[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5368]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             COMMEMORATION OF THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF KATYN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 13, 2010

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate 
the 70th anniversary of Katyn--a word that has come to symbolize the 
brutal murder of over 20,000 Polish military officers and other 
intellectual elite by Stalin's secret police in the spring of 1940 and 
the subsequent lies told about this horrific crime. These men, and one 
woman, were taken as prisoners by the Soviets in their undeclared war 
against Poland that began a mere 17 days after the Nazis invaded Poland 
and started World War II.
  The tragic crash this past Saturday that took the lives of so many of 
Poland's most senior leaders has focused worldwide attention on the 
Katyn massacre, which has come to symbolize Stalin's brutal repression 
of the Poles and others. People of goodwill everywhere extend the hand 
of sympathy and friendship to the Polish people who once again have 
suffered a great national tragedy, ironically in the very place where 
one of the last century's most sordid deeds was carried out.
  It is my hope that the victims--from President Lech Kaczynski and his 
wife Maria to prominent leaders of the armed forces, the parliament, 
other institutions, and relatives of those shot in 1940--will not have 
died in vain, that this horrible crash will somehow give strength to 
those in Poland who must go on and continue to lead their great nation, 
a nation that has been a stalwart ally of the United States and a 
beacon of freedom and prosperity in Eastern Europe.
  I also hope that these sad events may in some way help bring Russia 
and Poland a new and stronger relationship based on a shared history 
and suffering and characterized by mutual respect and trust.
  Further, I would like to express my admiration for the manner in 
which Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin handled this disaster, 
flying immediately to Smolensk, the site of the crash and taking 
personal responsibility for the investigation. Mr. Putin acted 
decisively, but more than that he reinforced the positive signals he 
and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had given at their joint ceremony 
in Katyn last Wednesday. No Russian Prime Minister--in fact no Russian 
of Mr. Putin's stature and standing--had ever been to Katyn. Mr. Tusk 
graciously expressed his appreciation to Mr. Putin by quoting the great 
Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: ``But let us not forget that 
violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is 
necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most 
intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge 
in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has 
once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood 
as his principle.''
  I hope that Mr. Putin will also embrace these words in practical 
ways, most importantly by assisting the Poles in finding still missing 
information about those who were executed on Stalin's orders in 1940.

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