[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 17, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S2141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         KATYN FOREST MASSACRE

 Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, I rise today both to remember 
the 15,000 innocent people who died at the Katyn Forest Massacre in 
1940 and to make sure that their memory never fades from our minds.
  In 1939, Joseph Stalin's army captured 15,000 Polish military 
officers and proceeded to perpetrate what some have called one of the 
most heinous war crimes in history. These 15,000 people were Poland's 
elite and presented a serious threat to Stalin's future control of 
Poland. Fearing their resistance, Stalin ordered his army to execute 
the Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. There was no trial. There was 
no justice for the victims of Stalin's excesses. Stalin did this under 
the cover of a forest and the shield of his authority while hiding it 
from the international community. The investigation conducted by this 
Congress found that the victims were unarmed and innocent. It concluded 
that the crime was concealed by the Soviet government and that its 
perpetrators were never brought to justice. As the years passed, the 
Soviet government was content to let the Nazi regime be blamed for 
Katyn. It avoided issuing a formal apology or attempting to even make 
reparations. On February 19, 1989, the Soviets finally released 
documents confirming the Soviet role in the Katyn Massacre.
  After fifty years of lies and manipulation, an admission of 
complicity does not ease the pain of a nation whose entire population 
was affected by this horrible event. I am hopeful that as time goes by 
and more people learn about this massacre, we will all be able to come 
to terms with the memory of Katyn and the pain that it has caused. It 
is a memory that must be sustained to ensure that our bonds of humanity 
will continue on into the next millennium and that our past will not be 
destined to repeat itself.
  Mr. President, I rise today to remember these 15,000 victims with the 
hope that their memory will prevent future atrocities from occurring 
and will crudely remind the world of its responsibility to protect the 
innocent at all times. In 1998, we have an obligation to one another to 
make sure that a tragedy like this does not occur again. The only way 
to do this is to make sure that the memory of Katyn lives on.

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