Mass graves of Katyn genocide victims

To mark International Day of Memory about Katyn Genocide Victims, celebrations are held in Poland for families of the over twenty thousand POWs murdered in 1940 by NKVD at Stalin's personal order.

Edmund Baranowski remembers the Easter of 1943, when the crime was first revealed and Germans started publishing the list of names of the victims. Easter was dramatic that year, he says: "So many years have passed and I still remember as if that was yesterday. The Lord's Tomb at St. Anne's Church was decorated with the symbols of the Katyn genocide. It was incredible how people were crowding there."

For decades, communist propaganda banned any mention of the genocide, families of victims were silenced and persecuted. It was only in 1990 that the USSR authorities admitted it was NKVD who committed the crime. Still, some Russian press, public opinion and even politicians are trying to whitewash those guilty even today. 

International Day of Memory about Katyn Genocide Victims is normally celebrated on the 13th of April. Celebrations were moved in Poland this year, because of Easter.

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