Embassy of the United States of America - Moscow, 02 23 1944

7/28/2019 Embassy of the United States of America - Moscow, 02 23 1944

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EMBASSY OF THE...UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Moscow, February 23, 1944

Subject: Invest igat ion by Soviet authori t ies of theMassacre of Polish Soldiers in the KatynForest , near Smolensk .( .

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Enclosure No. 1 to D e ~ atchNo. 207 dated February 23 1 1944from American Embassy, Moscow.

Trip to Smo lensk and the Ka tynForest , January 21-231 1944.We l e f t Moscow, in company with seventeen newspapermen and including Czech, Polish and Spanish newsmen, a t4:00 p.m., January 21, for Smolensk on a special t ra inwhich had been put a t the disposal of the party. We werethe f i r s t foreigners to vis i t Smolensk since i t s occupation by the Russians on September 251 1943. We did notarr ive in Smolensk unt i l 10:00 a.m. the following morning, 220 kilometers from Moscow, presumably becausemili tary t ra f f ic had the r ight of way on the rai l road.Since most of the t r ip was made by dark there was smallopportunity to observe along the way. During the day

l ight hours l i t t l e ro l l ing stock was seen on the sidingsand almost no military supplies along the single-trackl ine . e say only one troop t ra in of a dozen boxcars,dir ty and with straw covering the f loor . The troops appeared to be work bat tal ions rather than l ine troops.Outside Smolensk there were some seventy-five boxcarsand three locomotives which had been turned off the trackand burned. The closer we came to Smolensk the more evidence there was of destroyed buildings and blown-upbridges. A ~ o s t none of the buildings had been replacedand generally only enough bridges to supply one or twol ines of t ra f f ic in the rai l road yards. The rai l roadyards in Smolensk i t se l f were a complete shambles, onlyenough having been rebui l t to keep operations going .

We were met in Smolensk by the Secretary of theSpecial Commission to Establish and Investigate the Circumstances of the Shooting by the German Fascist Invadersof Captive Polish Officers in the Katyn Woods . He tookus f i r s t on a sho rt tour of the ci ty to witness thedamage. The f i r s t thing noticeable was tha t every bridgeover the Dnieper had been destroyed , the only crossingpoint for road and motor t ra f f ic being one temporary woodens tructure . The rai l road does not cross the r iver a t thispoint . In the ci ty i t is di f f icu l t to find a structure\Vhich has not been damaged. Iiost of the destruction seemsto have been caused by demolition , and there was l i t t l eevidence of f i r e . The ci ty once contained 7,900 bui ldings .There now remain 300, of which only 64 are stone s tructures ,the res t being one-story wooden houses. The remainingpopulation l ives in the cel lars of the wrecked buildings.The Lenin Library is a to ta l loss , and the books wereei ther burned or removed by the Germans. According tooff ic ia l f igures , the population of Smolensk i s now about30, 000 as compared with a pre - war f igure of 1851 000. Inand around Smolensk the Germans are al leged to havemassacred 135,000 Russians .

After the tour of the ci ty we were taken out to theKatyn Forest , some f i f teen kilometers west of Smolensk onthe Vitebsk highway . .e were met there by a bat tery ofmovie cameras


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movie cameras and the surgeon who is in charge of theexhumations of Polish bodies and the post-mortems. Hetold us that 700 bodies have already been exhumed fromseven graves and tha t there are perhaps a to ta l of twelveto f i f teen thousand. This is pure estimate. The sixgraves on which the most work has been done are approximately twenty-five fee t square and vary in depth fromthree to ten fee t . In two of them the bodies are laidout in rows; in the others they are simply pi led in . Aseach body is exhumed i t is taken to a tent for examination, approximately 120 bodies being examined daily byeleven crews. After examination the bodies are laid inrows in a f ie ld which we inspectedo Despite the freezingtemperature, there was no doubt they had been dead a longtimeoEvery one of the bodies seen wore a Polish Armyuniform, a preponderance being uniforms of enlis ted men.Each one had a warm topcoat or heavy underwearo A llpockets had been ripped open prior to exhumation by theRussians, but a wide selection of documents and miscellaneous items are being found which were missed in the

previous searching by the Germans . A ll items found aretaken to Smolensk for examination and class if icat ionoEvery skull we saw contained a bul le t hole a t the baseof the skull and a second one jus t above the forehead.The holes were made by bul lets varying from 7.6 m.m. to9 .5 m. m. On the skulls where skin or hair is le f t powderburns are in evidence. The brain, f lesh, and organs ofeach body are also examined. The doctor in charge saidtha t the sta te of decomposition proves the men cannot havebeen dead much more than two yearso A number of the bodieshad small, rectangular, meta l cl ips attached to the lapelof the i r overcoats, bearing only numberso The highestnumber seen was 2032o These were on the bodies said tohave been exhumed by the Germans in 1943.

We were la ter taken to see the dacha which was usedas headquarters by the German occupation forces in thefores t . I t had previously been an NKVD res t home. I tl ies about a quarter of a mile from the graves and beyondthe road, over-looking the r ive r . I t was completely destroyed by the Germans when they withdrew .During the afternoon the Commission held a pressconference a t which one member, V. P. Potemkin, read apreviously prepared statement. I ts principal points were

as follows: The Commission for the Investigation ofAtrocit ies in Smolensk arrived in the ci ty short ly af te ri t s capture from the Germans on September 25 , 1943. Experts started to work on the Katyn Forest murders onJanuary 16, 1944. After the occupation by Russia in 1939of the Eastern par t of Poland several camps of Polishprisoners of war were established to the Wes t of Smolensk .These prisoners were used on road construction work, of-/ f i era included . In July, 1941, the Germans suddenlybroke through the l ine a t Smolensk and enveloped the ci ty . ~I t had been planned to evacuate the Poles to the West anda requisi t ion was put in for a t ra in to do so. This re-quest was refused because of the shortage of t rains tomove even the civi l ian population of Smolensko In anyevent, the Germans were already shelling the ra i l road.

After the


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- 3-After the occupation the German 537th ConstructionBattalion moved into Katyn and put a wire fence aroundi t . Three Russian gi r l s were put to work cleaning the

dacha which was used as headquarters . They were constant ly under sentry guard . In August , 1941, accordingto the testimony of one of them, Andreeva, they frequent ly heard trucks coming into the fores t . The officersquartered in the dacha would then go out . Shortly af terthe gi r l s heard single shots a t regular intervals . Thetrucks would leave and the off icers would return, noisyand excited . One time one of the gi r l s noticed blood onan off ice r ' s tunico Another time one of the gi r l s sawtwo Polish soldiers outside the window . They were ledinto the forest by Germans . Shortly thereaf ter she heardshots . S t i l l another time one of the gir l s while walking down the road saw a group of men approachingo Shehid in the bushes and saw they were a group of Poles whowere led into the foresto Later she heard shots . A llduring August and September , 1941, Poles were r ounded upfrom the countryside. After the end of September, 19411no one saw any more Poles .

The above statements are further corroborated, ac-cording to the Commission, by other testimony . Thet ra i tor B. G. Menshagin, a lawyer , was in close communication as occupation mayor of the town, with the Germancommander in Smolensk, and was assisted by B. v. Bazilevaki ,formerly director of the Smolensk Observatory . In AugustMenshagin told Bazilevski that orders had been received"to l iquidate Polish prisoners ." He added that theRussian prisoners would die of "natural causes . " Sometime la te r he said the orders had been carried out . Heis reported to have given the same information to otherpersona . 'Vhen Menshagin was l a te r evacuated with theGermans he l e f t behind him his notebook . His handwritinghas been verif ied . An entry of August 15, 1941, statesthat orders had been issued for a l l detai led Poles to beturned over to the German authori t ies . Subsequent entriess ta te tha t execution orders had been carried out .

Wi th reference to the motive for these executions ,Bazi levski tes t i f ied he had been told by Hirschfeld ofthe SD tha t it i s "an histor ica l fac t the Poles are aninferior race and hence it i s a good ac t to k i l l them. "He added that a l l Polish in te l lectuals had been ki l led .

Father Alexander Oglobin, of the pariah of Katyn,t e s t i f ied according to P o t e m k i ~ tha t his parishionershad talked in 1941 of the events in the forest . During1942 there was no talk . Then it started again in theearly part of 1943 a t a time when the Germans were ~ -hibi t ing great nervousness and greater harshness oftreatment toward the Russians . The f i r s t public noticewas in the spring of tha t year when the local Germanpaper printed a story that the NKVD had murdered Polishoff icers in Katyn during March and April of 1940 . Thissame story was reprinted in three other papers a t thesame time and was designed to improve the posit ion of

the Germans .


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-4 -the Germans . The Germans then began searching for witnesses to substantiate thei r statements, using tor tureto obtain what they wanted. ~ ~ e n the Germans evacuatedthey t r ied to take with them or destroy a l l witnessesthey had used. To strengthen the i r case fur ther theyopened some of the graves, using 500 Russian prisonersfrom concentration camp No . 126 for labor. Once the jobwas done the Russians were in turn ki l led , except for onewho managed to escape in the melee . He was sheltered byan old peasant woman, Moskovskaya , to whom he told theabove story before he was recaptured and executed himselfoDuring the exhumation the Germans removed a l l documentsfrom the bodies, especially those dated la te r than April,1940 . They did, however, overlook some , including oneunmailed postcard dated June 20, 1941 . Before closingup the graves the Germans brought to Katyn the bodies ofother Poles from other graves and camps in order to con-centrate in one spot a l l the alleged atroci t ies by theRussians . And f inal ly , in March 1943, the Germans organ-ized compulsory excursions of the local cit izenry to thegraves before they were again closed .

Potemkin then stated the conclusions of the Commission:l o During August and September , 1941, the Germanskil led in the Katyn Fores t a l l Poles in the vicinity ofSmolensk .2 . Feel ing the i r posi t ion insecure in 1943 they a t -

tempted to blame the incident on the Russians .3. To implement th is position the Germans opened thegraves, searched the bodie s , sought witnesses for the i rcase , and a dded bodies from elsewhere to those in Katyn .In answer to a question , i t was stated that priorto August , 1941, there were three camps of Polish prison-ers: Camp No . 1 was th i r ty-f ive kilometers Wes t ofSmolensk on the Minsk highway, containing 2 , 932 Poleswho were sent to Siberia f inal ly ; Camp No . 2, twenty-fivekilometers West of Smolensk on the vi tebsk highway; andCamp No o 3, th i r ty-f ive kilometers West of Smolensk oWe were then taken to inspect the collection of mis-cellaneous items taken from the pockets of the Polishsoldiers . This collect ion consisted of l e t te rs , books ,newspapers, personal i tems, money. ' 'e were also showneleven twenty United States dollar gold pieces , one f i f tydollar note, and numerous dollar bi l l s . A major portionof the dated evidence , such as le t te rs and newspapers ,was prior to or during March and April , 1940 and includeda copy of Izves t i ta of April 11 , 1940. There were how-ever l e t te rs bear ng Moscow postmarks as la te as June ,1941 .During the evening the Commission held a session do-voted to questioning the witnesses Whose testimony hadear l ie r been summarized by Potemkin . I t soon became ap-parent tha t the session was staged for the benefi t ofthe correspondents and tha t the witnesses were merely

repeating


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- 5-repeating stories they had already given the Commission.The show was staged under hot and blinding klieg l ightsand motion picture cameras. In a l l , five witnesses wereproduced who added nothing to what had been said a t thepress conference . Attempts by the correspondents toquestion the witnesses were discouraged, and f inal ly permitted reluctant ly only through the members of the Commission . A ll witnesses were shunted out of the room as

'rapidly as possible upon f inishing thei r statement o Therewas also an argument about t ranslat ion of the testimony,this f inal ly being agreed to .

The f i r s t witness told how he had been forced toturn evidence for the Germans in 1943; the second, Alexeyeva ,told of her work in the dacha; the third , Bazilevsky , re counted his association as ass is tant burgomasterl thefourth, Zukhov an expert in "criminal medicine , t told ofhis "excursion' ' to the fores t in the spring of 1943 andhis believ tha t the bodies could not have been three yearsold; the f i f th , Ivanov , the local stat ion master who hadbeen unable to supply a requis i t ion of forty cars to movethe Poles in 1941 , told of conditions during the Germanbreak-through and of being forced to give evidence for theGermans in 1943.A ll the statements were glibly given, as though byrote . Under questioning the witnesses became hesi tantand stumbled , unt i l they were dismissed by the Commission .Bazilevsky was ludicrous when one correspondent asked himwhy he was now so excited by the murder of 10, 000 Poles

when he also knew tha t 1351 000 Russians had been kil ledin the same area, and he answered that the Poles wereprisoners of war and it was an outrageous violation ofinternat ional law for them to be massacredoThe atmosphere a t the session grew progressivelytense as the correspondents asked one pointed and usuallyrude question af te r another . At midnight i t was a n n o ~ n c e dabruptly that our t ra in would leave in one hour. Just before the meeting broke up Alexei Tolstoy, a member o ~ theCommission, who had apparently sensed that matters werenot going well and who has had the most foreign contacts

of anyone on the Commission, produced answers t o severalquestions which had ear l ie r been passed over . The membersof the Commission were hasty and formal with ~ s in theirfarewells, and the ear l ie r atmosphere of a t leas t semicordial i ty had disappeared .The Polish correspondent who accompanied us, and whoslept noisi ly through most of the press conference, acaptain in the Polish Army and the editor of Wolna Polskaunder Vlanda \;asilevska , told me that the present invest igation has no in teres t for the Poles in Russia since iti s obvious that the Germans committed the crimes and thattherefore i t is pure "pol i t ical provocationu on the partof the Russians . Certainly the members of the Commissionwere not a t a l l pleased when leading questions were askedoOn the return t r ip the Foreign Office off ic ia ls who accompanied us were almost unduly anxious on the returnt r ip to be assured tha t we were convinced . I t is apparentthat the evidence in the Russian case is incomplete in

several


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- 6 -several respects, tha t it is badly put t ogether, andtha t the show was put on for the benefi t of the correspondents without opportunity fo r independent invest igation or verif icat ion . On balance , however , and despiteloopholes the Russian case i s convincing .JFM/hnw


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Enclosure No . 2 to DespatchNo. 207 dated February 23 1 1944from American Embassy, Moscow.

On January 23, 1944 members of t h e foreign presswere taken to Smolensk to get f i r s t hand the evidencecompiled by the Commission on the Katyn incident .The party was shown the graves in the Katyn Fores t

and witnessed post mortems of the corpses . As no memberwas in a position to evaluate the scient i f ic evidencegiven, it had to be accepted a t i t s face value .The t e s t ~ o n i a l evidence provided by the Commissionand witnesses was minute in de ta i l and by American standards petty . We were expected to accept the statementsof the high ranking Soviet off ic ia ls as t rue , becauset hey said i t was t rue Despite this it is my opinion tha t the Poles weremurdered by the Germans . The most convincing evidence

to uphold this was the methodicalnanner in Which thejob was done , something the Commission thought not suff ic ient ly important to s t ress . They were more interestedin the medi ca l evidence as conclusive proof and theminute circumstantial evidence surrounding the crime .Following is a description of what we saw and mostpart icularly the manner in which the story was presented .l o Inspection of Katyn Forest graves .The Katyn Forest turned out to be a small unspectacularl i t t l e wood, sparcely f i l led with young t rees , the biggerones having been apparently chopped down by the GermansoThe so i l was orange and very sandy .To date the Commission has found seven graves in a l lsix in the general area called Goat Hil l , about the sizeof an acre , and one more several hundred yards away . Theyare s t i l l looking for more graves and expect to find fromtwelve to f i f teen t housand bodies in a l l .The senior member of the Medical Committee, Burdenko ,took us around each and every grave - - asked tha t wescrut inize each de ta i l . He will ingly answered every

question put to him of medical bearing and was ~ o s t help fu l .On the basis of a meticulous post mortem of sevenhundred corpses we were given the following informationo1 . The corpses were Poles - - the majority enl istedmen with no rank badges , but some off icers . Vfuere , asthe privates ranged fron twenty- f ive to th i r ty , the of-f icers were considerably older , forty - f ive to f i f tyyears .2 . The majority of the corpses were dressed in topcoats , had long underwear . Those wearing just tunics hadsweaters .3. The pockets of the uniforms had been ripped andthei r documents taken out - - except for a few that ap parently had been missed . 4 . On the


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4. on the basis of a thorough autopsy, the doctors tated tha t the bodies had been in the ground about twoyears - - certainly not four . ,:;e were told tha t a l thoughsandy so i l in a dry climate tends to mummify bodies , theso i l in Katyn i s damp hence had no preservat ive qual i t ies .5 . Two graves had the bodies la id out meticulouslyin rows t hree deep , the top row being about three meters

from the surface . Each one of these corpses had a metaltag - (put on by the Germans when they themselves dug upthe bodies in the spring of 1943 ) . The other graves hadei ther six or eight layers of bodies thrown in hel ter skel ter - - the pockets of these soldiers had been ripped .6 . Each corpse bore the markings of a single woundmade ei ther by a 7 . 65 m.m. bul le t or a 9 . 00 m.m. bul le ttha t entered t he head a t the base of the skul l and cameout a t the top of the forehead . We saw enough skulls tosee tha t the wounds were a l l identica l , except tha t avery few ha d received two bul le t wounds instead of justone . To da t e no body wounds have been found . In fac tthe corpses were a l l proclaimed to be in "good physicalcondition" . The minority of the corpses had thei r handst ied Vie were t ol d tha t the bulle t s had been f i red a t

Itclo se range from an "automatic weapon 7 . Evidence tha t the bodies were l i t t l e more thantwo years ol d was on the basis of the following information . Some skulls s t i l l had hai r , a t any ra te epidermis ;the internal organs, though considerably f la t tened andshrunken , were only part ly decayed; the l iver and spleengreen . There was s t i l l firm red colored meat on thethighs .The autopsies were conducted in heated tents byteams each headed by a qualif ied doctor with several as s i s tants , including a secretary \mo took page long noteson each case .2 . ~ v i d e n c e given by Atrocity Commission .We had two meetings with the members of the "Special

Comm is s ion to Establish and Invest iga t e the Circumstancesof the Shoot ing by the German Fasc i s t Invaders of CaptivePolish Officers in the Katyn Wood ." The f i r s t , during theafternoon, lasted three hours . .te were read preparedstatemen ts and allowed to ask questions . ~ e s i d e s a deta i led story of the sequence of events , we were told thesubstance of data collected from witnesses , much of vmichwas repeated verbatim by the witnesses l a te r on tha tnight . Alexey Tolstoy , a member of the Commission, wasof greatest assistance . Some questions we asked re quiredinformation not on hand. He had i t fo r us by night . Inthe main during th is session our questions were a n s ~ r e dv1illingly .

Our second meeting was conducted in the same room.This time there were Klieg l ights and movies and ph otoswere taken throughout the proceedings . The Committeesa t along a long ta ble covere d by red baize a t one endof the room, the press were strung along a similar tabledown one side. . t itnesses sat direc t ly opposite theCommi t tee and were brought in one a t a time . Aside fromthe photographers and one stenographer , there 1as no oneelse present .

At f i r s t


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- 3-At f i r s t the Committee refused to interrupt thetestimonies for t rans la t ion , but when the members ofthe press objected they agreed with some lack of grace .During the testimony the committee chatted and vbisperedbetween themselves and most didn ' t app ear to l is ten . Uewere told we could question any witness, through theCommittee, but the questions appeared to annoy themthough not apparently due to the i r substance . Only onequestion was called nirreleventtt and not answered - the

present job of one of the witnesses . Tolstoy la te r gavei t to us .The witnesses themselves were very well rehearsed ,and they appeared subdued rather than nervous , theirpieces having been learned by hear t . Only the gir l hadan a ir of se l f - assurance .

~ l l i e n the l a s t witness had been heard general questions were asked , some of import to the Katyn Incident ,others not . Shortly, ho wever , the representat ives of theFore ign Of f ice Press Department got up and said we'dbet te r break up as our t ra in was due to leave short ly .I got the dis t inc t impression tha t the Committee was re l ieved . They had been told to put on a show fo r us - - theshow was over - - and they did not want to be bothered anyfurther . The meeting broke up without any informalchatt ing .3 . Members of Commission .(1) N. N. Burdenko , Member of u. s . s.n. Academyof Sciences .(2) Alexei Tolstoy(3) Metropolitan Nikolai of Kiev, Galovski and theUkraine Republic.(4) Lieutenant General A. s . Gunderov, Chairman ofthe Pan- Slav Commission .(5) s. A. Kolesnikov, Chairman of U.s . s . R. Red Crossand Red Crescent .(6) V. P. Potemkin, Commissar of Education of theR.s.F. s .n.{7) Colonel General E. I . Smirnov, Chief of CentralMedical Ser vice Administration of the Red Army.(8) R. E . Melnikov , Chairman of Smolensk !{eg ionalExecutive Committee .'Ihe above- mentioned arr ived a t Smolensk "a few days"af te r the Germans evacuated Smolensk on September 25 , 1943to look into various Gorman atroci t ies committed in theSmolensk region . The Committee did not s t a r t to inves t i gate the Katyn graves unt i l January 16, 1944 . The reasongiven was that they had other a t roc i t i es to invest igate

f i r s t . We were g iven no information about these otheratroci t ies , except the statement t ha t 135,000 Russiansand Jews had been ki l led in the Smolensk area . Presumablyit i s


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i t is s ignif icant t ha t Russians didn ' t think t h e Katyngraves were worth bothering about unt i l a f t e r PolishSoviet relat ions again became a big issue .On January 16 the Commission's sc ient i f ic expertsopened up the Katyn graves 1 exhumed bodies and star tedmeticulous post mortems on each body . Simultaneously1other members of t he Comm iss ion questioned witnesses oft he crime and compiled the evidence of the wi tnesses ,

and documented a l l papers found on corpses .As a resul t of t he work and exhumation of 700 b odiesout of an estimated t o t a l of 12 , 000 the Commission reachedthe following conclusions :1 . Between August and September 1941 the Germanski l led Polish prisoners of war on Goat Hil l (one area ofthe Katyn Forest) ;2 . Later in the Spring of 19431 feel ing t he i rposi t ion unstable 1 the Germans hast i ly covered up evidenceof their crime;3o For th is purpose the Germans :

(a) Re- opened graves on Goat Hill .(b) Tortured witnesses into giving evidencetha t the Russians murdered the Poles .(c) Dug up other bodies of Poles murderedelse,nere and brought them to the Katyn Fores tand burie d them there .4 . The Commission's Story .

(1) Posit ion of Polish Prisoners of ~ r Priorto German Invasion .After the Russo-Polish campaign 2 , 932 Polish soldiers ,mostly off icers , were evacuated to Siberia . The res t wereput in three camps: one t h i r ty- f i ve kilometers .iest ofSmolensk on the Mos cow- f.!insk h i ghway1 a second , twenty- f ivekilometers west of Smolensk on the Smolensk-Vi tebsk highway1and a thlrd 1 for t y- five kilometers es t of Smolensk i n theKrasnenskoye area . (This information was supplied a t ourasking by Tolstoy) .The PoliSh prisoners of war were brought to the abovecamps back in 1939 . They were employed by the Soviets fo rwork on the roads and when the Russo - German war began, thePolish prisoners remained in the 1 :est Smolensk provinceand continued their work d i gg ing and building roads .W th a sudden tank thrust , the Germans suddenly brokethrough to Smolensk on July 15- 16. The question immediatelyarose how should the Polish prisoners be evacuated . TheComm i ssion to l d us , and t he i r testimony was l a te r upheldby a witness , Ivanov1 the s ta t ion master of Gnezdov r a i l way (v i l lage outside Smolensk) that in mid-July 1941Ivanov received a phone ca l l from the Administrator of the

Polish prisoners of war camps asking tha t he provideempty railway cars in which to evacuate the Polish prison ers . He had none , bu t t r ie d to ge t some from the 3molensks ta t ion . The Commission told us tha t railway cars couldnot be prov i ded from Smolensk because t ha t sect ion of therailway runn i ng between Smolensk and Gnezdov was alreadyunder


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under ar t i l l e ry f i r e . Furthermore , the Soviet Government11had to reconcile i t s e l f to the fac t tha t even the localinhabitants could not be evacuated. So, due to ar t i l l e ryf i re along the railway and lack of box cars , the Polishprisoners of war, along with the native population, had toremain in this d i s t r i c t . "

f ter the arr ival of the ~ e r m a n s , the Poles remainedin the i r prison campso A number of witnesses te s t i f ied(we did not hear any) tha t the Poles continued to do roadrepair work fo r the Germans o Wl1en autumn came, a l l ditcheswere cleared and the mud taken awayo (Here i t was madeclear to us tha t there wasn't any more useful work forthe Poles to do).

;e were then told tha t although many witnesses confirmed tha t for a short time the Polish prisoners remained in the Smolensk region , no witness had yet been foundwho saw any Pole af te r September 1941.(2) How Atrocity was Committed .

The Katyn Fores t i s s i tuated f i f teen kilometers outside of Smo l ensk and during peacetime was the favori teSunday picknicking ground for the Smolensk populat ion.One section of Katyn Forest is known as Goat Hill . Herethe NKVD had a datcha wh ich they used for a res t home .The Smolensk population were allowed to walk freely throughthe NKVD property, but when the Germans arrived the wholeKatyn Forest area was surrounded by barbed wire; sentr ieswere stationed a t a l l road entrances and signs postedsaying to the effec t tha t any t respasser would be shot a tsighto The NKVD datcha was taken over by the Germans andused as headquarters for the 537th "Construction Battal ionn.

This headquarters employed three gir l s from theneighboring vil lage of Borok . A ll three have given evidenceon what happened and we heard one of the gi r l s tes t i fyoThirty German off icers and non-commissioned off icersl ived in the datcha . They got up la te in the morning, a te

~ e l l e tc . 'Ihe servants d id not l ive in , but were es corted to and from the main road by guards and were notallowed to clean the bedrooms except wh.en a guard waspresent .We heard one g ir l te s t i fy (Anna Mihailovna Alexeyeva)that towards the end of August 1941 she and the othor gir l snoted tha t often opened and closed cars an d trucks couldbe heard turning off the highway a t the Goat Hil l entranceo

h e n this happened invariably the Ger1nans in the datchawould go out into the 'floods . Ab out ten minutes la te rsingle shots , f i red a t regular intervals , would be heard .' .hen the shots ceased the officers, accompanied by Germannon-commissioned off icers and enlis ted men driving emptytrucks , would return to the datcha . Always on these daysthe bath house water was heate d . The men went direct lyto the baths and returned to be served a "par t icular lytasty meal" plus double the usual hard l iquor rat ion . 'llleg i r l said on these days the soldiers seemed nois ier thanusual and ta lked more . Once Alexeyeva was asked to washoff fresh blood from one of the non- commissioned off icers 'sleeves .

\! e were


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-6 -were to ld tha t "the gir l s guessed without d i f f i culty that the Germans l iving in the datcha were engagedin ki l l ing . I t The Commission asked witness Alexeyeva howshe guessed it was Poles , not Russians , who were beingki l led . She answered readi ly tha t one day she was order ed to return home early even though her work was not yetfinished o She was escorted to the main Smolensk- Vitebskroad as usual . En route to her vi l lage she noticed someGerman sentr ies and Polish prisoners walking along thehighway . She recognized the Poles by thei r character is t iccap . The group turned off a t the Goat Hill entrance .Alexeyeva hid in the bushes and waited and soon heard thefamiliar shots , one af te r another .

Another day , one g i r l heard noises near the datchaand looked out and saw two Poles hovering around under~ r d She was ordered back into the kitchen, but her' feminine cur iosi ty" go t the best of her . She went backto the window and saw the Poles being led avmy into thewoods . Soon af te r two single shots were heard .~ e x e y e v a said tha t walking down the side road tothe highway each day she frequently noticed German soldiersdigging sand heaps . These grew as time went on . Onceshe asked her sentry what was going on o The reply was"we are digging dugouts" . The Commission was asked toask Alexeyeva i f she ever noticed any odd smell aroundGoat Hi l l and she said "no" oDuring th is whole period the Germans were combingthe countryside for Poles - - tracking them down . Tie weretold that numerous inhabitants have confirmed thesesearches . In par t icular , the Me t ropol i tan told us aboutthe statement of one Father Oblobin, pr ies t a t Kuprino , avil lage in the neighborhood of Katyn Foresto Prior tothe German invasion he bad been pries t a t the v i l l age ofKatyn, but the Germans tore down his house and he movedto Kuprino . The Metropolitan told us tha t Oblobin wasable to give part icular ly valuable information due to hiscontact wi th his parishioners . Oblobin had told him tha tduring August 1941, there was much ta lk among the parish ioners about the Poleso Many people reported seeinggroups of twenty to th i r ty being taken into the KatynFores t . During 1942 Polish prisoners of war were notmentioned; but in the Spring of 19431 Poles again becamea current subject of ta lk .Aside from information obtained from the gir l s working in the datcha and the peasants l iv ing nearby , theCommission told us tha t they had received fur ther evidenceof the Germans' actions from the ass is tant burgomaster ,Boris Bazilevsky .\:e heard Bazilevsky t e s t i fy . Prior to the Germaninvasion he had been professor of astronomy in Smolensk oHe had been asked by the t ra i tor burgomaster , Menshag in ,t o serve as his a ss i s tant . He protested on grounds tba the knew no t hing about c iv i l af fa i r s , but on being threat

ened vii th dea th i f be refused , he took the job and heldit from .July 1941 unt i l October 1942 hoping thereby "tobe able to help the pl ight of the local population insome ways . "Once he


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-7 -Once he approached Bure;omaster :t.J.enshagin with therequest to help get a local school teacher out of con-centration campg also to try to improve general conditionsin camps as epidemics were start ing and there was fearthat soon the ent i re population might become infected .Menshagin reluctant ly agreed . A few days la ter , mid-September 1941 , he informed Bazilevsky that von Schwetz,head of the German Gestapo in Smolensk , had turned downhis request on the grounds that he , von Schwetz , had re -ceived wor d from Berl in demanding that harsher treatmentbe given in the Smolensk concentration camps . Bazilevskyasked Menshagin i f he figured tha t was possible - - tomake things any tougher than they already were - - towhich M e n s h ~ i n repl ied ttyes 11 o Then confidentially hewhispered in Bazilevsky ' s ear tha t things were going tobe made tougher for the Russian prisoners so that theywould die a natural death due to exposure, disease , etco,but tha t the Polish prisoners were going to be l iquid-ated o l iquidated in the most precise and l i t e r a l mean-ing of the word o Some days af ter th is meeting in thebeginning of October 1941 Mensba.gin told Bazilevsky thatthe direct ive about the Poles had been carried out , that

they had been shot in the neighborhood of Smolensk oBazilevsky relayed this information to his closefriend , Professor Yefimov . Yefimov , we were told , up -holds Bazilevsky's story . As Menshagin l e f t Smolenskwith the Germans his testimony was not available .Aside from this verbal testimony the Commissiontold us they had some written evidence in the form of

M.enshagin s personal note book o {\Ve were shown a photo -sta t ic copy of the crucial pages of th is notebook) . Acommittee of experts had confirmed tha t these notes werein Menshagin 1 s own handwriting .An inser t dated ugust 15 , 1941 said 11a l l escapedPolish prisoners of war should be detained and turnedover to the German headquarters . " A few pages furtheron was an annotation to remember to ask the chief ofthe Russian police 11 i f there are any rumors circulat ingamong the population about the shooting of the Polishprisoners of war . " The Commission stressed to us thes ignificance of this note, that the Germans must havebeen worried about tall{ among the v i l lagers of theatrocity , which apparently they wanted to keep secret .

The Commission told us that they had wanted to getinformation on the motive of the crimeo Here againBazilevsky proved useful . He told us about a 11 very can-did" conversation between himself and the Gestapo chiefin which the la t te r had told him that "the Poles areharmful people and infer ior , therefore, the Polish popu-lat ion can serve useful ly only as manure and so createspace for the widening of the Leibens1taum of the Germans"oThe Gestapo chief went on to t e l l him tha t no in te l lec t-ual class had been l e f t in Poland i t se l f .were l a te r to ld tha t other reasons for the German

mass ki l l ing of the Poles was due to the tendency ofPoles to go over to the Red J.rmy and their refusal tof ight for the Germans , some thing the Germans had hopedthey would dooFrom


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-8 -From September 1941 on unt i l the Spr ing of 1943 a l ldiscussion of Polish prisoners stoppedo'lhe luetropolitan quoted Ia ther Oblobin (priest ofnearby vi l lage) as saying tha t bebinning in 1943 therewas a marked nervousness amohgst the Ge rmans and an in-crease in the i r harshness . He pointed out tha t thisgeneral change of atmosphere fo r the worse coincidedwith the end of the ba t t le of Stal ingrad . Oblobin be-l ieved tha t the Germans spread rumors of the I.ussianmass ki l l ing of Poles so as to try and strengthen the i rposit ion among the local population .In the spring of 1943 the Germans published s toriesin the three quisl ing loca l papers t e l l ing of the murderof Poles a t Katyn during March and Apri l 1940 1 by theNKVD . The ~ o n n n i s s i o n to ld us tha t they had interviewedthe stenographer who had typed the ar t ic les .Next the Germans searched out witnesses to confirmthe i r story . \le saw three men who had been questioned

and beaten by the Ge stapo, one of whom was the Gnezdovsta t ion master, the two others peasants . All three weretor tured into signing documents, the contents of whichthey did not understand .Fa i l ing to ~ e t any d i rec t information from the localpopulation , the Germans next issued a poster (we saw aphotostat of i t ) writ ten in grammatically incorrect Rus s iansaying the following: "' ho can give testimony on themass murder of the Bo l shev iks against Polish officersand members of the clergy? saw the Polish prisonersof war in Goat Hi ll adjoining the Ka tyn highway? , lho ob -served Poles go ing from Gnezdov to Goa t Hi l l? 'ho sawor heard sh ots fired? ,ho knows members of the populationwho can test i fy? Every b i t of information wil l be rewarded .Send information to German Police Headquar ters in Smolenokand Gne zdov . n The poster was dated May 3 1 1943 and signedby an off icer of the uerman pol iceo The Commission toldus that t he uernans , fa i l in3 to ge t the ne eded information,t hen began the work of se t t lng up the proper "s ta..;e scenery"on Goat Hillo Fi r s t , t ~ e y se t about the gruesome work ofdig 0 ing up Polish corpses. From concentrat ion camp No o126 t hey imported 500 Red Army pr:soners of war to do thework, and when the work was completed the Soviet prisonersof war were marched away to be shoto One managed to es -

cape and sought s : ~ e l te r in the house of ci t izen Uoskovskaya .Though the Ges tapo la te r r'ouncl h i r.1, she had fu l l de t a i l sof the story which the Commission gave us.I t boes as fo llo;s . Not only did the Germans digup the Polish bodies in the Katyn Bores t , but by nightthey imported in big tarpaul in covered German t rucksbodies of Poles tha t they had massacred elsewhere a t the

Y.:ozelsky Camp (in the Jouth Smolensk Province) and fromthe ~ t a r o b e l s k y Camp (in the Ukra:ne between 200 to 250kilometers from Smolensk ) o 'e were told tha t a numberof witnesses conf:.rmed the story of tru cks coming intothe Goa t Hi l l , their load i dent i f i ed by the unmistakeablestench .

As they v1e re


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-9 -As they were dug up, the Germans tagged oach corpsewith a metal number , s l i t open the pockets and removeda l l papers they could f ind tha t bore dates h t e r thanMarch and Apri l 1940 and looted the pockets of any moneyand valuableso They imported a corpse spec ia l i s t called"Butz 11 from Berl in to make an invest igat ion and to provescient i f ical ly tha t the bodieB found were buried in theSpring of 1940oThe German authori t ies organized compulsory excur sions to Goat Hil l , so tha t the local Smolensk populationcould see for themselves . Amon 6 the vis i tors was Zubkov,a Soviet doctor,whom e saw. Zubkov t e s t i f ied tha t , asa pathological anatomist, he could r ight ly say tha t a ttha t time none of the bodies could possibly be more thana year and a half oldo The Commission stressed Zubkov'sstatement to us tha t to his knowledge the Germans con

ducted no autopsies , tha t the Jerman special ist Butz wasnot interested in conducting a scient i f ic invest igat ion - loot from the pockets of the dead was what he was af te r ,and dated documents tha t would compromise the German story .I t took Butz three Butz three months to accomplish histask .(3) Documents found on the Polish Corpses o

The f ina l ac t of the Germans was to route out andeither k i l l or deport any person who might have information proving the whole Polish incident was a fake oThey caught a l l but a few of the men they had beateninto signing false evidence and the ~ h r e e gi r l s who hadbeen servants a t the Goat Hil l datcha .Despite the thoroughness of the pocket ripping bythe Germans , out of the seven hundred corpses the Commission have so far investigated , 146 items have beenfound . The ear l ies t date was found on a postcard - -

l ~ r c h 1940 - - and the l a tes t - - an unmailed postcarddated June 20 , 194l o were shown a l l these documentsand t r inkets and the most important and signif icantones were t ranslated for us o They included l e t te rsfrom .:arsaw and lloscow dated in the winter of 1940,receipts for valuables dated in the Spring of 1941 andnumerous newspaper clippings dated from early 1940 t hroughearly 1941. ln part icular we were shown documents withcommunist leanings . The Commission inferred tha t thePolish prisoners of war had pro- Soviet ra ther than proGerman leaningsoKili/hnw

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