WWII massacre: Memos show US cover-up of Stalin’s Katyn slaughter

[FAL-SHOOTER]

The US has long held in its possession verified documentation proving the 1940 Katyn forest massacre of several thousand Polish POWs was committed by the Soviet Union. Why did Washington conceal it: to cover-up for its wartime ally Josef Stalin.

*The Associated Press has seen newly declassified documents illuminating the Katyn Massacre, which are being released and put online by the US National Archives on Monday.


Among the 1,000 papers include encrypted messages from American Prisoners Of War (POWs) kept in German captivity during the World War II.


Capt. Donald B. Stewart and Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet Jr. were among a group of American and British POWs taken to witness a grisly 1943 scene at a “clearing surrounded by pine trees: mass graves tightly packed with thousands of partly mummified corpses in well-tailored Polish officers uniform.”


Judging by “the corpses' advanced state of decay,” the US officers said the killings took place much earlier in the war – presumably before the Soviets lost control of the territory in 1941.


They also saw Polish letters, diaries, identification tags, news clippings and other objects — none dating later than the spring of 1940 — pulled from the graves. The most damning evidence indicating the time of the tragedy and the country responsible for it was the relatively good state of the men's boots and clothing: the state of the men’s uniforms showed that had not likely lived long after being captured.


http://rt.com/news/katyn-massacre-documents-usa-816/

[blitzo]

Thanks for posting this. Just got done reading a few books about the Polish involvement in WW2. I am sure every one knew the truth about Katyn as soon as it was first reported.

[DK23]

Thanks for posting this. Just got done reading a few books about the Polish involvement in WW2. I am sure every one knew the truth about Katyn as soon as it was first reported.

Which books did you read? I am an avid reader of WWII books and of Polish descent, so I have recently read "No Greater Ally" and "A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron" and just started reading "The Eagle Unbowed". If you can recommend any related books, please let me know. TIA

[blitzo]

Which books did you read? I am an avid reader of WWII books and of Polish descent, so I have recently read "No Greater Ally" and "A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron" and just started reading "The Eagle Unbowed". If you can recommend any related books, please let me know. TIA

I also just finished reading "No Greater Ally" and "A Question of Honor". The latest I read was "Uprising 44" it is mostly about the Warsaw Uprising but goes into great detail. In the book "A Question of Honor" do you remember reading about Richard Tice? He was from Allentown PA, with no connection to Poland. He volunteered to join the Polish Parachute Brigade before America entered the war. Sadly he was killed in Arnhem during operation Market Garden.

One of my favorite books is "Wojtek The Bear" by Aileen Orr. When I first heard the story of Wojtek I thought it was the build up to a bad Polish joke. I think I actually shed a few tears while reading the book. It is an amazing story and sad how Wojtek and the Polish troops of WW2 shared the same fate.

[OwnTheRide]

It is mind-boggling to imagine that people could have such callous disregard for the life of another. Mankind's brilliance is outshone only by its savagery.

[Joe Demko]

The Allies were using each other all through the war. The Soviets and the Nazis tearing each other's guts out could not be seen as other than a win-win for the US/UK. Suppressing stories about Soviet atrocities may not have been morally perfect, but it was pragmatic. The Poles, fwiw, had not exactly won the love of their neighbors with their kindly ways. The narrative of the Poles as plucky underdogs ignores that there was a reason the Ukrainians et. al. fell upon them with such fury and allied with their enemies.
WWII was, despite all the movies, still not a simple good guys vs. bad guys story.

[Brick]

Typical Communist doctrine. Military officers and NCOs, teachers, police officers, civil officials are all marked for death or re-education once the Communists are firmly established. They've done it in every country they've assumed control of. It is a sure-fire way of cutting down on the chance of opposition. Don't forget Stalin's quotes: "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million merely a statistic" and "No man, No problem".

[Statkowski]

If you really, really want to get a sick feeling in your stomach, look up "Operation Keelhaul" on the Internet. How many American and British POWs, held by the Germans, ended up in the Soviet Gulag as a result? 25,000, 50,000, nobody knows for sure. All that is known is that they were never repatriated following the war. Truman knew about it, and so did Eisenhower.

[ayres]

Thanks for posting this. Just got done reading a few books about the Polish involvement in WW2. I am sure every one knew the truth about Katyn as soon as it was first reported.

recommend any of these books?

[calypsocoral]

Not sure if the government was involved, but the American press sure did a good job of not reporting Stalin's Holodomor in Ukraine as well.

The systematic starvation of Ukrainians resulted in more than seven million dead men, women, and children in a single year (either 1937 or 1939, if I remember correctly).