Katyn

Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth

Allen Paul

• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Year: 2010
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781609090500
• Subtopic: Eastern European History
• Index: History

Twenty years ago, Allen Paul wrote the first post-communist account of one of the greatest but least-known tragedies of the twentieth century: Stalin's annihilation of Poland's officer corps and massive deportation of so-called "bourgeoisie elements" to Siberia. Today, these brutal events are symbolized by one word: Katyn, a crime that still bitterly divides Poles and Russians. Paul's richly updated account covers Russian attempts to recant their admission of guilt for the murders in Katyn Forest and includes recently translated documents from Russian military archives, eyewitness accounts of two perpetrators, and secret official minutes published here for the first time that confirm that U.S. government cover-up of the crime continued long after the war ended. Paul's masterful narrative recreates what daily life was like for three Polish families amid momentous events of World War II—from the treacherous Nazi-Soviet invasion in 1939 to a rigged election in 1947 that sealed Poland's doom. The patriarch of each family was among the Polish officers personally ordered by Stalin to be shot. One of the families suffered daily repression under the German General Government. Like thousands of other Poles, two of the families were deported to Siberia, where they nearly died from forced labor, starvation, and neglect. Through painstaking research, the author reconstructs the lives of these families including such stories as a miraculous escape on the last transport of Poles leaving Russia and a mother's daring ski trek over the Carpathian Mountains to rescue a daughter she had not seen in six years. At the heart of the drama is the Poles' uncommon belief in "victory in defeat"—that their struggles made them strong and that freedom and independence, inevitably, would be regained.

Index

Ahrens, Friedrich, 211, 335

Air Challenge, 9

Alma-Ata, 198–99

Altai Mountains, 196

Anders, Władysław, 61, 128, 171, 173–78, 180–82, 186–89, 215, 219, 245, 255, 260, 286, 291, 301, 310, 331, 336, 343, 346, 352, 358

Angerman, Karol, 357

Anglo-Polish Mutual Assistance Pact, 8, 15, 30, 104

Anscombe, Fred, 266

Anti-Comintern Pact, 15

Antigas Institute, 72

Armia Krajowa. See Home Army

Associated Press, 231, 261–62, 411

Atlantic Charter, 171, 289

Auschwitz, 87, 115, 191, 209, 354

Bakoń, Juliusz, 74, 240–41

Baku oil fields, 78, 105

Banach, Stefan, 101

Barbarossa, Operation. See Germany

Barbarossa, Frederick, 18, 21

Beck, Józef, 7–9, 14–15, 38, 75–76, 104, 246

Beck, Oscar, 281

Beck, Werner, 277–82, 304–05, 311, 351

Belarus (see also Byelorussia), 346, 362–63

Belgium, 25

Berchtesgaden, 21

Beria, Lavrenty, 114, 144, 264

Berlin Diary (Shirer), 16

Berling, Zygmunt, 125–26, 144–45, 178, 206, 264–65, 289, 346

Biddle, Drexel, 229

Bierut, Bolesław, 319–21, 332

Bissell, Clayton, 314–16, 338

blitzkrieg of Poland. See Case White

Boehm, Hermann, 21

Bohaterewicz, Bronisław, 215

Bohusz-Szyszko, Zygmunt, 184

Bolesławicz, Iwa, 13, 301

Bolesławicz, Marian, 13, 85, 301

Bormann, Martin, 21

Bór-Komorowski, Tadeusz, 68, 294, 340

Brandenburg Death March, 356

Breslau, 212, 277, 279–80, 282

Brest Litovsk, 34, 38, 57, 82

Britain (see also Churchill, Winston), 8, 31, 53, 165, 229, 231, 250, 252, 268, 289–91, 305–06, 316, 335

Anglo-Polish Mutual Assistance Pact, 8, 15, 30, 104

Battle of Britain, 143, 162, 166, 173

discovery of Katyń graves, reaction to, 220, 222, 227–30

O’Malley memorandum on Katyń, 305–10, 318, 334, 338, 343

Polish pilots in RAF, 143, 166

in Polish-Soviet Agreement, 166, 170

and Sikorski’s death, 243, 242–43

Soviet Union, alliance with, 165–66

at Tehran Conference, 249–54

British Broadcasting Corporation, 261

Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 337

Budyonny, Semyon, 56

Buhtz, Gerhard, 212. 217, 234, 236, 274, 275, 277

Burdenko, N. N., 257, 261, 263–64, 335

Butyrki prison, 301

Buzek, Jerzy, 353

Buzuluk, 173–79, 181, 186, 195, 254, 255

Byelorussia(ns), 35, 53, 55, 59, 64, 65, 67, 70, 82, 92, 93, 164, 167–68, 172, 202, 215, 227, 250, 253, 322, 3351, 362

Bytom, 323–24, 327

Cadogan, Alexander, 306, 307

Camps for prisoners. See internment camps

Carpathian Mountains, 6, 25, 27, 33, 42, 57, 92

Case White, 20–23, 30–38

casualties in, 36, 37

planning of, 20–23

Cassidy, Henry C., 231, 262, 274

Cazalet Victor A., 242

Chamberlain, Neville, 7, 8, 18–19

Chełm Lubelski, 11

Christianity, 45, 58

Churchill, Winston, 52, 59, 166, 168, 171, 181, 183, 220, 224–26, 229–30, 232, 243–44, 247, 250–54, 265, 287, 289–91, 293, 296–97, 305, 307, 309–10, 316, 318, 320, 331, 339, 342

Ciano, Galeazzo, 18–20, 30

Cichy, Władek, 74, 76, 104–05, 107, 124, 126, 142–44,...

Table of contents

• cover
• praise
• title
• copyright
• dedication
• contents
• preface
• acknowledgments
• note_on_sources
• prologue
• chapter_1
• chapter_2
• chapter_3
• chapter_4
• chapter_5
• chapter_6
• chapter_7
• chapter_8
• chapter_9
• chapter_10
• chapter_11
• chapter_12
• chapter_13
• chapter_14
• chapter_15
• chapter_16
• chapter_17
• chapter_18
• chapter_19
• chapter_20
• chapter_21
• chapter_22
• chapter_23
• chapter_24
• chapter_25
• epilogue
• appendix
• notes_to_chapter_1
• notes_to_chapter_2
• notes_to_chapter_3
• notes_to_chapter_4
• notes_to_chapter_5
• notes_to_chapter_6
• notes_to_chapter_7
• notes_to_chapter_8
• notes_to_chapter_9
• notes_to_chapter_10
• notes_to_chapter_11
• notes_to_chapter_12
• notes_to_chapter_13
• notes_to_chapter_14
• notes_to_chapter_15
• notes_to_chapter_16
• notes_to_chapter_17
• notes_to_chapter_18
• notes_to_chapter_19
• notes_to_chapter_20
• notes_to_chapter_21
• notes_to_chapter_22
• notes_to_chapter_23
• notes_to_chapter_24
• notes_to_chapter_25
• bibliography
• chronology
• index
• about_the_author