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Katyn and the deportations

1939–1944 · 14 articles · about 125 min of reading

After the invasion of 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union seized the eastern half of Poland. In the spring of 1940, on the Politburo’s decision of 5 March, the NKVD shot almost 22,000 Polish citizens – officers, policemen and prisoners – in the back of the head at Katyn, Kharkiv, Kalinin and other sites. In four deportations in 1940–1941 it carried off from the east, according to NKVD documents, some 320,000–340,000 people, among them the victims’ families. The series runs from the crime and the deportations through the vain search for the missing officers to the discovery of the graves in 1943, Moscow’s break with the Polish government and the Soviet lie of the Burdenko Commission.

1939

  1. 0117 September – 6 October 1939Battle12 minSoviet invasion of PolandWhere it all begins: September 1939 puts the officers into NKVD camps and opens the eastern lands to the crimes and deportations that follow.From 17 September 1939 the Red Army occupied eastern Poland, resisted by the KOP, Grodno, Lwów and Orlik-Rückemann's group. Fighting went on into October.
  2. 021 November 1939Event9 minThe USSR annexes eastern PolandAfter the annexation Moscow treats the eastern lands as its own and the Poles as its own citizens, with grim results from the deportations to Katyn.On 1–2 November 1939 the Supreme Soviet annexed eastern Poland to the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs, citing rigged “elections” of 22 October.

1940

  1. 0310 February 1940Event7 minFirst deportation from the eastern landsThe first of four deportations hits settlers and foresters, and its pattern of a night raid and goods wagons is repeated three more times.On 10 February 1940 the NKVD began deporting families of military settlers and foresters from the Kresy. NKVD documents put the total at nearly 140,000.
  2. 045 March 1940Event8 minDecision to shoot Polish prisonersThe death sentence on prisoners of war and prisoners was passed by the party leadership under Stalin, not by the NKVD alone, and the Katyn massacre rests on it.On 5 March 1940 the Politburo adopted Beria's proposal to shoot 14,700 Polish POWs and 11,000 prisoners without trial. Stalin was among the signatories.
  3. 053 April 1940EventKey moment11 minThe Katyn massacreThe sentence is carried out: from 3 April to mid-May the NKVD kills almost 22,000 people at Katyn, Kharkiv, Kalinin and in prisons.On 3 April 1940 the first prisoners left Kozelsk for their deaths. By mid-May the NKVD had killed almost 22,000 Polish officers, policemen and prisoners.
  4. 0613 April 1940Event6 minSecond deportation from the eastern landsThe prisoners’ families are sent to Kazakhstan while the men are killed at Katyn – historians see the two decisions as parts of one plan.On 13 April 1940 the NKVD deported about 61,000 people to Kazakhstan, mainly families of imprisoned officers, policemen and officials killed in those weeks.
  5. 0729 June 1940Event7 minThird deportation from the eastern landsThe third wave changes its target to refugees from the west, mostly Jews; the NKVD turned the lists of those wishing to return into a register of the disloyal.On the night of 28 to 29 June 1940 the NKVD began a third deportation from the Kresy. Those taken were mainly refugees from German-occupied Poland, mostly Jews.

1941

  1. 0822 May 1941Event7 minFourth deportation from the eastern landsThe last deportation, in May 1941, continues the policy of 1940, taking among others the families of the Katyn officers, and is stopped only by the German attack.On 21 May 1941 the NKVD began the last deportation from the Kresy. It came in waves until the German attack on the USSR and took tens of thousands of people.
  2. 0914 June 1941Event13 minThe June deportationDeportations from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – for the Poles of the Wilno region, spared by the three earlier waves, the first mass deportation.On the night of 13–14 June 1941 the NKVD began deporting people from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Over 40,000 were taken in days, Poles from Wilno among them.
  3. 104 December 1941Event11 minThe Sikorski–Stalin declarationStalin tells Sikorski that the missing officers “fled to Manchuria”, though he knew they had been dead for a year and a half – the lie before 1943.On 4 December 1941 General Sikorski and Stalin signed a declaration of friendship and mutual aid at the Kremlin. Anders's army was to grow and move south.

1943

  1. 1116 March 1943Event7 minThe discovery of the Katyn gravesThe fruitless search for the missing officers ends in the Katyn forest, where the Germans begin the exhumation on 29 March 1943.In March 1943 the German Secret Field Police examined mass graves of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. The world learned of them only in April.
  2. 1213 April 1943EventKey moment9 minThe Germans announce the Katyn massacreBerlin announces the graves, the Polish government asks the Red Cross to investigate, and Moscow gains an argument about collusion with Hitler.On 13 April 1943 Berlin radio announced the discovery of Polish officers’ graves near Smolensk. The dispute let Stalin break with the Polish government.
  3. 1325 April 1943Event9 minUSSR breaks relations with the Polish governmentMoscow uses Katyn to break with the legitimate government, and the Western Allies accept the fait accompli for the sake of coalition unity.On the night of 25-26 April 1943 Molotov read Ambassador Romer a note breaking relations with the Polish government. The pretext was an appeal to the Red Cross.

1944

  1. 1424 January 1944Event9 minBurdenko CommissionThe Katyn lie takes its official form: the Burdenko Commission blames the Germans on evidence the NKVD had falsified.On 24 January 1944 the Burdenko Commission signed a communiqué blaming the Katyn massacre on the Germans. It rested on evidence forged by the NKVD.