85th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. This is what the celebrations will look like

The central celebrations commemorating the 85th anniversary of the Katyn massacre will take place on Sunday in Warsaw. A mass is planned in the field cathedral of the Polish Army for the victims and their families, and the appeal appeal combined with the prayer and wreaths ceremony.

On April 13, on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Katyn massacre, the Office for War Veterans and Repressed Persons, the Federation of Katyn Families and the Polish Army Museum together with the Katyn Museum organize the central celebration commemorating the 85th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.

85th anniversary of the Katyn massacre

The Sejm, establishing the year 2025 of Polish heroes from Katyn, Kharkov, Miednoje, Bykownia and other places, reminds them of them as live characters symbolizing free Poland – a sovereign, proud state. – We are celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Katyn massacre this year. Throughout the year there are celebrations to emphasize the importance of this crime, and it was very great for our nation – the head of the Office for War Veterans and Repressed people Lech Parell told PAP.

– The memory of the Katyn massacre is something completely basic for us, also because for many decades she was tried to destroy, erase from Poles' awareness. Fortunately, it failed. That is why the anniversary of this crime has two dimensions for us – on the one hand we remember 22,000. Poles murdered, insidiously and brutally, they were prisoners of war, which were entitled to protection, and they were murdered, just because they were Poles. On the other hand, it is a festival of memory. We want to emphasize this and we want, as for decades, the memory of the crime is annihilated yes, we want for dozens or maybe hundreds of years, this crime would be perfectly remembered – he emphasized.

This year's celebration of the Memorial Day of the Victims of the Katyn massacre with the participation of the last living children of prisoners of war murdered by the NKVD, Katyn and police families and the highest representatives of state authorities were covered by the honorary patronage of the Prime Minister, deputy prime minister, minister of national defense and the Minister of the Interior and Administration.

Ceremony

On Sunday at 10 In the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army for the victims of the Katyn massacre and their families there will be a mass. Before the mass, the head of Udskior together with the field bishop of the Polish Army will lay flowers in the Katyn chapel.

At noon there will be a solemn appeal appeal combined with official speeches, a common prayer and a wreaths ceremony before the Katyn Epitaph at the Katyn Museum.

The Veterans' Office also reminds that this year we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Katyn cemeteries.

The Katyn massacre

On March 5, 1940, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of WKP (b) decided to liquidate Polish prisoners of war without charging them, the decision to complete the investigation or the indictment. Already on April 3, 1940, the liquidation of the Kozielsk camp began. All the prisoners gathered in it were killed in the Katyn forest. Over the next six weeks, subsequent Polish officers were taken from camps and shot: soldiers from Starobielsk – in Kharkov, and policemen from Ostaszków – in Kalinin. NKVD murders in Cherson, Kharkov, Kiev and Minsk.

On April 13, 1943, information about the mass graves of Polish officers murdered by the Soviet NKVD found in Berlin in Berlin. However, the truth about the perpetrators of genocide in the citizens of the Second Polish Republic was officially confirmed only after nearly 50 years. On April 13, 1990, the Soviet press agency TASS issued a statement of the USSR authorities, in which it was officially confirmed that Polish prisoners of war were shot in the spring of 1940 by the NKVD.

On November 14, 2007, by a resolution of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, on April 13, he was established by the Memorial Day of the Victims of the Katyn massacre.