Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Crime of Katyn: Facts and Documents, by Zdzislaw Stahl. 1965

General Anders Affirms Katyn as Genocide. Document-Filled Book a Boon to Scholars

This English-language version was originally scheduled for publication in 1948, but wasn’t actually published until 1965, the 25th anniversary of the crime. General Wladyslaw Anders, who was to live until 1970, commented: “A quarter of a century has passed and this untried and unpunished crime of genocide lives in the memory of civilized nations.” (p. v). [And now, 2020, which is 80 years after Katyn, still not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice. Meanwhile, we comb the world over for 95 year-old Nazi killers of Jews. Evidently, there exists a Talmudic-style dual justice system.]

One feature of this book not generally found in other books on Katyn is the chronological table of the convoys, which carried the doomed Poles, as they left the camp at Kozielsk. (pp. 60-61). This covers the period of April 3–May 12, 1940. Each entry lists the date, number of men removed, and the names of a few of them.

THE WEB OF SOVIET LIES

This work also includes the sentence-by-sentence conversation, between General Sikorski and General Anders on one hand, and Stalin on the other, concerning the whereabouts of the missing officers. (pp. 86-88). It was then that Stalin said the transparent absurdity about the men all having escaped to Manchuria, which was located only several thousand miles east of the POW camps. (p. 87).

Interestingly, throughout this period of Soviet dissembling, the claim that the POWs had fallen into the hands of the advancing Germans was never made. Instead, that was a later after-the-fact invention following the Nazi broadcast of April 1943.

There is the fascinating testimony of Ivan Krivozertsev, a Russian who claimed to have seen the arrival of the Poles at the death site in 1940. (pp. 229-240). Krivozertsev (“Michel Loboda”) was found hanged in postwar England (1947). (Suicide? Or a Communist “hit”?)

RUSSIAN APOLOGISTS FAIL MISERABLY

No insects (p. 130) were found on the bodies, pointing to an early-1940 (pre late-spring) death at the hands of the Soviets, not a mid-1941 (summer) death at the hands of the Germans. Other forensic details are provided, including that from the original German-sponsored international commission. There is also a document by the Polish physician, Marian Wodzinski. (pp. 191-228).

A thorough debunking of the Soviet Burdenko commission, which attempted to blame the Katyn crime on the Nazis, is included. (pp. 243-264). The Soviet case fell apart quite easily. For instance, there were a handful of mementos, postdating spring 1940, allegedly found by the Soviets on the bodies, thus supposedly proving a 1941 German murder date. However, the meagerness of these mementos in no way outweighs the thousands of exclusively pre-spring-1940 ones found earlier. A handful of mementos could easily be forged. Besides, no one got to see these “new” mementos apart from the Soviet Commission [and, besides, there is no independent evidence that these “new” mementos actually came from the bodies!] (p. 263).