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KATYN TRAGEDY.
On September 17, 1939 the Red Army invaded the territory of Poland from the east. This invasion took place while Poland had already sustained serious defeats in the wake of the German attack on the country that started on September 1, 1939; thus Soviets moved to safeguard their claims in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
In the wake of the Red Army's quick advance that met little resistance, between 250 000 and 454 700 Polish soldiers had become prisoners and were interned by the Soviets. About 250 000 were set free by the army almost on the spot, while 125 000 were delivered to the internal security services (the NKVD).
The NKVD in turn quickly released 42 400 soldiers. The approximately 170 000 released were mostly soldiers of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity serving in the Polish army. The 43 000 soldiers born in West Poland, now under German control, were transferred to the Germans. By November 19, 1939, NKVD had about 40 000 Polish POWs: about 8 500 officers and warrant officers, 6 500 police officers and 25 000 soldiers and NCOs who were still being held as POWs.
As early as September 19, 1939, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs and First Rank Commissar of State Security, Lavrenty Beria, ordered the NKVD to create a Directorate for Prisoners of War to manage Polish prisoners. The NKVD took custody of Polish prisoners from the Red Army, and proceeded to organize a network of reception centers and transit camps and arrange rail transport to prisoner-of-war camps in the western USSR. The camps were located at Jukhnovo (Babynino rail station), Yuzhe (Talitsy), Kozelsk, Kozelshchyna, Oranki, Ostashkov (Stolbnyi Island on Seliger Lake near Ostashkov), Tyotkino rail station (90 km from Putyvl), Starobielsk, Vologda (Zaenikevo rail station) and Gryazovets.
The approximate distribution of men throughout the camps was as follows: Kozelsk – 5 000; Ostashkov – 6 570; and Starobelsk – 4 000. They totalled 15 570 men.
On March 5, 1940, pursuant to a note to Joseph Stalin from Lavrenty Beria, the members of the Soviet Politburo – Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov, Anastas Mikoyan and Beria – signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish 'nationalists and counterrevolutionaries' kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus.
Up to 99% of the remaining prisoners were subsequently murdered. People from Kozelsk were murdered in the usual mass murder site of Smolensk country, called Katyn forest; people from Starobilsk were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kharkiv and the bodies were buried near Pyatikhatki; and police officers from Ostashkov were murdered in the inner NKVD prison of Kalinin (Tver) and buried in Miednoje (Mednoye).
Estimates of the number of executed persons ranges from 15 000 to 21 768. Polish POWs and prisoners were murdered in Katyn forest, Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere. About 8 000 of the victims were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 invasion of Poland, the rest being Polish citizens who had been arrested for allegedly being 'intelligence agents, gendarmes, spies, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners and officials'.
The term 'Katyn massacre' originally referred to the massacre, at Katyn Forest near villages of Katyn and Gnezdovo (about 12 miles (19 km) west of Smolensk, Russia), of Polish military officers confined at the Kozelsk prisoner-of-war camp. It is applied now also to the execution of prisoners of war held at Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps, and political prisoners in West Belarus and West Ukraine, shot on Stalin's orders at Katyn Forest, at the NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del) Smolensk headquarters and at a slaughterhouse in the same city, as well as at prisons in Kalinin (Tver), Kharkiv, Moscow, and other Soviet cities.
The 1943 discovery of mass graves at Katyn Forest by Germany, after its armed forces had occupied the site in 1941, precipitated a rupture of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish government-in-exile in London. The Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it acknowledged that the NKVD secret police had in fact committed the massacres and the subsequent cover-up. The Russian government has admitted Soviet responsibility for the massacres, although it does not classify them as war crimes or as acts of genocide, as this would have necessitated the prosecution of surviving perpetrators, which is what the Polish government has requested. It also does not classify the dead as the victims of Stalinist repressions, in effect barring their formal posthumous rehabilitation.
On 13 April 1990, the forty-seventh anniversary of the discovery of the mass graves, the USSR formally expressed 'profound regret' and admitted Soviet secret police responsibility.
That day is also an International Day of Katyn Victims Memorial (Światowy Dzień Pamięci Ofiar Katynia).
After Poles and Americans discovered further evidence in 1991 and 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin released and transferred to the new Polish president, former Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa, top-secret documents from the sealed package no. 1.
In June 2008, Russian courts consented to hear a case about the declassification of documents about Katyn and the judicial rehabilitation of the victims. In an interview with a Polish newspaper, Vladimir Putin called Katyn a 'political crime'.

en.wikipedia.org

	Denomination: 2 Zloty Year: 1995 Material: Copper-Nickel Description: Obverse: Of the coin carries an image of the Coat of Arms of the Poland. Above it – an inscription – RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA – runs in the form of a semi-circle. Below it – denomination and year of issue. Reverse: Inscription: KATYŃ, MIEDNOJE, CHARKOV 1940. Conventionalized image of a cemetery. Diameter – 29.5 mm, weight – 10.8 g., edge plain. Mintage: 300 000. The coin was struck in Poland. FMM hasn't got this coin yet. Country or town: Poland
	Denomination: 20 Zloty Year: 1995 Material: Silver Description: Obverse: Of the coin carries an image of the Coat of Arms of the Poland. Above it – an inscription – RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA – runs in the form of a semi-circle. Below it – denomination and year of issue. Reverse: Inscription: KATYŃ, MIEDNOJE, CHARKOV 1940. Conventionalized image of a cemetery. 935 standard silver. Diameter – 38.61 mm, weight – 31.1 g., edge plain. Mintage: 30 000. The coin was struck in Poland. FMM hasn't got this coin yet. Country or town: Poland
Click to enlarge!	Denomination: 2 Zloty Year: 2010 Material: Aluminum-copper-zinc alloy Description: Commemorative coin '70th Anniversary of the Katyń Crime'. Obverse: An image of the Eagle established as the State Emblem of the Republic of Poland. On the sides of the Eagle, the notation of the year of issue: 20 – 10. Below the Eagle, an inscription: ZŁ 2 ZŁ in the rim, an inscription: RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA, preceded and followed by six pearls. The Mint’s mark: M/W, under the Eagle’s left leg. Reverse: Centrally, an inscription: KATYŃ. Below, a stylized image of the military forage cap with the Polish military Eagle. At the top, a semicircular inscription: 70. ROCZNICA ZBRODNI KATYŃSKIEJ (70 TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KATYN MASSACRE). Diameter – 27 mm, weight – 8.15 g., edge plain with the inscription, NBP, repeated eight times, every second one inverted by 180 degrees, separated by stars. Put in circulation since April 8, 2010. Mintage: 1 000 000. The coin was struck at the National Bank of Poland. Country or town: Poland
	Denomination: 10 Zloty Year: 2010 Material: Silver Description: Commemorative coin '70th Anniversary of the Katyń Crime'. Obverse: At the top, an image of the Eagle, established as the State Emblem of the Republic of Poland. On the sides of the Eagle’s legs, an inscription: 10 – ZŁ. Below, against the background of the Polish military Eagle outline, inscriptions: KATYŃ, KALININ, CHARKÓW, MIŃSK, CHERSOŃ, KIJÓW. On the left-hand side, a semicircular inscription: RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA, on the right-hand side a semi-circular inscription: POLSKA 2010. The mint’s mark: M/W, under the Eagle’s left leg. Reverse: At the bottom, stylized images of tree trunks, the upper parts of which represent images of crosses. Above them, an inscription: 70. (70th). At the top, a semi-circular inscription: ROCZNICA ZBRODNI KATYŃSKIEJ (ANNIVERSARY OF THE KATYN MASSACRE). Standard 925/1000 silver, diameter – 32 mm, weight – 14.14 g., edge plain. Put in circulation since April 8, 2010. Mintage: 80 000. The coin was struck at the National Bank of Poland. FMM hasn't got this coin yet. Country or town: Poland

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