Mass murders of the Polish citizens took place in the spring of 1940 in many different locations of the Soviet Union. Bodies of the victims were hidden in gigantic death pits in countless Soviet forests. One such place was the infamous Katyn forest captured by the advancing German army just two years after the crime. For half a century only the Katyn forest was known to the outside world while other burial sites remained well concealed. Today, the Katyn crime stands as one of the greatest crimes of World War II, the crime that has never been adjudicated, punished or even fully disclosed.
By murdering the elite of the Polish society, deporting their families to the depths of the Soviet Union, and repressing the patriotic segment of the Polish population under its control, the Soviet Union intended to eliminate all resistance to the Soviet annexation of the eastern half of Poland in the aftermath of the joint Soviet-German invasion of Poland in September 1939. It took historians half a century to admit that the Katyn forest stands as a symbol of many similar Soviet forests hiding monster death pits of the victims of the Katyn execution order. These soldiers and civilians were murdered as a result of the Nazi-Soviet aggression of Poland and collaboration in combating Polish resistance in accordance with the secret protocol to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. After 1990, mass death pits hiding bodies of the Katyn victims were identified in Kuropaty, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa and Niezyn. To this day, other forests hiding death pits of the victims of the Katyn crime remain unknown, in particular those in Belorussia.
For five decades, the Soviets denied any responsibility for the Katyn crime and blamed the Katyn massacre on the Germans. They finally admitted to the Katyn murders in the turmoil of the demise of the Soviet Union, after two other mass burial sites of the Polish POWs came to light. However while admitting to the Katyn extermination action, they did not apologize to the Polish people. To the contrary, President Gorbachev who decided to admit that the Soviets murdered the Polish officers in Katyn immediately put in place an anti-Katyn policy aimed at justifying the Katyn murders. The Russian Federation, as the Soviet Union successor, hinders the disclosure of Katyn documentation and continues to hide the full truth about the scope and character of the Katyn crime.
On April 10, 2010, an airplane carrying the official Polish delegation for the commemoration of the 70-th anniversary of the Katyn crime crashed in the Smolensk forest near Katyn, killing everybody on board. Among 96 dead were the President of Poland, First Lady, top generals of the Polish Armed Forces who served as NATO commandants, members of the Polish Parliament, top government officials, members of the clergy, famous anti-communist leaders, and families of the victims of the Katyn crime.
For the Polish people, the Smolensk crash is the greatest tragedy since WWII. In January 2011, Russia announced its final report from the investigation of the Smolensk. The report blames the Polish pilots, generals, and the President for causing the crash. The current Polish Government, which has been in opposition to the party of President Lech Kaczynski killed in the crash, does not object to the Russian conclusions.
By the third anniversary of the Smolensk crash, numerous facts came to light that directly contradict the Russian version of events and invalidate the Russian report. It has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the Polish pilots made only one reconnaissance approach to the Smolensk airport, and not four attempts to land, as was announced on the day of the crash. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Pilot-in-Command issued an order not to land at the proper decision altitude and did not attempt to “land at any means” as the official version proclaims. The transcript from the Cockpit Voice Recorder directly contradicts the “controlled flight into terrain” conclusion of the Russian report. Furthermore contrary to the Russian report, it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Commander of the Polish Air Force did not exert undue psychological pressure on the pilots “to land at any means.” In addition, extensive research of numerous technical experts all over the world led to the conclusion that the technical analysis presented in the Russian report is inadequate and wrong in many key aspects. By now it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a birch tree near Smolensk could not break the left wing of Tu-154M, as claimed in the official reports. Contrary to the official version, the aircraft did not rotate on the ground but instead disintegrated in the air as a result of explosion.
Many egregious violations of due process of law have been committed in the investigation of the Smolensk crash. Bodies of the victims arrived in Poland in sealed caskets and the families were forbidden to open the caskets before burials. No autopsies of the victims of the crash were performed in Poland in violation of the Polish law. Subsequent exhumations and autopsies conducted about two years after the crash revealed that bodies of the victims were desecrated and buried in wrong graves. The families of the victims were subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment. Independent experts and journalists calling attention to falsehoods and irregularities of the official reports have been ridiculed, threatened and intimidated. The key witness – a Polish pilot of YAK 40 who landed at the Smolensk airport 40 minutes before the crash and listened to the communication between the incoming Polish Air Force One and the Air Traffic Control Tower in Smolensk was found dead in the cellar of his apartment building in October of 2012.
In order to prevent the Smolensk tragedy from becoming the second Katyn and to assure that Katynism never again becomes a threat to the international community, it is imperative to conduct an independent and transparent investigation with the participation of reputable international experts. The full truth must be revealed what really happened in the Smolensk forest on April 10, 2010. Resolving the Smolensk ambiguity is in the vital interest of the entire international community.
Every April the Polish-American community pays homage to the victims of Katyn and Smolensk, and commemorate their highest sacrifice for liberty, freedom, democracy and justice for all.
On the third anniversary of the Smolensk crash, the families of the Smolensk victims appeal to the American public and the American Government for the support in demanding a transparent international, unbiased inquiry into the circumstances and causes of the Smolensk crash.
Maria Szonert Binienda, Esq.
Chicago, May 2010. Polonia gives tribute to those who died in Smolensk. Photo. Krystyna Teller