(Prepared for Delivery April 10, 2010)
Dear Representatives of the Katyn families! Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!
In April 1940 more that 21 thousand of Polish prisoners from NKVD cages and prisons were murdered. That genocide crime was committed of Stalin's will, by order of the supreme authorities of the Soviet Union.
The alliance of the Third Reich and the USSR, Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the aggression against Poland on September 17, 1939 found its astonishing culmination in the Katyn massacre.
Not only in the forests of Katyn but also in Twer, Kharkov and other known and still unknown tragic places the citizens of II Rzeczpospolita (the Second Polish republic) were killed. These were people who were creating the foundations of our statehood, who were relentless in the service to our Motherland.
At the same time the families of the killed and the thousands of pre-war borderland citizens were deported to the depth of the Soviet Union where their silent sufferings were marking the way of Polish Eastern Golgotha. Katyn was the most tragic station on this way. Polish officers, clergymen, civil servants, policemen, border guard and prison service officials were exterminated without legal proceedings and court sentences. They became the victims of the war that had not been announced. They were murdered with the humiliation of the rights and conventions of the civilized world. Their dignity as the soldiers, Poles and human beings was trampled.
Death caves were supposed to hide the bodies and the truth about the genocide forever. The world was never supposed to learn.(in Polish text) The families of the victims were unvested of rights for public mourning, sorrow and dignified commemoration of the closest. The soil had covered the traces of the crime and the lie was supposed to erase it from peoples' memory.
The hiding of the truth about Katyn - the effect of the decision of those who led to the crime, became one of the communist policy fundamentals in the after-war Poland: it became the founding lie of PRL (Polish People's Republic). That was the time when for the memory and the truth about Katyn one could pay a very high price. Nevertheless, the families of the murdered and other brave people were true to that memory, they were defending it and were passing it to the next generations of Polish people. They carried it through the times of the communist governments and confided to the fellow-citizens of free and independent Poland. That is why we owe respect and gratitude to all of them and especially to Katyn Families. On behalf of the Republic of Poland I am offering thanks to you as by defending the memory of your closest you have saved so important dimension of our Polish consciousness and identity.
Katyn became the painful wound of Polish history, it also has been poisoning relations between Poles and Russians for long decades. Let us make the Katyn would to finally heal and scar over. We are already on this way. We, the Polish people do appreciate the activities of the Russians during the last years. We have to follow the way that brings our peoples closer to each other. We cannot stop or turn back.
All the circumstances regarding the Katyn crime must be fully investigated and clarified. It is important that guiltlessness of the victims becomes legally confirmed and all the documents regarding the crime are disclosed, so that the lie about Katyn disappears forever from the public sphere. We demand for these steps primarily in memory of the victims and for the respect of the sufferings of their families. We also demand for these activities in the name of common values that must create the foundations of trust and partnership between the neighboring peoples in the whole Europe.
Let us together pay homage to the murdered and let us pray for them. Praise to the heroes! Honour to their memory!
--
Peace.
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
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Amazon's: DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton
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