“After 1945, nations like mine paid the price. Poland paid, Lithuania paid, Estonia paid, Romania paid, the countries of the former Yugoslavia paid, and East Germany paid. We paid because we had to live in lies and enslavement. This communist system continued to murder our workers on the streets of Polish cities. Our heroes – in forests and in the torture chambers of the Security Office. This world order built after 1945 had its price. We paid it across Central and Eastern Europe,” said Karol Nawrocki, President of the Republic of Poland, at the Katyn Museum in Warsaw during the observance of the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Katyn Massacre.
Today marks the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Katyn Massacre, observed in Poland on April 13. The main ceremonies are taking place at the Katyn Museum in Warsaw, where President Karol Nawrocki delivered his speech.
“Poland was meant to disappear forever”
During his address, the Polish head of state emphasized that “Katyn is a horrific genocidal crime directed against 22,000 Polish officers of the Polish Army, officers of the state police, and the Border Protection Corps. It is a powerful voice of the silenced choirs of those who could not speak.”
Katyn is a symbol, on the one hand, of a horrific crime committed against 22,000 Poles who faithfully served the Republic of Poland – including clergy of many denominations. It is a symbol of a crime committed by the Soviet Union. A formalized crime, a planned crime, a crime directed against the Polish nation so that Poland would disappear forever from the map of memory, he continued.
As he noted, “Katyn is a symbol of a crime that was meant to break the chain of generations of Poles by targeting exceptional representatives of the Polish nation. The Polish intelligentsia – those upon whom we could have built a free, independent, and sovereign Poland. But such a Poland did not emerge in 1945. They were no longer there, because they had been murdered by the Soviets.”
“But Katyn is also a symbol of lies, of Soviet propaganda. As Father Zdzisław Peszkowski, who miraculously survived the Katyn genocide, said – Katyn must be explained, because it was a terrible lie. A lie that became the foundation of communist Poland, a colonial Poland after 1945. Katyn became a foundational point for the lies of the communists after 1945. Those communists who did not liberate Poland, but enslaved it for nearly 50 years after 1945. Around this lie, the entire party apparatus was built, as well as education and schooling. The Polish nation was deceived,” President Nawrocki stressed, adding: “The Soviets lied, shifting responsibility for Katyn onto their allies – the Germans. While the Soviets were murdering in Katyn, in 1940 their allies, the Germans, were also murdering Poles. They were carrying out the same destruction of the Polish nation based on the Hitler-Stalin agreement and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. It was a clear plan to destroy the Republic of Poland and the entire Polish nation.”
The Polish head of state also recalled the tragic consequences of the Katyn massacre:
“After 1945, nations like mine paid the price. Poland paid, Lithuania paid, Estonia paid, Romania paid, the countries of the former Yugoslavia paid, and East Germany paid. We paid because we had to live in lies and enslavement. This communist system continued to murder our workers on the streets of Polish cities. Our heroes – in forests and in the torture chambers of the Security Office. This world order built after 1945 had its price. We paid it across Central and Eastern Europe.”
“Long live a free Poland!”
Addressing the participants of the ceremony, the president called:
“From here, I would like this powerful voice of the silenced choirs to once again speak to all of us, and for us – in recognition of the sacrifice of our heroes from Katyn – to be aware that a world without wars, a united Europe, a shared world of democratic values cannot be understood without understanding the perspective of Central and Eastern Europe. These are the countries that know the Soviet Union all too well and that understand today that the Russian Federation is a threat to the free world, and that Vladimir Putin is repeating the actions of the Soviet Union. On our land, this is obvious.”
“Eternal memory to the heroes murdered by the Soviets in Katyn. Contempt for the perpetrators. Long live a free and independent Poland. Long live Poland!” he concluded.