Evil, which was the origin of the Katyn crime, is inactive lurking around us, threatening our neighbours, peace, Poland and Europe," said Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the 85th anniversary of the Katyn crime. The celebrations were organized at the Katyń Museum in Warsaw on today's Day of Memory of the Victims of Katyń Crime.
– Whenever we worship the memory of the victims Katyn crime, most likely everyone feels the same that silence is more crucial than the most beautiful speech, due to the fact that there are no words to realize the magnitude and nonsense of the crime," said Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the Katyń Museum in the Warsaw Citadel. The celebrations commemorating the 85th anniversary of the crime, which the NKVD carried out in Poles in 1940, organized the Office for Combatants and Represented Persons, the Federation of Katyń Families and the Museum of the Polish Army.
The head of government indicated in his speech that we cannot stay silent today. – True, this evil has been overcome and we live in an independent, sovereign, free country, but the evil that was the origin of this crime is inactive lurking around us – Tusk warned. He besides mentioned today's Russian attack on the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, where respective twelve people died this morning according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior. This evil is inactive tangible, visible. He threatens our neighbors, threatens peace, how we feel more and more each month. He threatens Poland and Europe – the Prime Minister admitted and added that the victim of 22 1000 officers, enlisted officers, Poles, the elite of the Polish nation, is an highly crucial lesson of history, which we must perceive to with peculiar sensitivity today.
As Donald Tusk stressed, by paying tribute to those murdered in the Katyń Forest, we must inform ourselves, the full planet and future generations, that we cannot be powerless against evil, lies and aggression. The Prime Minister besides pointed out that present we should promise Katyn's victims that we will never be weak. “What is freedom if there are no people willing to defend good, freedom, fact and to defend them effectively,” said the head of government.
President Andrzej Duda besides pointed out the request to strengthen the safety of our country in a letter to the participants of the celebrations. "The Day of Memory of the Victims of Katyń Crime unites us, Poles, in awe of the price of freedom and observes that the sovereign Republic as an idea, as an area of freedom and as a strategically located country of Europe has always been, is and will stay an obstacle to the implementation of far-reaching plans of the Moscow empire," wrote the President. As he emphasized, though 85 years have passed since this crime, regular reports from the defending Ukraine make that beastly execution take real form in our eyes. "(...) the request to defend external safety as the primary precedence of our country's policy has become even more apparent and undisputed than before," said Andrzej Duda.
The president in Krakow commemorated the anniversary of the crime, where he laid a wreath before the Katyń Cross. “The Soviets murdered more than 22 1000 Polish officers, soldiers who defended their homeland in cold blood,” said the leader of the armed forces. He emphasized that they were able to be murdered, but they were never able to be torn from the memory of families and people.
Izabella Sariusz-Skępska, president of the Federation of Katyń Families, besides stressed the request for memory. She pointed out that erstwhile the Katyn families lacked, the work of this memory would remainder on the Polish country. erstwhile the memory blows, demons wake up. However, I believe that the memory of the Katyn crime will aid to halt this evil that has been revived in the east," said Sariusz-Skępska. She besides added that present we should be in Polish cemeteries in Katyń Forest, Mednoje and Kharkov and there bow to the graves of our heroes. "However, this is impossible due to the fact that Russia is fighting for its imperialism again," she noted.
– The memory of the Katyn crime is absolutely fundamental to us, besides due to the fact that for decades attempt to annihilate it, erase it from the consciousness of Poles – reminded Lech Parell, Head of the Office for Combatants and Represented People on the eve of the ceremony “This, fortunately, failed,” he emphasized.
In the spring of 1940, the NKVD murdered almost 22 1000 Polish citizens. Among them, 14.5 1000 prisoners of war, including active and reserve service officers, police officers, border guards from camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov and 7.3 1000 prisoners from the east part of Poland. On April 13, 1943, the Germans reported the discovery of mass graves in the Katyń Forest. And on April 13, 47 years later, the Russian TASS agency officially confirmed that Polish prisoners of war were shot by the NKVD.
On 13 April, it is the Day of Memory of the Victims of Katyń Crime in Poland, while 2025 was recognized by the Sejm Year of Polish Heroes from Katyń, Mednoje, Kharkiv and Bykownia.
During today's ceremony in Warsaw there was an Appeal of Memory, a prayer together, and the participants laid wreaths before the Katyn Epitaph. A mass was besides celebrated this morning in the Polish Army Department in the intention of victims of crime and their families.
