not fail to put up a monument in the cemetery with an inscription that 6,000 Poles “shot by the Russians” were buried here. The Polish priest Peshkovsky, together with other Poles and investigators from the GVP of the USSR, were engaged in the exhumation of corpses near Kharkov from July 25 to August 7, 1991. Found 169 skulls and 62 of them found traces of bullet wounds; on the site where gravediggers worked, criminals and members of the Soviet "fifth column" were buried. But on the basis of the "data" known only to them, these search engines determined that 4,000 Polish prisoners of war from the Starobilsky camp near Kharkov were buried in the cemetery.

According to the film, which recorded the course of the exhumation, it is clear that the investigating team did not find anything that could indicate that the corpses belonged to the Poles. However, four years later, it suddenly turns out that numerous “material evidence” were found, about which priest Peshkovsky, who managed to publish two books, told the whole world. The simple-hearted and at the same time sly priest in his writings reported a curious detail related to the excavations in Medny and near Kharkov. According to him, the bulk of the items called material evidence was found not in the graves, but in some separate pits and pits. It turns out that snuffboxes, newspapers, notes, rings were taken from the Poles before the execution, and, having buried the executed, then they dug special pits and pits, where they buried the objects taken from the doomed. Poor priest! In his presentation, the assurance sounds very touching that the wooden snuffbox, the newspaper, and the note, having lain in the blue-black liquid for 51 years, did not decay, but were preserved so that they could be read "with the balcony door open."

It is striking that the handwriting, methods and techniques used by the Poles and their co-investigators in 1991 directly echo the handwriting, methods and techniques of the Germans in 1943 near Katyn. The only difference is that the Germans concealed and then destroyed material evidence of their guilt, while the Poles, with the assistance of our collaborators, fabricate evidence of someone else's guilt. But this is a difference that makes the actions of the Polish-Russian side even more vile. The Poles really want their POW officers to be declared victims of the Russians, not the Germans. You can demand compensation from the Russians in Eurocurrency, but you can’t demand from the Germans.

As we have already mentioned, in the writings of the Russian-Polish Goebbelsites, one can often find, combined with fear and trembling, mention of the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR, which is credited with the decision to shoot Polish officers. Our democrats of all colors and shades so intimidated themselves and others with “extrajudicial repressive bodies of the totalitarian regime” that, putting forward delusional fabrications about the sinister role of the Special Conference in the fate of the Poles, they did not even bother to look into the Regulations on this body. And the regulation says:

1. Provide the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs with respect to persons recognized as socially dangerous, exile for a period of up to 5 years under public supervision in the area, the list of which is established by the NKVD; deport for up to 5 years under public supervision with a ban on living in the capitals, major cities And industrial centers USSR: to imprison in labor camps and in isolation rooms at camps for a period of up to 5 years, and also to deport foreign nationals who are socially dangerous outside the USSR.

2. To grant the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs the right to imprison persons suspected of espionage, sabotage, sabotage and terrorist activities for a period of 5 to 8 years.

3. For the implementation of the specified in paragraphs 1 and 2, under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, under his chairmanship, there is a Special Conference ...

Thus, the Special Meeting did not have the right to sentence anyone to death, and therefore the horror stories invented by our Goebbels burst like a soap bubble and the Russian-Polish slanderers once again exposed themselves. It must be added that no "Special Meetings" at the level of republics, territories, regions have ever existed; it operated only under the NKVD of the USSR. And another one characteristic Special meeting: it was always controlled by the USSR Prosecutor, who had the right, if he disagreed with his decision, to bring a protest to the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee, which suspended the execution of the decision of the Special meeting. The meanness of domestic Goebbels lies in the fact that they constantly resort to substitution of concepts, to identifying the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR with the "troikas" that have sunk into oblivion back in 1938.

Before the falsifiers, who fabricated an investigative case on the execution of Polish officers by the NKVD troops, at the final stage, two delicate problems arose, in my opinion:

1. How to eliminate the discrepancy between the statement of the Nazis, who announced in 1943 that about 12 thousand Polish officers were shot in Katyn, and the current Russian-Polish "investigation", which determined that 6 thousand Poles were "shot" near Medny, near Kharkov - 4 thousand and in Katyn - a little over 4 thousand people.

2. Which state body of the USSR should be held responsible for the decision to execute Polish officers, if all attempts to drag the Special Conference of the NKVD into this by the ears turned out to be so untenable that only complete cretins and complete scoundrels can insist on them. (However, if the Polish President Kwasniewski is pleased with the "investigation" and radiates joy over its results, then we are dealing with both at the same time).

After the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine in September-October 1939 as internees, and after the declaration of a state of war with the USSR by the emigrant government of Poland in November 1939 - as prisoners of war - about 10 thousand officers of the former the Polish army and about the same number of gendarmes, policemen, intelligence officers, prison workers - only about 20 thousand people (not counting privates and non-commissioned officers). By the spring of 1940 they were divided into three categories.

The first category is dangerous criminals exposed in the murders of communists on the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, in sabotage, espionage and other serious crimes against the USSR. After being arrested by the judicial authorities of the USSR, they were sentenced - partly to imprisonment with serving their sentences in labor camps, partly to death. Taking into account the data that, as a result of various kinds of slips and slips, are reported to us by the Russian-Polish Goebbels, the total number of those sentenced to death amounted to about one thousand people. It is impossible to give an exact figure due to the fact that the Russian falsifiers destroyed the files on all the Polish criminals in the archives they got, so that it would be easier for them, together with the Polish accomplices, to build a version about the execution of Polish officers by the “Stalinist regime”.

The second category - persons from among the Polish officers, who for the world community were supposed to designate Polish prisoners of war - about 400 people in total. They were sent to the Gryazovets POW camp in Vologda region. Most of them were released in 1941 and handed over to General Anders, who began to form the Polish army on the territory of the USSR. This army, numbering several divisions, General Anders, with the consent of the Soviet leadership, who was convinced that the Andersites did not want to fight against the Nazis on Eastern Front together with the Red Army, led through Turkmenistan and Iran to the Anglo-Americans in 1942. By the way, the British, who had Anders’ units at their disposal, did not stand on ceremony with the arrogant Poles and in the spring of 1944 threw them under German machine guns into the mountainous neck of the Italian town of Montecassino, where they died in large numbers.

The third category was the bulk of the Polish army officers, gendarmes and policemen, who could not be released for two reasons. Firstly, they could join the ranks of the Home Army, which was subordinate to the Polish emigrant government and launched semi-partisan military operations against the Red Army and Soviet power structures. Secondly, based on the inevitability of war with Nazi Germany, about which the Soviet leadership had no illusions, the normalization of relations with the Polish government in exile and the subsequent use of the Poles for the joint struggle against fascism were not ruled out.

A painful and painful solution to the fate of the third, main part of the Polish prisoners of war was found in the fact that they were recognized as socially dangerous by the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR, convicted and imprisoned in forced labor camps. Their dispatch from the Kozelsky, Ostashsky and Starobelsky POW camps (prisoner of war camps and forced labor camps are of a completely different nature, since the latter contain only convicts) was carried out in April-May 1940. Convicted Poles were transported to special-purpose labor camps located west of Smolensk, and there were three of them. The Poles kept in these camps were used in the construction and repair of highways until the Nazis invaded the territory of the USSR. The beginning of the war for the Soviet Union was extremely unfavorable. Already on July 16, 1941, German troops captured Smolensk, and the camps with Polish prisoners of war were with them even earlier. In an atmosphere of confusion and elements of panic, it was not possible to evacuate the Poles deep into Soviet territory by rail or road, and they refused to leave on foot to the East along with a few guards. Only a few of the Polish Jewish officers did so. In addition, the most determined and courageous of the officers began to make their way to the West, thanks to which some of them managed to survive.

In the hands of the Nazis was the entire card file on the Poles, which was kept in labor camps. This allowed them to announce in 1943 that the number of those executed was about 12,000. Using the data of the card index, they published "Official materials..." of their investigation, where they included various "documents" in support of their slanderous version of the execution of Polish officers by the Soviets. But, despite German pedantry, among the documents cited were those that testified that their owners were alive as of October 1941. Here is what, for example, he wrote about the "Official materials ..." of the Germans V.N. Pribytkov, who worked as the director of the Central Special Archive of the USSR before it came under the control of the Yeltsinists: "... The decisive document cited is a certificate of citizenship issued to Captain Stefan Alfred Kozlinsky in Warsaw on October 20, 1941. That is, this document contained in the official German edition and extracted from the Katyn grave, completely crosses out the version of the Nazis that the executions were carried out in the spring of 1940, and shows that the executions were carried out after October 20, 1941, that is, by the Germans. The available data convincingly testify that the Germans started shooting Poles in the Katyn Forest in September 1941 and completed the action by December of the same year. In the materials of the investigation conducted by the commission of Academician N.N. Burdenko, there is also evidence that the Germans, before demonstrating the graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943 to various "semi-official" organizations and individuals, opened the graves and brought into them the corpses of the Poles who had been shot by them in other places. Soviet prisoners of war involved in these works in the amount of 500 people were destroyed. Next to the graves of the Poles shot in the Katyn forest, there are mass graves of Russians. In them, dating mainly to 1941 and partly to 1942, the ashes of 25,000 Soviet prisoners of war and civilians rest. It's hard to believe, but "academic experts" and unfortunate investigators suffering from the Smerdyakovism syndrome, having produced mountains of papers over 14 years of "investigation", do not even mention it!

In the story of the Polish prisoners of war, the actions of the then political leadership headed by Stalin do not look legally irreproachable. Some norms of international law were violated, namely the relevant provisions of the 1907 Hague and 1929 Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War in General and Prisoners of War Officers in Particular. There is no need to deny this, since in this case denial plays into the hands of our enemies, who, with the help of the "Katyn case", want to finally rewrite the history of the Second World War. We must admit that the condemnation of Polish officers by the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR and their sending to forced labor camps with a change in their status from prisoners of war to prisoners, if it can be justified from the standpoint of political and economic expediency, is in no way justified from the standpoint of international law . We must also recognize that the deployment of Polish officers to camps close to western border The USSR deprived us of the opportunity to provide them with proper security in connection with the perfidious attack of Nazi Germany. And it becomes clear why Stalin and Beria in November-December 1941 could not say something definite to Generals Sikorsky, Anders and the Polish Ambassador Kot about the fate of the Polish officers captured by the Red Army in September-October 1939. They really did not know what happened to them after the occupation by the Nazis of a significant part of the territory of the USSR. And to say that at the time of the German invasion the Poles were in labor camps west of Smolensk meant an international scandal and would create difficulties in creating an anti-Hitler coalition. Meanwhile, in early December 1941, the Polish government in London received reliable information about the execution of Polish officers by the Germans near Katyn. But it did not bring this information to the attention of the Soviet leadership, but mockingly continued to "find out" where their compatriot officers had gone. Why? The first reason is that the Poles in 1941-1942 and even in 1943 were confident that Hitler would defeat the Soviet Union. The second reason, arising from the first, is the desire to blackmail the Soviet leadership for the subsequent refusal to participate in hostilities against the Germans on the Soviet-German front.

Goebbels' falsification of the "Katyn case" was exposed in the course of an investigation conducted between October 5, 1943 and January 10, 1944. State Commission chaired by Academician N.N. Burdenko. The main results of the work of the Commission N.N. Burdenko were included in the indictment of the Nuremberg Tribunal as "Document USSR-48". In the course of the investigation into the case of Polish officers, 95 witnesses were interrogated, 17 statements were checked, the necessary examination was carried out, and the location of the Katyn graves was examined.

As an indirect proof of their version, all modern Goebbels cite the fact that the Nuremberg Tribunal excluded the Katyn episode from the crimes of the leaders of Nazi Germany. The conclusion of the Burdenko commission was presented as a document of the prosecution, which, as an official one, in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, did not require additional evidence. After all, the leaders of fascist Germany were not accused of personally shooting someone or burning them alive in huts. They were accused of pursuing a policy that resulted in such massive crimes that mankind did not know. The accusers showed that the genocide against the Poles, which also manifested itself near Katyn, was the official policy of the Nazis. However, the judges of the Nuremberg Tribunal, not taking into account the conclusions of the Burdenko commission, only imitated the judicial investigation into the execution of Polish officers near Katyn. After all, the embers of the Cold War were already smoldering! Several years later, in 1952, the American member of the Nuremberg Tribunal, Robert X. Jackson, admitted that his position on Katyn was determined by a corresponding instruction from the government of President G. Truman. In 1952, a committee of the US Congress fabricated the version of the Katyn case they wanted and, in its conclusion, recommended that the US government refer the case to the UN for investigation. However, as the Polish Goebbels complain, "...Washington did not consider it possible to do this." Why? Yes, because the question of who killed the Poles has never been a secret for the Americans. And in 1952, Washington found itself in the position of the current Goebbels, who were afraid to take the case to court. It is beneficial for the US government to chew this case in the press, but it could not allow it to be tried. The US government was smart enough not to drag fakes to the UN. But our stupid provincials, Gorbachev and Yeltsin., with any fake rushed to Warsaw to the Polish presidents. But even this is not enough: Yeltsin instructed his oprichniki to lay out fakes before the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and, together with them, was convicted of forgery. Bottom line: The Constitutional Court did not say a word about the Katyn tragedy, and according to the logic of the Russian-Polish Goebbels, this should be interpreted as an acquittal to the Soviet Union and its leadership. One cannot but agree with Nobel, who once said: "Any democracy very quickly turns into a dictatorship of scum." The current investigation of the Katyn case by two "big democracies" - Russian and Polish - confirms the validity of the words of the famous Swede.

In these notes, it is impossible not to touch on the role of the Germans in the so-called "investigation" of the Katyn events. This role is almost invisible, but clearly present. After the Poles, or rather, together with them, the Germans are the most interested party in the fact that the responsibility for the execution of Polish officers was assigned to the Soviet Union. They accepted with bated breath and quiet triumph Kwasniewski's pleasurable statement after the meeting with Putin that the "investigation" was over and that the "documents" would soon be handed over to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. The Germans do not forgive anyone and nothing and know how to wait in the wings. They did not forgive the Serbs for their active resistance to the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and in 1989, together with the Americans and the British, furiously and furiously bombed Yugoslav cities and villages. They have not forgiven and will not forgive us the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, and in the subconscious of many of them lives a sizzling hatred for I. Stalin and for us - the Soviet people who broke the back of the Wehrmacht. They are trying to pour out this hatred towards us through their agents of influence. One of their most hidden and most valuable agents of influence in the Soviet Union for many years was Valentin Falin. For us, this person is interesting because it was he who became the person in the Central Committee of the CPSU who launched Goebbels' version of the Katyn tragedy. Falin belonged to the generation of Soviet people who were born successfully - in the very late twenties, early thirties. They were small enough to be at the front, and became old enough so that in the post-war years, with virtually no competition, it was easy to enter and graduate from prestigious universities and quickly move up the career ladder. In 1971-1978. Falin was the USSR ambassador to the FRG, which, taking into account the previous experience of communicating with the West Germans, predetermined his extremely hostile attitude towards the Soviet period in the history of our country. Upon completion of the ambassador's mission to the FRG, Falin was appointed deputy head of the Department of International Information of the Central Committee of the CPSU and began to vigorously "unwind" the "Katyn case" in the interests of the Germans, but Yu. Andropov prevented him, removing him from the Central Committee. For some time he had to be content with the post of political observer for the Izvestia newspaper. His "finest hour" struck in the era of Gorbachev: from 1988 to August 1991 he was the head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and then the secretary of the Central Committee. Since the end of 1991, Falin ended up in Germany: the Germans made sure that he lived comfortably on German soil. I will clarify right away that I did not and do not consider Falin to be some ordinary spy: the Germans did not need him in such a capacity. The main thing they were striving for was to ensure that he looked at the pre-war, military and post-war history of Europe and the world and the role of the Soviet Union through their eyes. Undoubtedly, their great success was that, as a result of numerous private conversations with Falin, including during his seven-year stay as ambassador to the FRG, they managed to convince him that Goebbels' version of the execution of Polish officers in Katyn was correct. And this was the unmistakable step of the Germans, for Falin believed that he had become the owner of "secret Knowledge." As we have already mentioned, his first attempt to launch a slanderous campaign on Katyn from the Central Committee of the CPSU in the interests of Germany failed. But upon his return to the Central Committee in 1988, Falin, with the support of M. Gorbachev, who began to dismantle the socialist camp and destroy socialism under the banner of building a "common European home", was again at the center of the "investigation" of the Katyn case.

Falin's book "Without allowances for circumstances" is very revealing for understanding how our Goebbels fabricated lies about Katyn. Firstly, Falin, who had long since learned the “truth” from the West Germans, concluded that the execution of Polish officers was a crime of Beria and his henchmen, since they were transported by escort troops from Kozelsk to Katyn (indeed, they were transported, but not to execution, but to labor camps). Secondly, Falin admits that, on the basis of some "indirect" evidence, he achieved, together with A.N. Yakovlev, so that Gorbachev would officially apologize to Polish President W. Jaruzelski, and the General, not without hesitation, agreed to "begrate" for imaginary execution officers, followed by short message April 28, 1990 TASS on this subject. Thirdly, there was no notorious "package No. 1" with documents on Katyn, which was allegedly passed from one General to another, did not even exist. Fourthly, neither Gorbachev, nor Yakovlev and Falin, when deciding to apologize to Jaruzelsky, even saw with their eyes what kind of documents were in the Katyn file kept in the KGB archive and what their content was. The homely truth from what Falin said is this: when the head of the KGB, A. Kryuchkov, and his employees finally bothered to look into the Katyn case, they discovered documents testifying to the conviction of Polish officers to imprisonment. Kryuchkov then clutched his head and was forced to report the “mistake” to Gorbachev, who had already “crowed” to the whole world regarding the guilt of the Soviet Union. It was like death for Gorbachev to admit that he had collapsed under the pressure of his comrades-in-arms, Falin and Yakovlev. And the Poles and Germans constantly demand visible documentary evidence that it does not exist, and Gorbachev, in order to somehow get out of the situation, instructs the USSR Prosecutor General's Office to start an “investigation” in the direction confirming his apologies to the Poles.

But having shoveled mountains of mandrels, the GVP investigative team could only state: “The collected materials allow us to draw a preliminary conclusion that Polish prisoners of war could have been shot on the basis of the decision of the Special Meeting of the NKVD ...” No documents on Katyn case, confirming the Goebbels version, except for the numerous notes of Falin and those whom he involved in his provocative fuss, could not be found. This explains the real nonsense of Gorbachev in his letter written in October 1992 to the new President of Poland, L. Walesa, where he states that he opened the envelope with the inscription "do not open" at the very end of his presidential term in December 1991, in the presence of Yeltsin, and invited him to dispose of these documents himself.

Yeltsin's awareness of the Katyn tragedy was zero, but when he saw that with the help of such "documents" it was possible to get even with the "cursed Soviet past", he instructed to voice them. "Package No. 1" in the Katyn case was invented by a greedy and unprincipled pack of archivists and lawyers from Yeltsin's team, falsifying documents. Subsequently, having made sure that the original documents completely refute the Goebbels version, the Yeltsinists began to forge them. Willingly or unwittingly, favorable conditions for falsifying the case about the fate of Polish officers were created at one time by the Soviet leadership itself. 8 post-war Soviet historiography, information on this subject was extremely scarce. The political elite of the USSR did not want to make public the information that on the eve of the war, Polish officers were not in prisoner-of-war camps, but in forced labor camps. In addition, the Poles and Germans were our allies under the Warsaw Pact and fraternal peoples in the socialist camp. To remind about Katyn meant to remind that the Poles were shot by the Germans. We didn't even mention it, and now the blame for the destruction of the Polish officers is being thrown on us through malicious falsification.

In Poland, the so-called union of "Katyn families" has been created and is operating, which has its own administration, banners, banners. This "alliance" has more than 800 thousand people and is a breeding ground for anti-Russian sentiments. It not only cultivates hatred for Russia, but also aims to receive from us huge compensations, similar to what Jews receive from Germany for the "Holocaust". And the goal can be achieved. Back in January 2002, during a visit to Poland, V. Putin said that “he does not exclude the possibility of extending the Russian law on victims to the Poles political repression". That is, V. Putin has long finished the "investigation" of the case of the Polish officers and talks only about what legal norms to adapt for compensation payments. But no matter what schemes they build, all this is one endless lie to attribute the crimes of Hitler, Goebbels, Nazi Germany to us - the winners of European fascism.

The rewriting of history and the global revision of the results of the Second World War are in full swing. In 20-25 years, the Americans will classify all information related to their atomic bombings of Japanese cities, and the whole fooled world, like today's Japanese youth, will point to the still not extinct Russians, as a fiend of the human race, who wanted to destroy the whole world with help nuclear weapons. Fortunately, the glorious American guys from marines. The real Russophobia and real Nazism dominate in the USA, other NATO countries, the Baltic countries. And Putin keeps talking about manifestations of Russian nationalism. He is pursuing a policy in which we, who bore the brunt of the Victory in the Second World War, constantly find ourselves indebted to someone and guilty before someone. Most recently, during a visit to China, he took and gifted the Chinese with primordially Russian lands with an area of ​​340 square kilometers. Now he has swung wider: together with Foreign Minister Lavrov, he is going to give the Japanese two islands of the Kuril chain. Despite Putin's "generosity", the Japanese are bold and declare that they will conclude a peace treaty (we need it as a fifth wheel) only after the transfer of all the islands to them. Next in line is the Kaliningrad region, in German East Prussia. It's obvious to everyone! It is also obvious that the president spits on the Constitution of the Russian Federation, article four of which proclaims that Russian Federation"... ensures the integrity and inviolability of its territory."

The vile falsification of the "Katyn case", carried out by the current regime of the Russian Federation, indicates the greatest danger hanging over our country and our people. Such "stones" are thrown into the past of the USSR-Russia with far-reaching goals. Unfortunately, many of us are not sufficiently aware of this danger and continue to believe the rulers who betrayed us long ago.

Notes

In 1940, more than 20 thousand Polish prisoners of war disappeared without a trace on the territory of the USSR. For a long time it was believed that they were killed by the Nazis. But in 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev declassified part of the documents on the Katyn massacre and handed them over to Poland. The truth shocked both Russians and Poles.

In 1943, during the occupation of the Smolensk region by German troops, mass graves of people in Polish military uniforms were first discovered in the Katyn forest.

Tragedy without witnesses In the 1940s, on one of the islands of Lake Seliger, there was the so-called Ostashkovsky camp, where more than 5 thousand Polish military and police officers were kept. The captives were brought to the USSR after the outbreak of World War II, when the German army and Soviet troops entered Poland, dividing the country. The captured Poles were divided into several camps: Ostashkovsky, Starobelsky and Kozelsky.

In August 1939, a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany was signed in Moscow, which went down in history as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The treaty had a secret appendix about the division of Eastern Europe. On September 1, Germany attacked Poland, and on September 17, units of Soviet troops entered the country. The Polish army ceased to exist.

The Ostashkov camp contained mainly police officers and members of the border troops. Until now, the dam built by them, connecting the island with the mainland, has been preserved. The Poles were here for a little over half a year. In April 1940, the first batches of prisoners of war began to be sent in an unknown direction.

In 1943, near Smolensk, in the town of Katyn, mass graves were discovered. German military medical experts said: the bodies of more than 4 thousand Polish officers were found in the forest in 7 trenches. The exhumation was led by a well-known forensic expert, professor at the University of Breslau Gerhard Butz. He later presented his findings to the International Commission of the Red Cross.

In the spring of 1943, the so-called "Katyn lists" began to appear in Warsaw. Behind them lined up at the newsstands. Every day the lists were replenished with the names of Polish prisoners of war identified during the exhumation.

At the end of 1943, Soviet troops liberated Smolensk region. Soon she began to work in the Katyn forest medical commission under the guidance of the famous Soviet surgeon Nikolai Burdenko. The responsibilities of the commission included the search for evidence that the captured Poles were destroyed by the Germans after the German attack on the USSR.

According to historian Sergei Alexandrov, “the main argument that the Polish officers were shot by the Germans was the discovery of a German-style Walter pistol. And this was the basis of the version that it was the Nazis who destroyed the Poles. In the same period, among the local residents they were looking for those who believed that the Poles were shot by the NKVD units. The fate of these people was sealed.

In 1944, after the end of the work of the Soviet commission in Katyn, a cross was placed with the inscription that Polish prisoners of war, shot by the Nazis in 1941, are buried here. The opening ceremony of the memorial was attended by the Polish military from the Kosciuszko division, who fought on the side of the USSR.

After the end of World War II, Poland entered the socialist bloc. Any discussion of the Katyn topic was banned. At the same time, contrary to the official Soviet monument in Katyn in Warsaw, a place of memory for compatriots appeared. Relatives of the victims had to hold memorial services for a long time in secret from the authorities. The silence dragged on for almost half a century. Many relatives of the executed Polish prisoners of war died without waiting for the truth about the tragedy.

The secret becomes clear Access to the Soviet archives for many years was open only to selected party officials. Most of the documents are marked "Top Secret". In 1990, at the direction of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, this package with materials about the executions in Katyn was handed over to the Polish side. The most valuable of the documents is a note by the head of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Lavrenty Beria, addressed to Stalin, dated April 1940. According to the note, the Polish prisoners of war "tried to continue counter-revolutionary activities", which is why the head of the NKVD of the USSR advised Stalin to sentence all Polish officers to death.

Now it was necessary to find the places of all burials of Polish prisoners of war. Traces led to the city of Ostashkov, next to which the camp was located. Here, the surviving witnesses helped the investigators. They confirmed that the Poles in April 1940 were taken away from the camp along railway. No one else saw them alive. Local residents learned only decades later that prisoners of war were taken to Kalinin.

Opposite the monument to Kalinin in the city is the former building of the regional NKVD. Here Polish prisoners were shot. More than 50 years later, the former head of the local NKVD, Dmitry Tokarev, spoke about this during interrogation to investigators from the Main Military Prosecutor's Office.

During the night, up to 300 people were shot in the basements of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of Kalinin. Everyone was brought into the execution cellar one by one, supposedly to check the data. Here personal belongings and valuables were taken away. Only at that moment did the prisoners begin to guess that they would not come out of here.

During interrogation in 1991, Dmitry Tokarev agreed to draw a map of the route to the place where the bodies of the murdered Polish officers were buried. Here, not far from the village of Mednoye, there was a rest house for the leadership of the NKVD, and nearby was the dacha of Tokarev himself.

In the summer of 1991, excavations began on the territory of the former dachas of the NKVD in the Tver region. A few days later, the first terrible finds were discovered. Polish forensic experts took part in the identification along with Soviet investigators.

New disaster 2010 marked the 70th anniversary of the executions of Polish prisoners of war. On April 7, a mourning ceremony was held in the Katyn Forest, which was attended by relatives of the victims, as well as the prime ministers of Russia and Poland.

Three days later, a plane crash occurred near Katyn. The plane of Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashed near Smolensk while landing. Together with the president, who was hurrying to the funeral ceremony in Katyn, the relatives of the executed prisoners of war also died.

It is too early to put an end to the Katyn case. The search for graves is still ongoing.

Archives reveal the secret: why exactly 22,000 Polish officers were shot in Katyn

The Polish-Soviet war began on April 25, 1920 with an attack by Polish troops. Kiev was captured on May 6. In the occupied regions, the Poles organized reprisals against those who, according to their data, belonged to the Red Army and especially to the communists. At the same time, Jews were equated with communists. "In the Komarovo volost alone, the entire Jewish population, including infants, was slaughtered."

In response to the perpetrated atrocities, desperate resistance arose, and on May 26 the Red Army launched a counteroffensive. On June 12, she liberated the capital of Ukraine, and in mid-August she reached Warsaw and Lvov.

However, as a result of a carefully prepared counterattack by the White Poles and the uncoordinated actions of the Soviet military leaders, the Red Army was forced to retreat with significant human, territorial and material losses.

Not having the strength to continue the war, both sides agreed to a truce on October 12, 1920, and on March 18, 1921, they concluded the Riga Peace Treaty, which consolidated everything incurred Soviet Russia losses. The Polish invaders, led by Marshal Pilsudski, managed to annex to their lands large strategic spaces of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which belonged to Russia until October 1917.

Such an unfair outcome of the war for many years became the cause of tense Soviet-Polish relations, which were supposed to lead at the first opportunity to the restoration of the lost and the punishment of the brutal invaders. What happened in 1939-1940.

The truce of October 12, 1920 was very unfavorable for the then Russia ... and especially for Stalin, who took this defeat as his own.

Strictly speaking, this battle was lost by the future Marshal Tukhachevsky under the military leadership of Trotsky, however, politically, Lenin (as head of the Soviet government) pinned hopes for victory in this war primarily with Stalin. Not only that, the Poles then significantly cut Russian territories in their favor. Even more tragic was the fact that, having captured tens of thousands of the “red guardsmen” most loyal to Stalin (including from the 1st cavalry army of Budyonny), the White Poles condemned them to martyrdom in concentration camps.

Death - from torture, disease, hunger and even thirst ...

There were also civilians among the prisoners, and among them many Jews, whom the White Poles considered the main distributors of the Bolshevik infection.

The Polish and Russian archives, hushed up to this day, contain many ominous confirmations of this Greater Polish conceit. For example, in the lists of prisoners taken to Poznan from Ukraine, among the Soviet employees, there is a boy “Shekhtman Matel, a Jew, a minor, caught red-handed while posting Bolshevik proclamations in Kiev” ... About others sent to Polish concentration camps, it says: “There is no evidence of the guilt of these people . But it is undesirable to leave them free in Poland.” All these are civilians, arrested and taken to prisons and camps in Poland for political reasons. One of them, 15-year-old Bogin, wrote on May 30, 1921: “Suspicious of me belonging to an underground organization, but having no evidence, the Polish authorities interned me. I have been in a military prison for ten months now, the regime of which operates in an oppressive way.”

Modern high-ranking Polish leaders do not talk about such violations of human rights and, perhaps, do not know.

But they cannot forget about the "red revenge" in Katyn!

How many were there?

On June 22, 1920, Piłsudski’s personal secretary K. Switalski wrote: “An obstacle to the demoralization of the Bolshevik army through desertion to our side is the difficult situation as a result of the fierce and merciless destruction of prisoners of war by our soldiers ...”

How many Soviet prisoners of war were shot and tortured by the Poles? Without entering into a discussion of whose figures (Polish or Russian) are more accurate, we will simply give their extreme values ​​indicated by both sides. Russian historians, referring to archival sources, insist on a minimum of 60 thousand people. According to the data prevailing in Poland, this is a maximum of 16-18 thousand. But let there be even fewer Russian victims than the smallest official Polish confessions! And in this case, 8 thousand (according to other sources 22 thousand) shot by the NKVD and Polish officers buried in Katyn fully explain what happened - as Stalin's Katyn retribution! Let me emphasize: they explain - it does not mean that they justify!

Shot in Katyn were primarily officers, gendarmes, who showed sadism against Soviet citizens in 1919-22. Ordinary from the Polish common people (and they were the majority - according to various sources, from 100 to 250 thousand), misled by their lords, basically, avoided execution.

Stalin would not have been Stalin if he had forgotten to the Polish officers their brutal mockery of his, Stalin, "brothers in arms"!

Of course, it would be more correct for those fascist Polish officers to be judged by the Polish people themselves, and not by the NKVD ... (However, the Polish people have every right to do so even today! Especially since Russia, setting an example, has already repented for its fundamental memorial complex in Katyn and ... continues to repent! The queue, as they say, is for Poland ...)

The archives have spoken

For a long time I did not dare to defile the hearing and sight of the Russian and Polish beau monde with what the gentlemen Polish officers did with Russian prisoners. But since my general words about human rights violations aroused obvious distrust and even suspicion of slandering “innocent Polish gendarmes”, I have to cite (for starters!) at least such an “ordinary” specific example from a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Habicht (a Pole who did not lose his conscience) to the head of the Sanitary Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs of Poland, General Gordynsky:

"Mr. General!

I visited the prison camp in Bialystok and now, under the first impression, I dared to turn to Mr. General, as the chief doctor of the Polish troops, with a description of the terrible picture that appears before everyone arriving at the camp ...

In the camp, at every step, dirt, untidiness that cannot be described, neglect and human need, crying out to heaven for retribution. There are heaps of human feces in front of the doors of the barracks, which are trampled and carried throughout the camp by thousands of feet. The sick are so weakened that they cannot go to the latrines; on the other hand, the latrines are in such a state that it is impossible to approach the seats, because the floor is covered with several layers of human feces.

The barracks themselves are overcrowded, among the "healthy" there are a lot of sick people. In my opinion, there are simply no healthy people among those 1400 prisoners. Covered with rags, they huddle together, warming each other. Stench from dysentery patients and gangrene affected, swollen from hunger legs. In the barracks, which were just about to be vacated, among other patients, two especially seriously ill patients lay in their own feces, oozing through shabby trousers, they no longer had the strength to get up to lie down on a dry place on the bunk. What a terrible picture of grief and despair ... Moans are rushing from all sides.

General Gordynsky's note:

“The reader of this report involuntarily comes to mind the words of our immortal prophet Adam (Mickiewicz):

“If a bitter tear did not flow from the stone, prince!”

Is there any kind of control for this and what kind? Or should we, realizing our helplessness, fold our hands and, following Tolstoy's commandment of "non-resistance to evil", be silent witnesses of the sad harvest of death and the devastation that it produces, putting an end to human torment, so long until the last captive and the last soldier of the guard fall asleep in a cemetery grave?

If this were to happen, then it would be better not to take prisoners than to let them die by the thousands from hunger and infection.

And after that, they ask Stalin: how did he dare to arrange the Katyn massacre for the Polish officers who arranged THIS?

However, it would be more accurate to say all the same: Katyn retribution ...

Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the future Red Marshal, whose troops defeated the Poles on the Vistula. Photo taken in 1921.
Photo: RIA Novosti

WHAT LEADED THE GOVERNMENT OF THE USSR BEFORE THE DECISION ON THE SHOOTING OF POLISH OFFICERS IN KATYN IN 1940

Data from closed official Polish and Soviet sources (given in abbreviated form)

First, the documentation:

On October 8, 1939, the People's Commissar of the NKVD, Beria, instructed: under no circumstances should the captured Polish generals, officers and all persons who were in the police and gendarmerie service be released until the investigation established whether they were involved in bullying and destruction (in 1919-1922) prisoners of war of the Red Army and Soviet citizens of Jewish origin (including Ukraine and Belarus)!

On February 22, 1940, Merkulov's special Directive 641/b appeared regarding captured Poles. It said: “By order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Comrade. Beria, I propose all the former jailers, scouts, provocateurs, judicial workers, landowners, etc., who were kept in the Starobelsky, Kozelsky and Ostashkovsky camps of the NKVD. transfer to the investigative units of the UNKVD for investigation.

Addresses and codes of storage of materials from the Polish archives are given in Latin, from the Soviet archives - in Russian.

Ministry of Military Affairs Sanitary Department No. 1215 T.

To the Ministry of Military Affairs, Warsaw

In connection with the increasingly serious and justified accusations and complaints about the situation in the prison camps, repeated from all over the country, in connection with the voices of the foreign press, which is keenly interested in this issue ...

All the reports of the inspection bodies faithfully tell in horror-filled words the fate and life of prisoners who were forced to spend long days of deprivation and bodily and moral torment in the camps, which in many reports of the delegates of the Sanitary Department are called "cemeteries of half-dead and half-naked skeletons", "a hotbed of pestilence and killing people by starvation and want”, which they condemn as “an indelible stain on the honor of the Polish people and army”.

Ragged, covered with torn remains of clothing, dirty, lice-ridden, emaciated and emaciated, the prisoners are a picture of extreme misfortune and despair. Many without shoes and without underwear ...

The thinness of many prisoners eloquently testifies that hunger is their constant companion, a terrible hunger that makes them feed on any greenery, grass, young leaves, etc. Cases of starvation are not something extraordinary, and for other reasons, death gathers its victim in the camp. In the "Bug-Schuppe" 15 prisoners died in the last 2 weeks, and one of them died in front of the commission, and the remnants of undigested grass were visible in the feces given after death.

This sad image of human misfortune...

Due to the lack of ceilings, two huge barracks, capable of accommodating about 1,700 people, stand empty, while the prisoners choke like herrings in a barrel in smaller barracks, partly also without frames and without stoves or only with small room stoves, warming themselves with their own heat.

The prison camp in Pikulitsa became a hotbed of infection, even worse, a cemetery of prisoners

Bolshevik prisoners, dressed in rags, without underwear, without shoes, emaciated like skeletons, they roam like human shadows.

Their daily ration consisted of a small amount of pure, unseasoned broth and a small piece of meat that day. This would be enough, perhaps, for a five-year-old child, and not for an adult. The prisoners receive this dinner after they have been starving all day.

In rain, snow, frost and ice every day, without making the necessary supplies in time, about 200 ragged unfortunates are sent to the forest for firewood, a significant part of which lies on the deathbed the next day.

Systematic killing of people!

In overcrowded wards, patients lie on the floor on shavings. In the ward with 56 patients with dysentery, there is one room closet with one vessel, and since the prisoners do not have the strength to get to the closet, they go under themselves in shavings ... The air in such a room is terrible, finishing off the prisoners. Therefore, every day they die in this infirmary and in the barracks, on average 20 or more.

The camp of prisoners does not want to deal with the burial of corpses, often sends them to the district hospital in Przemysl even without coffins on open carts, like cattle ...

CAW. cabinet minister. I.300.1.402.

5 December1919 G.

Command of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Front Head of Sanitation No. 5974 /IV/ San.

Main office in Warsaw

In the CEP Vilna, there is often no water due to a faulty pump within the camp.

CAW. NDWP. Szefostwo Sanitary. I 301.17.53.

MinistrymilitaryaffairsPoland to the SupremecommandTroopsPolishOarticle (“Is it true?”)Vnewspaper"Couriernew"about abusedesertersfromRedArmy.

Ministry of Military Affairs Presidial Bureau No. 6278/20S. P. II. Pras.

High commandBP

All this was nothing compared to the systematic torture of Latvians. It began with the appointment of 50 blows with a barbed wire rod. Moreover, they were told that the Latvians as "Jewish hirelings" would not leave the camp alive. More than ten prisoners died due to blood poisoning. Then, for three days, the prisoners were left without food and forbidden under the threat of death to go out for water ... Many died due to illness, cold and hunger.

CAW. OddzialIVNDWP. 1.301. 10.339.

INNKIDRSFSRabout bullyingPolishtroops over prisonersthe Red ArmyAndpartisans

To the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs

In forwarding this note about the atrocities of the Polish White Guards, I inform you that I received this information from the most reliable source.

It seems to me that this cannot be left without protest.

G.L. Shkilov

7/ II1920.

Atrocities of the Polish Whites

Among the victims - the assistant to the head of the detachment, comrade, who was wounded in battle. The mustache, whom the bandits overtook, first gouged out his eyes and killed him. The wounded secretary of the Rudobelsky executive committee, comrade Gashinsky, and the clerk Olkhimovich were taken away by the Poles, and the latter was brutally tortured, and then tied to a cart and forced to bark like a dog. ... After that, reprisals began against the families of partisans, Soviet workers and peasants in general. First of all, they burned the house of Comrade Levkov's father in the village of Karpilovka, and then set fire to the village ... The same fate befell the villages of Kovaly and Dubrova, which were completely burned down. Families of partisans are almost without exception slaughtered. Up to a hundred people were thrown into the fire during the fire. Women were raped, starting from minors (one four-year-old girl was named among them). Victims of violence were pinned with bayonets. The dead were not allowed to be buried. On January 19, on Epiphany, during a service in the surviving church in the village of Karpilovka, the Poles threw 2 bombs there, and when the peasants began to scatter in a panic, they opened fire on them. The priest also got hurt: his property was looted, and he himself was thoroughly beaten, saying: "You are a Soviet priest."

WUA RF. F. 122. Op. 3. P. 5. D. 19. L. 8-9, 9v.

FrommemorandummilitaryAndcivilprisonersVPolish prisons

Tov. David Tsamtsiev reports on the massacre in the village of Grichin, Samokhvalovichi volost, Minsk district, over captured Red Army soldiers. The regiment commander ordered to gather all the inhabitants of the village. When they gathered, they brought out the arrested with their hands tied back and ordered the inhabitants to spit and beat them. The beating by those who had gathered lasted about 30 minutes. Then, after finding out their identity (it turned out that there were Red Army soldiers of the 4th Warsaw Hussars), the unfortunates were completely naked and began to abuse them. Whips and ramrods were used. Having poured water three times, when the arrested were already near death, they were placed in a ditch and shot, also inhumanely, so that even some parts of the body were completely torn off.

Tov. Tsamtsiev was arrested along with a friend not far from the Mikhanovichi station and sent to headquarters. “There, in the presence of officers, they beat me anywhere and with anything, doused me with cold water and sprinkled with sand. This abuse continued for about an hour. Finally, the chief inquisitor appeared, the brother of the regiment commander, staff captain Dombrovsky, who, like an angry beast, rushed and began to beat him in the face with an iron rod. Having stripped naked and searched, he ordered the soldiers to spread us out, pulling our arms and legs, and give us 50 with a whip. I don’t know if we wouldn’t be lying in the ground now if the cry “commissar, commissar” had not distracted their attention. A well-dressed Jew named Khurgin, originally from the town of Samokhvalovichi, was brought in, and although the unfortunate man assured that he was not a commissar and that he had not served anywhere at all, all his assurances and pleas came to nothing: he was stripped naked and immediately shot and abandoned, saying that a Jew is not worthy of burial on Polish soil...

T. Kuleshinsky-Kowalsky was brought to the hospital, who had already lost his human appearance. The arms and legs were swollen... It was impossible to make out parts of it on the face. There were wires in the nostrils, also in the tips of the ears. With great difficulty he pronounced his last name. Nothing more could be obtained from him. As they put me in bed, I lay like a nightstand - to death. A few days later, a rumor spread that a commission was coming from Warsaw to inspect the prison, and that very night counterintelligence agents appeared and, after many tortures, strangled him.

It was one of our best comrades left for underground work in Minsk.”

Tov. Vera Vasilyeva writes about the torture of a young vedochka (healer), comrade Zuymach: “Comrade. Zuymach was taken out of prison at night, as if to be shot, brought to the gendarmerie, beaten, put to the wall and pointed the muzzle of a revolver at her, shouting: “Confess, then we will spare, otherwise there are only a few minutes left to live.” They were forced to write dying farewell letters to relatives. They ordered to put the head on the table and ran a cold blade of checkers over the neck, saying that the head would fly off if it was not recognized. When she was returned to prison, she was shaking all night, as if in a fever ... She, one might say, is still a child, and her head was already covered with gray hair. Finally, naked and barefoot, she was sent to the camp...

Tov. Epstein writes: “Drunken detectives enter the cell and beat anyone. Women are beaten just like men. They beat fiercely, mercilessly. For example, Goldin was beaten with a log on the head and sides. They use revolvers, whips, iron springs, and various other instruments of torture...”

In Bobruisk prison, the same thing was done as in Minsk.

Tov.X. Khaimovich reports: “The Bobruisk gendarmerie, having arrested me, interrogated me twice a day, and each time they beat me mercilessly with butts and whips. Investigator Eismont inflicted beatings and called the gendarmes to his aid. Such torture continued for 14 days.

When I fainted, they poured cold water over me and continued to beat me until the torturers got tired. Once, in the gendarmerie, my hands were tied and hung from the ceiling. Then they beat me with anything. They took him out of town to be shot, but for some reason they didn’t shoot him.”

Tov. Giler Wolfson reports that after his arrest in Glusk on 6 September in prison, he was stripped naked and beaten with whips on his naked body.

Tov. Georgy Knysh reports: “They brought me to the gendarmerie, they mocked me, beat 40 pieces with whips, I don’t remember how many butts, ramrods - 6 pieces - in the heels; they tried to prick their nails, but then they left ... "

From the statement of the hostages.

We were escorted from prison under heavy escort, and if relatives or acquaintances turned to any of the departing with any conversation, the gendarmes uttered the most selective curses, threatened with weapons and even beat some, as, for example, the gendarme hit Iosif Shakhnovich for he walked carelessly, according to the gendarme.

The treatment by the gendarmes along the way was terrible, they didn’t let anyone out of the car for two days, they forced them to clean the dirty cars with hats, towels or anything else, if the arrested refused, they forced them by force, as, for example, the gendarme hit Libkovich Peisakh in the face because he refused to clean the dirt in the restroom with his hands ...

RGASPI.F.63. Op.1 D.198. L.27-29.

Command of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Front

№3473/ San.

Major of the Medical Service Dr. Bronislaw Hackbeil

Deputy head of sanitation

Report

Prisoner camp at the collection station for prisoners - this is a real dungeon. No one took care of these unfortunates, so it is not surprising that a person unwashed, undressed, poorly fed and placed in unsuitable conditions as a result of infection was doomed only to death.

The current commandant of the prison camp resolutely refuses to feed them. Next to them, in free barracks, there are entire families of refugees ... Women with venereal diseases infect both military and civilians ...

CAW. Oddzial IV NDWP. I.301.10.343.

StatementsreturnedfromcaptivityA. P. Matskevich, M.FridkinAndPetrova

Andrei Prokhorovich Matskevich

The first duty was a general search... For example, I received only two slaps in the face, while other comrades, such as Bashinkevich and Mishutovich, were beaten not only in the carriage, but even on the field, when we were escorted from Bialystok to the camps... Everyone when we were taken out of the city to Bialystok, they stopped us in the field only to beat Bashinkevich and Mishutovich a second time.

1920: The Poles lead captured Red Army soldiers.

Some time later, the Jewish community sent us a hot lunch from Bialystok, but our escorts did not let us have lunch, and those who brought it were beaten with rifle butts.

The food in the camps is given out in such a way that not one of the most healthy man will not be able to survive more or less long time. It consists of a small portion of black bread, weighing about 1/2 pound, one shard a day of soup, which looks more like slop than soup, and boiling water.

These slops, called soup, were served unsalted. On the basis of hunger and cold, diseases reached incredible proportions. There is no medical assistance, and the neighborhood exists only on paper. Dozens of people die every day. In addition to starvation, many die from beatings by barbarian gendarmes. One Red Army soldier (I don’t remember his last name) was beaten so badly by a corporal in the barracks with a stick that he was unable to get up and stand on his feet. The second, a certain comrade Zhilintsky, received 120 rods and was placed in the okolodok. T. Lifshits (former chairman of the trade union of art workers in Minsk) died completely after various tortures. Fain, a very old man, a native and resident of the Pleschenichskaya volost, Borisov district, was daily subjected to torture in the form of cutting off his beard with a cleaver, striking his naked body with a bayonet, marching at night in one linen frost between barracks, etc.

M. Fridkina

We were taken to the Brest-Litovsk camp. The commandant turned to us with the following speech: “You Bolsheviks wanted to take our lands away from us, all right, I’ll give you land. I have no right to kill you, but I will feed you in such a way that you yourself will die! And indeed, despite the fact that we had not received bread for two days before, we didn’t get this that day either, we ate only potato peels, sold the last shirts for a piece of bread, the legionnaires pursued us for this and, seeing how they collect or they boiled this husk, dispersed it with whips, and those who, due to weakness, did not run away in time, were beaten half to death.

For 13 days we did not receive bread, on the 14th day, it was at the end of August, we received about 4 pounds of bread, but very rotten, moldy; everyone, of course, greedily pounced on him, and the diseases that had existed before that time intensified: the sick were not treated, and they died by the dozens. In September 1919, up to 180 people died. in a day…

Petrova

In Bobruisk there were up to 1600 captured Red Army soldiers, most of them completely naked ...

Chairman Budkevich

RGASPI. F. 63. Op. 1. D. 198. L. 38-39.

Reportabout inspectioncampsStrzalkovo

19/ IX-20 g.

They are buried in the cemetery, not far from the camp, naked and without coffins.

RGASPI. F.63.Op.1.D.199.L.8-10.

Main sorting room for the sick and wounded of the Polish Army

Report

To the Hygiene Section of the Sanitary Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs

According to the chief, the prisoners give the impression of being very exhausted and hungry, as they break out of the cars, look for leftover food in the garbage and greedily eat potato peels that they find on the tracks.

S. Gilevich, Major of Medical Service

Head of the main sorting of the sick and wounded of the Polish Army

CAW. OddzialIVNDWP. 1.301.10.354.

Bacteriological Department of the Military Sanitary Council

№ 405/20

To the Sanitary Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs,IVsection, Warsaw

All prisoners give the impression of being extremely hungry, since straight out of the ground they rake and eat raw potatoes, collect in the dumps and eat all kinds of waste, such as: bones, cabbage leaves, etc.

Dr. Shimanovsky, Lieutenant Colonel of the Medical Service,

Head of bacteriological department

Military Sanitary Council

CAW. MS Wojsk. Dep.Zdrowia.I.300.62.31.

The result of the inspection of the camps of our prisoners of war in Poland.

90% are completely naked, naked, and covered only with rags and paper mattresses. They sit crouched on the bare boards of the bunk. They complain of insufficient and bad food and bad treatment.

RGASPI. F.63.Op.1.D.199.L.20-26.

to the High Command.

section of prisoners. Warsaw.

The command of the Warsaw General District - a copy.

The main causes of the disease are the prisoners eating various raw cleanings and the complete absence of shoes and clothes.

Malevich. Modlin Fortified Area Command

CAW. OddzialIVNDWP. I.301.10.354.

DelegateconnectionsRVSWesternfrontRedArmy at18- thdivisionsTroopsPolish Comrade PostnekOvisiting prisoners of warRed Army soldiers.

Report

The sick, completely naked and barefoot, are so emaciated that they can barely stand on their feet and then their whole body is shaking. Many, when they saw me, cried like children. Each room accommodates 40-50 people, they lie on top of each other.

4-5 people die every day. All without exception from exhaustion.

GARF.F.R-3333.Op.2.D.186.L.33

ProtocolinterrogationValuevIN. IN. - a Red Army soldier who escaped from Polish captivity

Communists, command staff of commissars and Jews were chosen from our staff, and right there, in front of all the Red Army soldiers, one Jewish commissar (I don’t know his last name and part) was beaten and then immediately shot. Our uniforms were taken away from us, those who did not immediately follow the orders of the legionnaires were beaten to death, and when they fell unconscious, then the legionnaires dragged the boots and uniforms from the beaten Red Army soldiers by force. After we were sent to the Tuchol camp. There lay the wounded, not bandaged for whole weeks, their wounds wormed. Many of the wounded died, 30-35 people were buried every day.

RGASPI. F. 63. Op. 1. D. 198. L. 40-41.

RepresentativeRussiansocietiesRedCross StephanieSempolovskayaPolishsocietyRedCross on bullyingcapturedcommunistsAndJews inPolishcampsStrzalkovo, rottenAndDombe

Exceptional laws against Jews and "communists" in prison camps

In the camps in Strzalkovo, Tucholi, Domba, Jews and "communists" are kept separately and are deprived of a number of rights enjoyed by other categories of prisoners. They are kept in the worst quarters, always in "dugouts", completely devoid of straw bedding, dressed worst of all, almost without shoes (in Tukholi, almost all Jews were barefoot on 16/XI, while shod ones predominate in other barracks).

These two groups have the worst moral attitude - most complaints about beatings and ill-treatment.

In Strzalkovo, the authorities simply stated that it would be best to shoot these groups.

During the lighting in the camp, the barracks of Jews and communists were left without lighting.

Even in Tucholi, where in general the attitude towards prisoners is better, Jews and communists complained about beatings.

From Dombe, I also receive complaints about the treatment of Jews - the beating of Jewish men and Jewish women and violation of the norms of decency by soldiers when bathing Jewish women.

The communists also complained that during a short walk, officers commanded him to lie down and stand up 50 times.

In addition, I was complained that when Jewish communities send donations for Jews to Strzalkovo, they are not always distributed to Jews.

CAW. 1772/89/1789pt.l

Telegram to A.A. Ioffe Comrade Chicherin, Polburo, Tsentroevak.

The situation of prisoners in the Strzhalkovo camp is especially difficult.

The death rate among prisoners of war is so great that, if it does not decrease, they will all die out within six months.

In the same regime as the communists, they keep all the captured Jews of the Red Army, keeping them in separate barracks. Their regime is deteriorating due to the anti-Semitism cultivated in Poland. Ioffe

RGASPI. F. 63. Op. 1. D. 199. L. 31-32.

From a telegramG. IN. ChicherinaA. A. IoffeOposition of the Red ArmyVPolishcaptivity.

Ioffe, Riga

In the Komarovo volost alone, the entire Jewish population was slaughtered, including infants.

Chicherin

RGASPI. F. 5. Op. 1. D. 2000. L. 35.

Chairman of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation A.Ioffe

Chairman of the Polish delegation J. Dombsky

In the same conditions as the communists, all captured Red Army Jews are kept.

In Domba, there were cases of prisoners of war being beaten by officers of the Polish army; in Zlochev, prisoners were beaten with whips made of iron wire from electric wires.

In the Bobruisk prison, one prisoner of war was forced to clean the latrine with his hands, when he took a shovel, because he did not understand the order given in Polish, the legionnaire hit him on the arm with a butt, which made him unable to raise his arms for 3 weeks.

Instructor Myshkina, taken prisoner near Warsaw, testified that she was raped by two officers who beat her and took away her clothes ...

Topolnitskaya, a Red Army field theater performer, captured near Warsaw, testifies that she was interrogated by drunken officers; she claims that she was beaten with rubber bands and hung from the ceiling by her legs.

Not allowing even the thought of the possibility of such conditions of existence for Polish prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine, even on the basis of reciprocity, the Russian and Ukrainian Governments, nevertheless, if the Polish Government fails to take the necessary measures, will be forced to apply repressions to Polish prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine.

Ioffe

WUA RF. F. 122. Op. 4. D. 71. P. 11. L. 1-5.

RGASPI. F. 5. Op. 1. D. 2001. L. 202-204

Soviet commission for prisoners of war

(Excerpts from a letter)

Two Jews were taken from under arrest to the room of the Polish soldiers, where they were thrown blankets over their heads and beaten with whatever they could, to the accompaniment of singing and dancing, in order to drown out the screams of those being beaten.

The fact remains that in addition to the mighty influence of the Owls. No one can help Russia through repressions against Polish officers.

Watering the fields inside the camp with sewage ...

In the last epidemic of typhus and dysentery, up to 300 people died in the Strzhalkov camp. per day, of course, without any help, because they did not even have time to bury them: the constantly replenished gravediggers did not have time to fulfill their duty once they died. In the dead, the corpses lay in piles, eaten by rats, and the serial number of the list of the buried exceeded the 12th thousand, while during the entire time of the German war it reached only 500.

The chronic absence of dressing materials forced the surgical department not to do dressings for 3-4 weeks. The result is a mass of gangrene and amputations.

Dies from typhus and cholera 80-190 people. daily. Patients are placed two by two on the bed, there is an exchange of diseases. Due to the lack of places, patients are discharged the next day after the temperature drops. New attacks - and the result: in the dead to the ceiling of corpses and mountains around it. The corpses lie for 7-8 days.

Graves were dug in the frozen ground, two shovels deep. There are thousands of such graves.

WUA RF.F.384.Op.1.D.7.P.2.L.38-43 rev.

Camp survey results

In the Shchelkovo camp, prisoners of war are forced to carry their own feces instead of horses. They carry plows and harrows.

WUA RF.F.0384.Op.8.D.18921.P.210.L.54-59.

WUA RF.F.0122.Op.5.D.52.P.105a.L.61-66.

Report of Moisei Yakovlevich Klibanov, who returned from Polish captivity

As a Jew, I was persecuted at every turn.

24/5-21 years. Minsk.

RGASPI. F.63.Op.1.D.199.L.48-49.

Report of Ilya Tumarkin, who returned from Polish captivity

First of all: when we were taken prisoner, the felling of the Jews began, and he got rid of death by some strange accident. The next day we were driven on foot to Lublin, and this crossing was a real Golgotha ​​for us. The bitterness of the peasants was so great that little boys threw stones at us. Accompanied by curses and scolding, we arrived in the city of Lublin at the feeding point, and here the most shameless beating of Jews and Chinese began ...

RGASPI.F.63.Op.1.D.199.L.46-47.

From the statement of captured Red Army soldiers

former camp Strzhalkovo

now the 125th working department. Warsaw citadel

The prisoners in the camp were stripped of all clothing, dressed in Adam's costumes...

He (Lieutenant Malinovsky), as a sadist, corrupted morally, was pleased with our torments of hunger, cold and illness. Besides that, por. Malinovsky walked around the camp, accompanied by several corporals who had wire whips in their hands, and who he liked ordered to lie down in the ditch, and the corporals beat as much as was ordered; if the beaten groaned or asked for mercy, then. Malinovsky took out a revolver and shot.

If the sentries (posterunks) shot the prisoners of war. Malinovsky gave 3 cigarettes and 25 Polish marks as a reward. Repeatedly it was possible to observe such phenomena: a group led by pores. Malinovsky climbed onto machine-gun towers and from there fired at defenseless people, driven like a herd behind a fence

Genuine signed:

Martinkevich Ivan, Kurolapov, Zhuk, Posakov,

Vasily Bayubin

WUA RF. F. 384. Op. 1. P. 2. D. 6. L. 58-59 with ob.

Mr. Chairman of the Polish Delegation

Russian-Ukrainian-Polish Mixed Commission

There were cases when prisoners of war were not released from the barracks for 14 hours, people were forced to send their natural needs to pots, from which they then have to eat ...

WUA RF. F. 188. Op. 1. P. 3. D. 21. L. 214-217.

SupremeemergencycommissionerBywrestling affairsWithepidemicsColonel of Medical Service Prof. Dr.E. GodlevskymilitaryMinister of PolandTO. SosnkovskyOprisoners of warXVPulawachAndWadowice

Top secret

Mr. Minister!

I consider it my duty of conscience to bring to the attention of Mr. Minister my observations, which I made in some of the camps and places of deployment of prisoners of war I visited. I am compelled to do so by the feeling that the situation there is simply inhuman and contrary not only to all requirements of hygiene, but of culture in general.

Here are the facts: during my stay in Puławy on Sunday, November 28, I was informed that in the bathhouse that the Commissariat for Combating Epidemics had installed in the local barracks, several prisoners were dying every day. Therefore, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, accompanied by the doctors Captain Dr. Dadej and Lieutenant Dr. Wujcicki, I went to the indicated bathhouse and found a corpse on the table used for folding things, next to which other prisoners were undressing for bathing. In another room of the same bath, a second corpse lay in the corner, and two people in agony. The prisoners in the bath were trembling in their appearance: to such an extreme they were starved, emaciated and exhausted.

The head of the camp, Major Khlebovsky, in a conversation with me, said that the prisoners were so unbearable that "from the dung heap that is in the camp" they constantly choose potato peelings to eat them: therefore he was forced to put a guard near the manure. However, he argues that this is not enough, and believes that it will be necessary to surround this dunghill with barbed wire - to protect the cleanings thrown there.

There were 4 days during which people were not given food at all.

It is absolutely unacceptable that dying people be dragged to the bathhouse, and the corpses then taken to hospital beds for the sick.

It is necessary to feed the prisoners better, because the situation that exists now, for example in Puławy, simply means starvation of the people we have taken prisoner. If the former situation continues there, then, as it clearly follows from the above figures, in 111 days everyone in the Puławy camp will die out.

... I ask you to believe, Mr. Minister, that the motive of this letter was not a desire to criticize the military authorities or your government. I know very well that various difficult trials for people are connected with the concept of war, I have been watching them for 6 years now. But as a Pole and a person who has been working in the oldest Polish school for 19 years, I perceive with pain what I see in our camps of prisoners who are unarmed and today they can no longer harm us.

CAW. Oddzial I Sztabu MSWojskowych. 1.300.7.118.

№ 1462 inf. III. C.1/2 22

In the office of the minister of military affairs

... The camp in Tukholi, called the “death camp” by the internees, is especially famous (about 22,000 prisoners of the Red Army died in this camp).

BossIIDepartment of the General Staff Matushevsky, lieutenant colonel attached to the General Staff.

CAW. Oddzial II SG. I.303.4.2477.

P. S. Was it not this recognition of a high-ranking Polish official that turned out to be the reason for the retaliatory measures of the USSR Government, when in 1940 (according to documents recently declassified by the Kremlin) exactly22005 Polish officers?!

(These and other unknown materials about Stalin’s time will see the light in the book “STALIN and CHRIST”, which I promised, which will be an unexpected continuation of the book “HOW STALIN WERE KILLING”. A new book wouldn't make sense)

So who shot the Poles in Katyn? Our enkavedeshniki in the spring of 1940 - according to the current Russian leadership, or still the Germans in the fall of 1941 - as I found out at the turn of 1943-1944. a special commission headed by the Chief Surgeon of the Red Army N. Burdenko, the results of the examination of which were included in the indictment of the Nuremberg Tribunal?

In the book “Katyn. A Lie That Became History”, its authors, Elena Prudnikova and Ivan Chigirin, tried to impartially, on the basis of documents, understand one of the most complex and confusing stories of the last century. And they came to a disappointing - for those who are ready to force Russia to repent for this "crime" - conclusion.

« If the reader remembers the first part (of the book) - write, in particular, the authors - then the Germans easily determined the ranks of the executed. How? And the insignia! Both in the report of Dr. Butz, and in some of the testimonies, stars are mentioned on the shoulder straps of the dead. But, according to the Soviet regulation on prisoners of war of 1931, they were forbidden to wear insignia. So shoulder straps with asterisks could not have been on the uniforms of prisoners shot by the NKVD in 1940. Wearing insignia in captivity was allowed only by the new Regulations adopted on July 1, 1941. It was also allowed by the Geneva Convention».

It turns out that our enkavedeshniki could not shoot captured Poles crowned with signs in 1940 military distinction that were found along with the remains of those killed. This could not be simply because these same insignia were torn off from all prisoners of war. There were no captured generals, captured officers or captured privates in our POW camps: according to their status, they were all simply prisoners, without insignia.

And this means that the Poles with "asterisks" could be executed by the NKVD only after 1 July 1941. But they, as Goebbels' propaganda announced in the spring of 1943 (a version of which was later picked up in Poland with slight variations, and now the leadership of Russia agreed with it), were shot back in 1940. Could this happen? In Soviet military camps - definitely not. But in German camps, this (the execution of prisoners marked with military distinctions) was, one might say, the norm: after all, Germany had already acceded (unlike the USSR) to the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War.

The well-known publicist Anatoly Wasserman cites in his blog a remarkable document from an article by Daniil Ivanov “Did the non-signing of the Geneva Convention by the USSR affect the fate of Soviet prisoners of war?”:

“CONCLUSION OF THE CONSULTANT MALITSKY ON THE DRAFT RESOLUTION OF THE CEC AND SNK OF THE USSR “REGULATION ON PRISONERS OF WAR
Moscow, March 27, 1931

On July 27, 1929, the Geneva Conference worked out a convention on the maintenance of prisoners of war. The government of the USSR did not take part either in drawing up this convention or in its ratification. Instead of this convention, the present Regulations have been developed, the draft of which was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on March 19, 2009. G.

This draft provision is based on three ideas:
1) create a regime for our prisoners of war that would not be worse than the regime of the Geneva Convention;
2) issue, if possible, a brief law that does not reproduce the details of all those guarantees that the Geneva Convention gives, so that these details form the subject of instructions executing the law;
3) to formulate the issue of prisoners of war in accordance with Soviet principles of law (the inadmissibility of benefits for officers, the optional involvement of prisoners of war in work, etc.).

Thus, this Regulation is based in general on the same principles as the Geneva Convention, such as: the prohibition of ill-treatment of prisoners of war, insults and threats, the prohibition of using coercive measures to obtain information of a military nature from them, granting them civil legal capacity and disseminating on them general laws countries, the prohibition to use them in the war zone, etc.

However, in order to harmonize this Regulation with the general principles of Soviet law, the Regulation introduces the following differences from the Geneva Convention:
a) there are no benefits for officers, indicating the possibility of keeping them separately from other prisoners of war (Article 3);
b) the extension of civil rather than military regime to prisoners of war (Articles 8 and 9);
c) granting political rights to prisoners of war belonging to the working class or not exploiting the labor of the peasantry, to common grounds with other foreigners on the territory of the USSR (Article 10);
d) providing [opportunities] for prisoners of war of the same nationality, if they wish, to be placed together;
e) the so-called camp committees acquire broader camp competence, having the right to freely communicate with all bodies to represent all the interests of prisoners of war in general, and not only limit themselves to receiving and distributing parcels, the functions of a mutual benefit fund (Article 14);
f) prohibition to wear insignia and non-indication of the rules of saluting (Article 18);
g) prohibition of branching (art. 34);
h) the appointment of salaries not only for officers, but for all prisoners of war (Art. 32);
i) the involvement of prisoners of war in work only with their consent (Article 34) and with the application to them of the general legislation on labor protection and working conditions (Article 36), as well as the distribution of wages to them in an amount not lower than that existing in the given locality for the relevant category of workers, etc.

Taking into account that this bill establishes a regime for the maintenance of prisoners of war no worse than the Geneva Convention, that therefore the principle of reciprocity can be extended without prejudice to both the USSR and individual prisoners of war, that the number of articles of the provision is reduced to 45 instead of 97 in the Geneva Convention that the principles of Soviet law are carried out in the Regulation, there are no objections to the adoption of this bill.

So, to summarize Anatoly Wasserman, another published by the Germans themselves material evidence of the impossibility of dating the execution of Polish prisoners in 1940. And since in July-August 1941, the Soviet law enforcement agencies obviously had neither the need nor the technical ability to destroy and bury thousands of Polish prisoners, the obvious was once again confirmed: the Germans themselves shot the Polish prisoners no earlier than the autumn of 1941.

Recall that for the first time the mass graves of Poles in the Katyn Forest were announced in 1943 by the Germans who occupied these territories. An international commission convened by Germany conducted an examination and concluded that the executions were carried out by the NKVD in the spring of 1940.

After the liberation of Smolensk land from the invaders, the Burdenko Commission was created in the USSR, which, after conducting its own investigation, came to the conclusion that the Poles were shot in 1941 by the Germans. At the Nuremberg Tribunal, the deputy chief Soviet prosecutor, Colonel Yu.V. Pokrovsky, presented a detailed accusation in the Katyn case, based on the materials of the Burdenko commission and laying the blame for organizing the executions on the German side. True, the Katyn episode was not included in the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal itself, but it is present in the indictment of the Tribunal.

And here is this version Katyn massacre was official in the USSR until 1990, when Gorbachev took, and acknowledged the responsibility of the NKVD for their deeds. And this version of the Katyn events has since become modern Russia official. An investigation conducted in 2004 into the Katyn case by the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation confirmed the death sentences of 14,542 Polish prisoners of war by the "NKVD troika" and reliably established the death of 1,803 people and the identity of 22 of them. Russia continues to repent for Katyn and transfers to Poland all new declassified documents on these events.

True, these "documents", as it turned out recently, may very well turn out to be fake. The late State Duma deputy Viktor Ivanovich Ilyukhin, who was closely involved in restoring the truth in the “Katyn case” (for which, quite possibly, he paid with his life), told KM.RU how an “unnamed source” approached him (however, as Viktor Ivanovich clarified, for him this source is not only “named”, but also credible), who personally participated in the falsification of state archival data. Ilyukhin presented KM TV with blank forms of documents given to him by the source, corresponding to the late 1930s - early 1940s. The source bluntly stated that he and a group of other persons falsified documents on the Stalinist period of history, and on such forms.

« I can tell that these are absolutely real blanks- said Ilyukhin, - including those used by the 9th Directorate of the NKVD / NKGB at that time". Even the corresponding typewriters of the time, which were used in the central party institutions and state security organs, were provided in this group.

Victor Ilyukhin also presented several samples of stamps and seals such as “Classified”, “Special folder”, “Keep forever”, etc. Experts confirmed to Ilyukhin that the stamps and seals that produced these impressions were made in the period after 1970- x years. " Until the end of the 1970s. the world did not know such a technique for making these fake stamps and seals, and our forensic science also did not know", - said Ilyukhin. According to him, the opportunity to produce such prints appeared only at the turn of the 1970-80s. " This is also the Soviet period, but already completely different, and they were made, as that stranger explained, in the late 1980s - early 1990s, when the country was already ruled by Boris Yeltsin ", - Ilyukhin noted.

From the conclusions of the experts, it followed that various stamps, cliches, etc. were used in the preparation of documents on the "Katyn case". However, according to Ilyukhin, not all stamps and seals were fake, there were also genuine ones that "got, as they say by inheritance when in August 1991 they stormed and entered the building of the Central Committee, and found a lot there. There were both clichés and clichés; I must say that a lot of documents were also found. Documents that are not filed, but were in folders; all this was scattered in a disorderly state. Our source said that then all this was brought into line in order to later, along with genuine documents, put false documents into the case.

Such, in brief, is the current state of the Katyn affair. The Poles demand more and more "documentary" evidence of the guilt of the then Soviet leadership in the Katyn "crime". Well, the leadership of Russia is meeting these wishes, declassifying more and more archival documents. Which, as it turns out, are fakes.

In the light of all this, at least two fundamental questions arise.
First concerns directly Katyn and Russian-Polish relations. Why is the voice of those who (very reasoned, by the way) exposes the current official version, is not taken into account by the Russian leadership? Why not conduct an objective investigation of all the circumstances revealed in connection with the investigation of the Katyn case? Moreover, the recognition by Russia as the legal successor of the USSR of responsibility for Katyn threatens us with astronomical financial claims.
well and second the issue is even more important. After all, if during an objective investigation it is confirmed that state archives(at least their smallest part) are forged, then this puts an end to the legitimacy of the current government of Russia. It turns out that she stood at the helm of the country in the early 1990s with the help of a forgery. How then can you trust her?

As you can see, in order to resolve these issues, it is required to conduct an OBJECTIVE investigation of the materials on the Katyn case. But the current Russian government does not intend to conduct such an investigation.