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Death in the Forest: Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre

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This book, though now somewhat dated, provides a good summary of the murder of tens of thousands of Polish POW officers by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) in April 1940. These Poles, the flower of Polish society, had been captured by the Soviets after the joint Soviet-German conquest of Poland (September-October 1939). After Nazi Germany unexpectedly attacked its erstwhile Soviet ally in June 1941, the Soviets ostensibly had switched to the Polish side. Some, but by no means all, of Polish prisoners and exiles were released from Soviet prisons and gulags. The conspicuous absence of the previously captured Polish officers became obvious. The Polish government-in-exile at London never got a straight answer about their fate. In fact, Stalin made absurd lies about their whereabouts ("They must have all escaped to China"). The west never called Stalin for his transparent mendacity.

When the invading Germans brought the atrocity to light in 1943, the Polish-government-in-exile requested the Red Cross to investigate. At once, Stalin blamed the Germans and accused the Poles of having fallen for German propaganda. He then conveniently used this unexpected turn of events as an excuse for severing ties with the rightful Polish government-embodied in the government-in-exile-in favor of a puppet Communist government that Stalin had previously hand picked. All this time, Churchill and especially Roosevelt were not particularly interested in the truth about Katyn. To the contrary, blame was placed on the victims (Poles) for being too emotional, too unwise, too chauvinistic, etc., for pressing their case.

In the end, Poland was betrayed, and the truth about Katyn was suppressed in Communist-ruled Poland. Not until the fall of Communism did the truth finally come out. In 1990, the Soviet Union finally admitted its guilt for the crime of Katyn. Of course, Katyn is symbolic of Soviet conduct towards Poland. While there were tens of thousands of victims at Katyn and related sites of murder, the total number of Polish victims of Soviet aggression exceed one million. Unfortunately, very few westerners know about this, or of the two million Polish gentiles who fell victim to the Germans.

This is an excellent and fascinating account of the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre. It is well-told and astonishingly thorough: easily one of the best writings of the incident. It's clear Zawodny spent a tremendous amount of time researching the subject. I had the privilege of speaking with the author and he revealed to me that when he began writing this book, he had been of the belief that the massacre was carried out by the Germans. However, as his research progressed he became aware that it was, in fact, the Russians who committed the crime.

I first came across this book in high school, when a buddy (there were four of us in a military history clique), showed me a book he borrowed from a library on Operation Keelhaul (the forced repatriation of former Soviet citizens to the USSR), and this one, on Katyn. I couldn't find the book, and had to make do with After the Battle #92 (which has more up to date information). That is, until I found both at a used bookstore.

Massacre in Katyn is very dry, almost dull reading, jumping here and there at times. It was okay for its time, when Soviet crimes were suppressed in the West, but with the collapse of the (ironically named) Warsaw Pact, other more worthy books have since come out, including the aforementioned magazine. Still, it was sad reading. The reformed Polish Army in England, after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, asking for this or that staff officer or major, only to be lied to by being told that such and such an individual could not be found. Or the coverup started by the Truman administration, or the threats made by the British government to the Poles in exile. All very sad reading, but as mentioned before, the work has been surpassed by historians with more complete information.