On a different subject,
I am not sure if we have received the following in the past so I would like
to share it with all.
Julek
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 4, 2003
Kanjorski Presents Polish Ambassador with Record of Katyn Massacre
Investigation
Massacre First Disclosed 60 Years Ago; Record Unavailable in Poland until
Now
Washington, DC - Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski (PA-11) today presented
Poland's Ambassador to the United States with a copy of the 2,300-page
published record of a select Congressional committee's investigation of the
Katyn Forest massacre during World War II. The massacre of thousands of
leading Polish citizens by Soviet troops was first disclosed in April 1943,
but the Soviet government denied responsibility until after the Cold War
ended.
The select Congressional committee, which included then-Congressman Daniel
J. Flood of Wilkes-Barre, investigated the massacre in 1951 and 1952, but
until now the record of its investigation has been not available anywhere in
Poland.
At the request of the Polish government, Congressman Kanjorski arranged for
the Library of Congress to provide Poland with a copy of the documents. Many
experts believe the committee's record is the most comprehensive body of
record ever assembled on this subject.
"As we observe the anniversary of the discovery of this tragedy, let us hope
and pray that humanity is spared such tragedies in the future," Congressman
Kanjorski said.
Congressman Kanjorski and Polish Ambassador Przemyslaw Grudzinski were
joined at the presentation by Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of
Congress, and Allen Paul, author of the book KATYN: Stalin's Massacre and
the Seeds of Polish Resurrection. Mr. Paul will transport the records to
Poland and present them on April 12 to the Polish Government Council on War
Archives, Public Monuments and Historic Sites.
Several speakers at the presentation in Washington noted the longstanding
friendship between Poland and the United States, dating back to the time of
Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish military engineer who was one of the first
foreign volunteers to assist the American Revolution.
BELOW: Remarks by Congressman Kanjorski (three pages) which are being
inserted into the Congressional Record.
Congressional Record - Extension of Remarks
Hon. Paul E. Kanjorski
Transmittal of Important Congressional Records to Poland
Mr. Speaker, today I wish to direct the attention of the House of
Representatives to a sad anniversary. Almost 60 years ago, on April 13,
1943, Americans awoke to a startling announcement from Radio Berlin: the
disclosure that thousands of bodies of Polish officers had been found by the
Germans in a remote wood near the Dneiper River called Katyn Forest. These
men had been captured in the fall of 1939 by the Red Army and executed the
following spring by the NKVD which later became the KGB. Until the German
discovery all trace of these men had disappeared.
The German discovery put tremendous strain on the western alliance from the
moment it was announced. Our mortal enemy had accused the Soviet Union, a
great ally who had just defeated the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad, of the
unspeakable crime of murdering prisoners of war. For many in the West, it
appeared to be a cheap propaganda stunt by Joseph Goebbels. Perhaps the
Germans had murdered the Poles and were merely covering their tracks by
blaming the crime on the Soviets. But as more and more facts were collected,
it became abundantly clear that the Russians, not the Germans, had the blood
of the Poles on their hands.
Over the next two years the governments of the United States and Great
Britain took great pains to hold together the Alliance with the Soviet Union
and downplayed Soviet responsibility for the murders in Katyn Forest and at
two other sites that took the lives of more than 14,000 Polish officers.
Eyewitness reports that should have been made public were classified top
secret and subsequently disappeared. An Ambassador to the Balkans was
forbidden to disclose incriminating documents and photographs. Polish
broadcasters were censored by the Office of War Information.
Finally, between September, 1951 and December, 1952, a Select Committee of
the U.S Congress stepped in to investigate this horrible crime. This
committee held hearings in six cities and four countries, received testimony
from 81 witnesses and took depositions from another 100 who could not appear
in person. Its published report of 2,162 pages filled seven volumes. In many
ways, this investigation was Congress at its best. It meticulously assembled
a body of fact that left no doubt about its principal conclusions: first,
that the Soviets were guilty; and second, that the State Department and Army
Intelligence (G-2) had engaged in a determined effort to shield the American
people from the truth.
I recently learned that the seven-volume published record of the Select
Committee to investigate the Katyn Forest massacre is not available anywhere
in Poland. At the request of the Polish Government, I have arranged to
provide Poland with a copy of this record which most experts believe is the
most comprehensive body of record ever assembled on this subject. I would
like to thank the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington, and his
fine staff for their extensive cooperation and assistance in this matter.
On Friday, I will present this document to Ambassador Przemyslaw Grudzinski,
who will accept it on behalf of the Polish government. These records will
then travel to Poland with Mr. Allen Paul, an American author whose book,
KATYN: Stalin's Massacre and the Seeds of Polish Resurrection, provides a
comprehensive overview of the crime and the context in which it occurred.
Mr. Paul's book has recently been translated into Polish and will be
released at an event in Warsaw on April 12. He will place the hearing record
at that time, in my behalf, in the hands of Mr. Andrzej Przewoznik,
Secretary General of the Polish Government Council on War Archives, Public
Monuments and Historic Sites.
It is to be hoped that the record established by the Select Committee will
aid public officials, historians and many others in efforts to understand
the terrible crime of Katyn and its continuing impact on Russo-Polish
relations. I am including with this statement some excerpts of Mr. Paul's
reflections on the importance and scope of the select committee which will
be delivered on April 12 in Warsaw at a Conference on the 60th Anniversary
of Disclosure of the Katyn Forest Massacre.
Mr. Speaker, as we observe the anniversary of the discovery of this
tragedy, let us hope and pray that humanity is spared such tragedies in the
future.
- - -
Thoughts about the Congressional Investigation of Katyn
Excerpts of Warsaw Seminar Remarks by Allen Paul
April 12, 2003
At this moment we are only a few hours away from the sixtieth anniversary of
Radio Berlin's sensational announcement that the Wehrmacht had found the
bodies of thousands Polish officers in Katyn Forest who had been "bestially
murdered by the Bolsheviks." Fresh from their catastrophic defeat at
Stalingrad, the Germans were eager to divert the world's attention from the
pierced veil of Wehrmacht invincibility, and they correctly surmised that
this, too, was a golden opportunity to sow seeds of discord in the Western
Alliance. At that moment the victims - men who had served Poland faithfully,
in fact one might say, valiantly, men who represented the present and future
leadership of their nation, fathers and husbands, physicians and engineers,
professional soldiers and shopkeepers, unfortunate souls placed by an unkind
fate in Soviet hands, prisoners of war who were not recognized as POWs by
their captors - from the moment the news crackled over the airwaves from
Berlin, these tragic victims became geopolitical pawns and would remain so
for years to come.
. Amidst all the atrocities of World War Two why have the crimes commonly
referred to as the Katyn Forest Massacre been so enduring? Poland's feisty
wartime Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Stanislaw Kot, proved to be eerily
prophetic on this issue. In 1941, exasperated by continued stonewalling by
the Soviet government on the case of his country's missing soldiers Kot
said, "People are not like steam. They cannot evaporate." More than 60 years
later, we are still thinking, writing and debating the facts of the case
because, I suspect, it provides such a powerful mirror into the human soul.
Let me turn now to one of the great milestones on the arduous path to truth
about the terrible murders in Katyn Forest, that being the work of what was
officially called "The Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation and
Study of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances on the Katyn Forest
Massacre."
On September 18, 1951 the United States Congress authorized what would
become the most comprehensive neutral investigation of this crime ever
undertaken. It followed by five years an abortive attempt to address this
darkest of tragedies at the Nuremberg trials. That charade collapsed under
the sheer weight of Soviet prosecutorial ineptitude. In 1948 the Poles
themselves - through their London-based government-in-exile - completed
their own investigation and published it as, The Crime of Katyn: Facts and
Documents. It was the most complete record of the crime at the time but it
was far from what the Poles had hoped for: a high profile, independent
investigation and trial to prove once and for all that the Soviets - not the
Germans - were responsible for these brutal murders.
In their conclusion to the 1948 report, the Poles had emphasized Roman-law
canon: i.e. "nobody can be judge in his own case." The Soviets had attempted
with disastrous effect to judge their own case at Nuremberg. The Poles knew
that they, no more than the Soviets, could judge this case, thus they called
for an international tribunal to affix guilt and mete out punishment.
In a sense the investigation sponsored by the U.S. Congress vindicated the
Poles' findings in 1948. The congressional investigation lasted from
September 18, 1951 to December 22, 1952. It resulted in hearings in six
cities and four countries; 81 witnesses were heard; and private depositions
were taken from 100 individuals, most of whom required anonymity to protect
relatives still in Poland. The final report of 2,162 pages filled seven
volumes. After all was said and done, the Select Committee of Congress
concluded, just as the Polish Government-in-Exile had four years earlier,
that an international tribunal, in this case the new United Nations
International Court Justice, should investigate the crime.
This similarity of findings in no way diminishes the scope and importance of
the congressional investigation. Once and for all it put the United States
clearly on the side of the truth in this case and that was no small
accomplishment. The committee clearly, meticulously and, I would say,
courageously documented U.S. concealment of Soviet guilt and its de facto
pursuit of an ends justifies the means policy.
. Like the recommendations of the Polish government-in-exile in 1948, the
recommendations of the Select Committee of Congress were never acted on.
During the war geopolitical realities - principally the fear that the
Soviets would sign a separate peace with Germany - stood squarely in the
way. After the war geopolitical realities - the fact that the Soviets could
block action at the United Nations - continued to stand squarely in the way.
. The words of Sir Owen O'Malley and Ambassador Stanislaw Kot ring just true
today as the day they were uttered. Kot told us in 1941, "People are not
like steam. They cannot evaporate." Kot would tell us today that the quest
for justice for Poland's officers and deportees will inevitably continue.
And surely O'Malley would tell us that justice, if found nowhere else, must
be found in our own hearts.
-End-
