Rare documents listing Katyń massacre victims go on public show to mark official Victims’ Memorial Day
The original lists of the victims of the Katyń Massacre have been put on rare display to mark today’s official Memorial Day for Victims.
The yellowing papers known as the Majchrzycka archive were secretly copied by Home Army soldier Jadwiga Majchrzycka and constitute key evidence of the Soviet Union’s massacre of Polish officers at Katyń in 1940.
More than 12,000 Poles found their horrific end in the "death pits" at Katyń.
In April 1943, in the Katyń Forest near Smolensk in the Soviet Union, occupying German troops discovered eight large graves containing the remains of thousands of the Polish Army officers and intellectual leaders who had been interned at the prisoner-of-war camp at Kozielsk.
More than 12,000 Poles found their horrific end in the "death pits" at Katyń. The murders were part of the much wider massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals on the orders of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria, which saw as many as 22,000 Poles executed by a single shot to the back of the head.
The Nazi German exhumations concluded beyond doubt that the victims in the mass graves had died at the hands of the Soviets.
The murders were part of the much wider massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals on the orders of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria, which saw as many as 22,000 Poles executed by a single shot to the back of the head.
At the same time, the Germans immediately put into operation their propaganda machine. So, when a Polish Red Cross delegation agreed to be present during the exhumations, this was exploited by both the Germans and the Soviets.
The Soviets accused Poland of collaborating with the Germans, which was used as an opportunity for them to break diplomatic ties with the Polish government in exile.
However, the Polish Red Cross delegation was not all that it seemed.
Jadwiga Majchrzycka (pictured) made copies of the exhumation lists and passed them on to the Polish Underground.
Rafał Kierzkowski from the Central Archives of Modern Records which has put the documents on display said: “The representatives of the Polish Red Cross, who travelled there as a delegation at the invitation of the Germans, at the same time represented the Polish Underground State in a clandestine manner.”
Among the delegation was Jadwiga Majchrzycka, who made copies of the exhumation lists and passed them on to the Polish Underground.
Born on July 13, 1900, in Warsaw, before the war she worked at the Military Archives and in September 1939 was employed by the Polish Red Cross.
Majchrzycka kept the lists hidden in a special hiding place in an apartment on Filtrowa Street in Warsaw until just before her death in 1969.
She later fought in the Warsaw Uprising.
Kierzkowski said: “Jadwiga Majchrzycka, seeing what was going on - and still working at the Polish Red Cross - witnessed how [Soviet] agents were trying to get to these materials.
“That's why she decided to take this dramatic but wise step: she simply took these materials and hid them.”
Before she died, Majchrzycka handed the archive to Catholic priest Father Stefan Wysocki who kept it hidden and only revealed its existence in July 2011.
The Soviets and the Communist authorities after the war were keen to eliminate any evidence of the crime.
Knowing this, Majchrzycka kept the lists hidden in a special hiding place in an apartment on Filtrowa Street in Warsaw until just before her death in 1969.
Kierzkowski said: “She showed great courage, because, as we know today, witnesses or people with knowledge of the Katyń massacre perished after the war at the hands of the Communist services.”
The main part of the archive are lists of those exhumed, along with the names of those who were successfully identified.
There is also information about the condition of individual bodies and the items that were found with them.
Before she died, she handed over the archive to Catholic priest Father Stefan Wysocki. Father Wysocki kept it hidden, only revealing its existence in July 2011 when he handed it over to Central Archives of Modern Records.
The main part of the archive are lists of those exhumed, along with the names of those who were successfully identified.
There is also information about the condition of individual bodies and the items that were found with them.
