KatynPolish archeologists led by Professor Andrzej Kola have begun a dig at the military cemetery in Bykyvnia, near Kiev, Ukraine – a mass burial ground of the victims of the so called ‘Ukrainian list’ of Polish officers killed by the NKVD police in 1940.
Bykyvnia will be the fourth Polish cemetery after Kharkov, Katyn and Mednoye commemorating the victims of the mass killing of Polish officers on Stalin’s orders.
The project is being realized jointly by the Polish Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom and a similar organization in Ukraine.
Andrzej Kunert secretary of the Polish Council told Polish Radio that construction of the cemetery should begin in August and the planned opening is set for April 2012.
Kunert said that the exhumation work has to finish before work can begin on the cemetery.
“It is the question of examining several place. There are many so called houses of death , which were used as mass graves of the victims.”
The cemetery in Bykivnia is to resemble the Katyn cemetery. Two common graves with 3500 plaques bearing the names of the victims as well as an altar and place for prayers will be sited there and will be separated from a large Polish Ukrainian memorial.
Ukrainian authorities have confirmed their support for constructing the cemetery but the cemetery’s architectural plans remain an open issue and the way how both sides plan to pay tribute to the victims of Stalin’s terror has also to be decided.
Over 22,000 Poles, largely reserve officers, were murdered on Stalin's orders in the Spring of 1940, the majority in the Katyn forest near Smolensk. The massacres also took place at Mednoye and at Kharkov. (ab/pg)