BETRAYED BY ALLIES

CZESŁAW RYSZKA

Documents prove that till the collapse of the Soviet Union, the governments of the USA were defending themselves against the official acknowledgement of the soviet responsibility for Katyń

After 72 years since the crime in Katyń committed by the Russians on Polish soldiers, the USA decided to publish documents on this issue, being in archives of intelligence services. So far a few thousand pages have been published for the first time on internet on a portal of American National Archives. This publication is a result of the initiative of democratic politicians of Polish origin: Congressman Marcy Kaptur from Ohio and the former congressman Paul Kanjorski from Pennsylvania and also the fruit of works of the conference on Katyń in the library of the Congress in 2010organised by the Foundation of Kościuszko.

The declassified documents of Katyń do not concern facts connected with the disaster of Polish prisoners of war, but they show much hypocrisy which accompanied this crime and mainly hypocrisy of our allies, especially the USA and England. Unfortunately, despite the knowledge of these governments about the genocide committed on Poles by the Soviets in 1940 Roosevelt, during a conference in Teheran, expressed his consent to returning nearly half of the territory of Poland to the Soviet Union and including our country in the orbit of soviet influences.

What’s more, the documents prove that till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the governments of the USAwere defending themselves against the official acknowledgement of the soviet responsibility for Katyń. It was still in 1992 when one of the activists of the American Polonia received an answer about Katyń from the Department of State, that Stalin had been responsible for Katyń till the acknowledgement in April 1990 by the government of the Soviet Union, and thatthe American authorities ‘did not have enough information’ on this topic. An American official of the supreme position wrote it, knowing, that, for example, a special commission established in 1951 by the USA Congress under the leadership of Ray John Madden proved that the crime had been done by the Russians. Unfortunately, the report of the congressman Madden did not overcome the public opinion in the West. Moreover, in the mid of 1953 a secretary of State at that time John Foster Dulles did not agree with the postulate of the Congress about submitting the matter of Katyń and the fault of the Soviet Union to the International Justice Tribunal in Haga.

The currently revealed documents prove that reports of a few American and British prisoners of war got lost in unknown circumstances, who had been taken to Katyń by the Germans, after uncovering loads of graves of Polish soldiers there in Spring 1943. Their reports to their authorities stated clearly that the perpetrators of the crime were the Soviets.

It is seen how allies stifled the truth about the genocide in Katyń, having their own interest in it. Unfortunately, in policies of powerful people of this world, national interests prevail over the truth and morality. Certainly, it does not justify politicians.

There appears a question: why the topic of Katyń has been made public through propaganda in the USA? Surely, in the electoral campaign of president Barack Obama it can be considered as a bow towards Poles in the USA. However, I wish they meant something more. It is high time the USA joined the Polish efforts in revealing unavailable polonicas of Katyń in the archives of other countries, especially Russia and the UK. For it has been known from the beginning that the most important information about the crime in Katyń is not in the USA but in Russia. We have been claiming for showing the graves of most victims of prisoners from Russia for years (we know them from camps), we are waiting for personal folders of prisoners of war, we do not have the so-called list of Belarus, that is, an index of namesof all murdered officers. Will the Russians ever declassify these documents if they call the crime of Katyń only a war incident to the European Tribunal of Human Rights?

In every school book ofhistory after the year 1989, we will come across words that Poland was first deserted during the Second World War, and later betrayed by allies. However, what is written, has not been evaluated explicitly so far. The lack of the evaluation, undermines the credibility of the contemporary alliances in which Poland participates. Who guarantees us today that in a situation of danger of our independence, allies will not choose the way of Roosevelt?

For dozens of years the governments of the USA, England or France knew the truth about Katyń, but fearing of worsening of relations with the Soviet Union, no questions on this issue have been asked to communist authorities. Now, as I think, the governments of the USA or EU countries, know much more about Smoleńsk than us, but they prefer to be pleased with untrue reports of the Miller’s commission. And, after all, in the catastrophe of TU-154 the president of the EU country was killed, as well as generals of the supreme rank, being the members of NATO! Why isn’t there no gesture of the slightest interest from these ‘allied’ countries or organisations? And I am afraid to write the same words about the current allies which I have included in the article.

(AA)

"Niedziela" 39/2012

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl