The Truth of Katyn

In the spring of 1940, in a quiet forest near Smolensk, nearly 22,000 Polish

officers, intellectuals, priests, and professionals were taken,

bound, and executed. Their bodies were buried in mass graves beneath the trees

of Katyn. These were not random soldiers. They were the backbone of Poland’s leadership

— men who could rebuild a nation after war. And that was exactly why the Soviets

wanted them gone. When the graves were discovered in 1943, the Soviet Union

immediately blamed Nazi Germany. The world was at war, and the Allies needed

Stalin. So Britain and the United States publicly supported the Soviet explanation — even