Polish president Andrzej Duda honoured the victims of the Katyń Massacre – the murder of over 20 thousand Polish officers and representatives of the country’s intelligentsia by the Soviet Union – on the 80th anniversary of this gruesome event. The Polish head of state prepared a special statement to mark the anniversary.
“(…) We, Poles, will forever remember Katyń. We have to honour its memory on its 80th anniversary in a different form from that which we imagined – via a virtual exhibition. Even at this unique time Katyń remains a symbol without which it is impossible fully to understand history. (…) The name of this place reminds us of more than 20 thousand of our compatriots who were brutally murdered by the NKVD. The victims of this crime were POWs and political prisoners: the enlisted officers of the Polish Army reserve, soldiers of the Border Defence Corps, officers of the State Police, government officials. People of various religions, jobs and views who were the elite of our reborn country. They were the citizens’ community of the independent Republic of Poland. For their devotion to the Homeland – for refusing to accept its partition by Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany – they sacrificed their lives”, stated the Polish head of state.