[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 47 (Thursday, April 13, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REMEMBRANCE OF THE KATYN FOREST MASSACRE

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to remind my fellow 
Americans of a horrific tragedy which occurred in Poland six decades 
ago. April 13 serves as a day of remembrance of this terrible massacre.
  On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland to begin World War II. 
Two weeks later, in accordance with the secret Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, 
the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East and completed the 
partition of this nation. The Soviet invasion lasted eleven days and 
resulted in the forced deportation of 1.5 million Poles to Russian 
labor camps. Of those 1.5 million, approximately 15,000 Polish military 
officers disappeared under mysterious circumstances. On June 22, 1941, 
tensions between Germany and the Soviet Union exploded as the German 
army stormed into Soviet territory. It would take nearly two years 
before the German army would uncover evidence relating to the 15,000 
Polish officers who had disappeared in 1940.
  In 1943, German forces near Smolensk, in western Russia, investigated 
reports they heard from Russian civilians to the effect that a large 
number of prisoners had been murdered by the Soviet secret police in 
the area nearly three years earlier. The German investigators were led 
by local Russians to a series of mounds in a wooded area about 10 miles 
west of Smolensk. On April 13, 1943, German officials made a gruesome 
discovery as they uncovered buried corpses. They found numerous 
victims, each with hands bound behind their backs and a bullet hole in 
the base of their skulls. Over the course of the next month, the 
Germans exhumed more than 4500 corpses. Unable to continue to dig 
through Katyn Forest, Germany requested the assistance of the 
International Red Cross and representatives of neutral countries to 
determine the circumstances surrounding the execution and burial of 
these 4500 Polish officers.
  After examining the bodies, these representatives reported to the 
appropriate authorities their conclusion that the men buried in Katyn 
Forest were those of Polish military officers, along with a number of 
civilian cultural leaders, business leaders, and intellectuals--
scientists, writers, and poets--who had been in the portion of Poland 
occupied by the Soviet Union in September 1939. The Soviet Union 
vehemently denied the allegations of responsibility. Once the Soviet 
Union had reclaimed Katyn Forest, a pro-Soviet investigation of the 
Katyn Forest Massacre determined that the Polish officers and leaders 
had been massacred by the German army. It would take another 45 years 
before the truth of the massacre would finally be acknowledged by the 
leaders of the Soviet Union.
  Aside from United States congressional hearings held in Britain, 
Italy, Germany and the United States in the early 1950s, the Katyn 
Forest Massacre was largely forgotten by the international community. 
But the truth of Katyn Forest remained vivid for the Polish nation. 
Polish nationals were determined to discover the truth. These 
individuals wanted justice for the fallen comrades.
  After the publication of an account of the Massacre by a Soviet 
historian in 1990, Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski quickly 
arranged a series of meetings with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev 
and other Soviet officials in an attempt to finally bring a conclusion 
to the Katyn conspiracy. On April 13, 1990, the day after President 
Jaruzelski's final meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet news 
agency published a statement of acknowledgment on behalf of the Soviet 
government for summary execution of 15,000 Polish officers in the Katyn 
Forest during late April and early May of 1940. The statement claimed 
that the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, followed the orders of their 
chief, Lavrenti P. Beria, and massacred these 15,000 Polish captives.
  We must never forget the crime against humanity which was carried out 
in this rural section of Poland. As our nation looks towards the 21st 
Century and the promising future, we must always remember the 
sacrifices of brave and gallant men in the defense of their nation and 
their heritage which have helping the world achieve greater freedom and 
democracy. April 13 should always be remembered not as a day in which 
hope briefly dimmed when these brave men were executed but a day in 
which freedom triumphed and shown brightly after decades of silence.

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