[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Con. Res. 118 Referred in House (RFH)]







106th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. CON. RES. 118


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 26, 2000

          Referred to the Committee on International Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the execution of Polish captives 
              by Soviet authorities in April and May 1940.

Whereas 60 years ago, between April 3 and the end of May 1940, more than 22,000 
        Polish military officers, police officers, judges, other government 
        officials, and civilians were executed by the Soviet secret police, the 
        NKVD;
Whereas Joseph Stalin and other leaders of the Soviet Union, following meeting 
        of the Soviet Politburo on March 5, 1940, signed the decision to execute 
        these Polish captives;
Whereas 14,537 of these Polish victims have been documented at 3 sites, 4,406 in 
        Katyn (now in Belarus), 6,311 in Miednoye (now in Russia), and 3,820 in 
        Kharkiv (now in Ukraine);
Whereas the fate of approximately 7,000 other victims remains unknown and their 
        graves together with the graves of other victims of communism, are 
        scattered around the territory of the former Soviet Union and are now 
        impossible to locate precisely;
Whereas on April 13, 1943, the German army announced the discovery of the 
        massive graves in the Katyn Forest, when that area was under Nazi 
        occupation;
Whereas on April 15, 1943, the Soviet Information Bureau disavowed the 
        executions and attempted to cover up the Soviet Union's responsibility 
        for these executions by declaring that these Polish captives had been 
        engaged in construction work west of Smolensk and had fallen into the 
        hands of the Germans, who executed them;
Whereas on April 28-30, 1943, an international commission of 12 medical experts 
        visited Katyn at the invitation of the German government and later 
        reported unanimously that the Polish officers had been shot three years 
        earlier when the Smolensk area was under Soviet administration;
Whereas until 1990 the Government of the Soviet Union denied any responsibility 
        for the massacres and claimed to possess no information about the fate 
        of the missing Polish victims;
Whereas on April 13, 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged the 
        Soviet responsibility for the Katyn executions;
Whereas this admission confirmed the 1951-52 extensive investigation by the 
        United States House of Representatives Select Committee to Conduct an 
        Investigation and Study of the Facts, Evidence, and Circumstances of the 
        Katyn Forest Massacre and its Final Report (pursuant to House Resolution 
        H.R. 390 and H.R. 539, 82d Congress);
Whereas that committee's final report of December 22, 1952, unanimously 
        concluded that ``beyond any question of reasonable doubt, that the 
        Soviet NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) committed the 
        mass murders of the Polish officers and intellectual leaders in the 
        Katyn Forest near Smolensk'' and that the Soviet Union ``is directly 
        responsible for the Katyn massacre''; and
Whereas that report also concluded that ``approximately 15,000 Polish prisoners 
        were interned in three Soviet camps: Kozielsk, Starobielsk, and 
        Ostashkov in the winter of 1939-40'' and, ``with the exception of 400 
        prisoners, these men have not been heard from, seen, or found since the 
        spring of 1940'': Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 
That Congress hereby--
            (1) remembers and honors those Polish officers, government 
        officials, and civilians who were murdered in April and May 
        1940 by the NKVD;
            (2) recognizes all those scholars, researchers, and writers 
        from Poland, Russia, the United States and, elsewhere and, 
        particularly, those who worked under Soviet and communist 
        domination and who had the courage to tell the truth about the 
        crimes committed at Katyn, Miednoye, and Kharkiv; and
            (3) urges all people to remember and honor these and other 
        victims of communism so that such crimes will never be 
        repeated.

            Passed the Senate June 23, 2000.

            Attest:

                                                    GARY SISCO,

                                                             Secretary.