Katyń

The paper is devoted to Ludwik Christians, a Polish lawyer, president of the Polish Red Cross, a deputy of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (from 1934), and a member of the National Party. Ludwik Christians was committed to preserving the memory of the Katyn massacre. In October 1943, as the president of the Polish Red Cross of Lublin District, he applied to the occupying German authorities for releasing a group of nearly 1500 people: pregnant women, the elderly, sick persons, juveniles, and doctors from Konzentrationslager Lublin (Majdanek concentration camp). In 1944, he became a member of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission to investigate German crimes committed in KL Majdanek. After the war, the Polish communist security apparatus considered him an enemy, kept him under surveillance, and prepared materials for an espionage trial.
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Opracowanie jest poświęcone Ludwikowi Christiansowi, polskiemu adwokatowi, prezesowi Polskiego Czerwonego Krzyża i posłowi na Sejm RP (od 1934 roku), członkowi Stronnictwa Narodowego. Ludwik Christians był zaangażowany w ochronę pamięci o zbrodni katyńskiej. W październiku 1943 roku, jako prezes Polskiego Czerwonego Krzyża Okręgu Lublin wystąpił do okupacyjnych władz niemieckich o zwolnienie z obozu Konzentrationslager Lublin (Majdanek) grupy około półtora tysiąca osób: kobiet ciężarnych, starców, chorych, młodocianych, a także lekarzy. W 1944 roku został członkiem Polsko-Radzieckiej Komisji Nadzwyczajnej do zbadania zbrodni niemieckich popełnionych w KL Majdanek. Po wojnie polski komunistyczny aparat bezpieczeństwa zaliczał go do wrogów, inwigilował go i przygotowywał materiały do procesu o szpiegostwo.

Argues that the crucial context of Stalin's decision to execute the Polish officers and officials was the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 and fears of Anglo-Soviet intervention. This magnified the problem posed by the Polish POWs, who strongly resisted Soviet attempts to indoctrinate them.

Jan Bober należy do tych osób, których wspomnienia ocalają pamięć o polskich jeńcach przebywających w obozach sowieckich. W 1926 r. jako podkomisarz był komendantem powiatowym Policji Politycznej w Brzesku. Następnie pełnił funkcje naczelnika Urzędu Śledczego w Nowogródku, a także naczelnika Urzędu Śledczego w województwie poleskim. W stopniu nadkomisarza był naczelnikiem Urzędu Śledczego w Brześciu nad Bugiem. Po wybuchu II wojny światowej dostał się do sowieckiej niewoli i został osadzony w obozie w Ostaszkowie. Wiosną 1940 r. uniknął śmierci. Znalazł się w grupie niespełna 400 więźniów ocalałych z trzech obozów specjalnych NKWD w Kozielsku, Starobielsku i Ostaszkowie. Przebywał następnie w kilku innych obozach, m.in. w Griazowcu. Wraz z armią Andersa przedostał się na Zachód, gdzie zastał go koniec wojny. Osiadł w Wielkiej Brytanii, skąd w 1971 r. powrócił do kraju.
Wspomnienia zaczął pisać już po II wojnie światowej. Wykorzystał jednak notatki robione skrzętnie podczas pobytu w kilku obozach. Dziennik pisany na gorąco pozwolił mu zachować wiele szczegółów zdarzeń rozgrywających się za drutami obozów sowieckich. Ponadto na podstawie wielu wydanych na Zachodzie materiałów źródłowych mógł uszczegółowić zanotowane nazwiska oraz miejsca, w których przebywał. Korespondencja z kolegami z okresu wojny pomogła Boberowi dodać wiele faktów dotyczących m.in. wyżywienia w obozach czy też obsady strażników.
Nadszedł czas, aby wspomnienia Jan Bobera ujrzały światło dzienne i stały się świadectwem losów wielu tysięcy Polaków przebywających w obozach sowieckich, z których bardzo wielu już nigdy do Polski nie wróciło.

The present study analyses an article of A. Yu. Plotnikov (Dr. Hist. Sc.) published in the peer-reviewed journal "Science. Society. Defense" (from the authoritative list of the Higher Attestation Commission), which denies the guilt of Stalin and the NKVD for the Katyn crime. Detailed refutation of arguments of the author, who repeats clichés from politically biased publications of the 1990s–2000s, does not bring anything new to the discussion of the topic and does not answer key questions, exposes the intellectual poverty of the modern Katyn denial.

В настоящем исследовании анализируется статья доктора исторических наук А. Ю. Плотникова, напечатанная в рецензируемом журнале из списка ВАК «Наука. Общество. Оборона», в которой отрицается вина Сталина и НКВД за катынское преступление. Подробное опровержение аргументов автора, повторяющего клише из политически ангажированной публицистики 1990-х – 2000-х гг., не привносящего в обсуждение темы ничего нового и не отвечающего на ключевые вопросы, обнажает интеллектуальную бедность современного катынского отрицания.

Chociaż sowieckie sprawstwo Zbrodni Katyńskiej nie ulegało wątpliwości od chwili jej ujawnienia w kwietniu 1943 r., trzeba było czekać niemal pół wieku, zanim z moskiewskich archiwów wydostały się na światło dzienne dokumenty pozwalające wyjaśnić okoliczności mordu i odkryto nieznane dotąd miejsca pochówku polskich jeńców obozów w Starobielsku i Ostaszkowie. Stało się to możliwe w schyłkowym okresie ZSRS, w atmosferze gorbaczowowskiej głasnosti, gdy rządzący na Kremlu znaleźli się pod naciskiem nie tylko żądań płynących z Polski, ale i własnego społeczeństwa, upominającego się o pamięć o ofi arach stalinizmu. Olbrzymią rolę w tych staraniach odgrywało Stowarzyszenie "Memoriał".

The history of the origin and the development of the word KATYN is an outstanding example of political propaganda and a PR-action.
The history takes rise in the events of 1943 and is directly related to Nazi propaganda. But even after the end of the Third Reich, the historical and political meanings of the word Katyn have been maintained and developed over many decades. At present, the word Katyn has become a metonym. It includes more and more broad historical meanings, but first of all political ones.
The original historical name of the place where the burial places were found is Kozi Gory. Until mid-April 1943, in the sources of the most diverse origin, neither Katyn nor the Katyn Forest, but only "Kozi Gory", were used to describe the location of the burial places of the Polish officers.
The word Katyn first appeared in mid-April 1943 in Nazi propaganda articles, posters and messages on the radio. It was formed from the Polish word "KAT", which means "killer", "executioner", "hangman".  From the very beginning, the word Katyn was not a geographical name, a toponym. Initially, it had a historical and political meaning (content), pointing to the perpetrator - the executioner, Kat - of someone who, in the opinion of the Nazi authorities, was guilty of the death of the Poles.
The village Katyn is located on the banks of the Katynka River, which flows out of the lake Kuprinskoe and then flows into the Dnieper River. In ancient Russian times one of the main variants of the way "from the Varangians to the Greeks". Therefore, the name of the village Katyn is associated with the verbs "katat" ("to wheel"), "katit" ("to roll", “to trundle”), like the names of many other settlements along this trade way. The name of the settlement Katyn situated in the Smolensk region came from the verb "катать" (Eng."to roll", Germ. "rollen") in ancient Russian times. But not from the Polish word "Кат" - the executioner.
It is very important to distinguish the political and historical term of Katyn and the geographical name of Kozi Gory and Катынь.

This article explores the role played by the 1940 Katyń massacre in structuring foreign relations between post-communist Poland and Russia. In so doing, it offers a theoretical model through which to understand the combative politics over history that have burgeoned in eastern and Central europe after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Tracing how political discourse over the massacre has evolved from the late 1980s to the present, it examines the impact of exogenous influences and changing geopolitical realities on how this event is recalled within these two states, which exhibit markedly different relationships to their shared past. Questions of regime type, relative standing within the region, and how-as well as by whom-interstate discourse over contentious historical events is initiated are all central to the model of dispute origination developed herein, as is the presence of various institutional factors, chief among them membership in the supranational european Union (eU). a shadow study of Polish-Ukrainian relations concerning history, focusing on the mass killing of ethnic Poles that took place in Volhynia and eastern galicia in the period 1943-1945, is also undertaken in order to illuminate the significant differences in how the past has been politically activated in relations between the respective post-Soviet dyads of Poland-Russia and Poland-Ukraine.

The paper examines representations of the Katyn massacre in Polish literature in the context of the wider cultural memory of the tragedy in Poland. The paper discusses a range of representations of Katyn, from Wajda's fi lm to the poetry of Zbigniew Herbert, but focuses primarily on the fi ction of Włodzimierz Odojewski. Referring to theories of Holocaust memory and trauma, such as those of Dominick LaCapra, Giorgio Agamben, and Cathy Caruth, the paper examines the nature of Katyn in Polish cultural memory as refl ected in literature. The paper argues that, because of the specifi c nature of the massacre, to which no witnesses remained, memory discourse on Katyn becomes a discourse about memory, rather than of memory. Because of the lack of witness testimony, literature has avoided direct representations of the crime, which remains unseen and unknown. It is rather the cause of truth and the recognition of that truth by Russia, which stands for the perpetrator, that have become the focus of Katyn memory, rather than the event itself. 1

Artykuł biograficzny poświecony adwokatowi Stanisławowi Mikke (1947-2010) - społęcznikowmi, zaangażowanemu w odkrywaniu prawdy o zbrodni katyńskiej, cenionemu adwokatowi, redaktorowi naczelnemu "Palestry" , zastępczy przewodniczącego Rady Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa

Review: Maria Kobielska, Polska kultura pamięci w XXI wieku: dominanty. Zbrodnia katyńska, powstanie warszawskie i stan wojenny [Polish Culture of Memory in the Twenty-First Century: Main Trends. The Katyn Massacre, the Warsaw Uprising and Martial Law], Wydawnictwo IBL PAN, Warsaw 2016.

This article examines the connection between mourning, memory, and national identity in Poland after World War II, with specific reference to the Katyn Massacre. In 1940, approximately 22,000 Polish citizens were executed by the Soviet secret police under Stalin’s orders, and then buried in mass graves. In 1943, German soldiers discovered one of the graves in the Katyn Forest. Stalin denied responsibility for the massacre and accused the Germans of committing the crime. Successive Soviet governments denied culpability for the Katyn massacre until documents that proved Soviet guilt were released under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, and then Boris Yeltsin in 1992. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s work on
mourning, this article argues that mourning and historical memory are integral to recreating a sense of national identity after traumatic events. Commemorations and memorials are often instrumental in aiding this memory work. In post-World War II Poland, however, Soviet policy dictated which historical memories could be told. Memorials were used to reinforce the Soviet narrative of Katyn, silencing the public work of mourning and memory for the relatives of the victims.
Keywords: Katyn massacre, mourning, memory, national identity, Derrida

The execution of 22,000 Polish o cers and intellectuals in the forests of Katyn’ in 1940 constituted a stumbling block for the relations between the two coun- tries for several decades. Although the investigation conducted by the Russian Prosecutor General’s O ce (1991–2004) already con rmed Soviet responsibility for the crime, Russia refused to recognize the massacre as a war crime or gen- ocide and was not willing to declassify the Russian archive materials and to ex- press a posthumous rehabilitation of the victims. On March 22, 2005, the Polish Sejm protested against this stance by requesting that the Russian side provide access to the Katyn’  les. In April 2012, the European Court of Human Rights recognized the Katyn’ massacre as a war crime. In the meantime, the Russian resistance had weakened: 67 out of a total of 183 volumes of the criminal case were transferred to Poland, and Andrzej Wajda’s  lm about the Katyn’ crime was shown on Russian television in 2007. A er the o cial expressions of regret pro- nounced by Gorbačev, El’cin and Putin, the Duma eventually approved a resolu- tion that blamed Stalin and the NKVD for the crime (November 26, 2010).
Besides the historical and legal background, the article is devoted to the analysis of this debate as well as its Polish forerunners and subsequent reactions. Special attention is given to the position of the Communist Duma fraction, which kept denying any Soviet guilt. Moreover, the role of historical (counter) arguments and quotations is examined in detail. Based on a speech-act theoret- ical approach, the study  finally gives a negative answer to the question whether the Russian government and/or parliament have ever delivered a full- edged apology for the Katyn’ massacres.

This book is a tribute to the memory of Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009), sociologist, émigré from the Soviet Union, Canadian citizen, public intellectual, and keen observer of Eastern Europe. In seventeen essays leading European, American and Russian scholars discuss the theory and the history of totalitarian society with a comparative approach. They revisit and reassess what Zaslavsky considered the most important project in the latter part of his life: the analysis of Eastern European - especially Soviet societies and their difficult “transition” after the fall of communism in 1989–91. The variety of the contributions reflects the diversity of specialists in the volume, but also reveals Zaslavsky’s gift: he surrounded himself with talented people from many different fields and disciplines.

In line with Zaslavsky´s work and scholarly method, the book promotes new theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of totalitarianism for understanding Soviet and East European societies, and the study of fascist and communist regimes in general.

Essays by P. Baehr, G. Orsina, V. Strada, V. Tismaneanu, E. Gentile, V. Pechatnov, O. Khlevniuk, A. Graziosi, I. Yazhborovskaia, D. Holloway, MT. Giusti, V. Vujačić, A. D’Amelia, L. Gudkov, G. Lapidus, M. Kramer.

Pierwszy obóz pracy Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego (resort bezpieczeństwa publicznego Polskiego Komitetu Wyzwolenia Narodowego) założył w podlubelskim Krzesimowie w październiku 1944 r. pod nazwą Obóz Pracy Przestępców Politycznych i Podejrzanych. Fot. Dolina Krzyży – miejsce symbolicznych metalowych krzyży.
Jeden z nich jest poświęcony właścicielowi majątku – Kazimierzowi Dreckiemu, który został zamordowany w Katyniu.

Jest to opowieść o moim stryju Antonim Małku, nauczycielu, który został zamordowany w Katyniu, o tym jak katom nie udało się zatrzeć śladów zbrodni. O tym, jak znalezione w katyńskich dołach śmierci jego szczątki zakwitły drzewkami pamięci...

The history of the origin and development of the Katyn concept is an outstanding example of the information war that was waged against the Soviet Union. Its origin is directly related to the Nazi propaganda doctrine "Kraft durch Furcht" ("strength through fear"), which was introduced after a radical change during the Second World War.
However, even after the defeat of the Third Reich, the political context of Katyn was not only supported by certain political forces, but also constantly evolved over many decades until modern times.
At present, the word Katyn - Zbrodnia katynska (Polish), Катыньская трегедия (Russian), the Katyn massacre (English) – is customary to denote the execution of 21,857 Polish citizens, carried out in the spring of 1940.
But this definition of Katyn appeared quite recently. By now, there are three different Katyn concepts, successively replacing each other. As a tendency, there is a constant increase in the number of victims, as well as the expansion of the geography of the location of the places of executions and burials. Accordingly, there is an expansion of the scope of memorialization: the opening symbolic "Katyn cemeteries".
The study draws a distinction between the political and propaganda concept of Katyn, which emerged in 1943, derived from the Polish "kat" ("executioner"), and the name of the settlement of Katyn (Катынь), which originated in ancient Russian times from the verb «katat`» («to roll»).
История возникновения и развития концепта Katyn (катынь) – это выдающийся пример информационной войны, которая велась против Советского Союза. Происхождение его непосредственным образом связано с нацисткой пропагандистской доктриной «Kraft durch Furcht» («сила через страх»), введенной в действие после коренного перелома в ходе Второй мировой войны.
Однако даже после разгрома Третьего рейха политический контекст Katyn не только поддерживался определенными политическими силами, но и постоянно развивался на протяжении долгих десятилетий вплоть до современности.
В настоящее время словом Katyn — Zbrodnia katynska (польск.), Катыньская трагедия (русск.), the Katyn massacre (англ.) — принято обозначать расстрел 21 857 польских граждан, осуществленный весной 1940 г. Но это определение понятия Katyn возникло совсем недавно.
К настоящему времени можно выделить три различных, последовательно сменяющих друг друга концепта Katyn. В качестве тенденции отмечается постоянное увеличение численности жертв, а также расширение географии расположения мест расстрелов и захоронений. Соответственно этому идет и расширение сферы мемориализации: открытие
символических «катыньских кладбищ».
В рамках исследования проводится разграничение между возникшим в 1943 г. политико-пропагандистским концептом Katyn, производным от польского «kat» (палач), и названием населенного пункта Кaтынь, которое произошло в древнерусские времена от глагола «катать».

Brutalne zabójstwo sędziwego kapłana z warszawskich Powązek, księdza Stefana Niedzielaka, dokonane późnym wieczorem 20 stycznia 1989 r., pokazuje, że aparat represji PRL do końca swojego istnienia nie rezygnował z drastycznych metod walki z Kościołem i duchowieństwem. Choć sprawcy morderstwa do dziś nie zostali odnalezieni, polityczne podłoże sprawy wydaje się bardzo prawdopodobne. Wskazują na to wcześniejsze wydarzenia (przypadki nękania księdza Niedzielaka), jak i okoliczności samego zabójstwa, w zasadzie wykluczające osobiste czy czysto kryminalne motywacje sprawców. Nadal jednak trudno odpowiedzieć na pytanie, dlaczego ten stosunkowo słabo znany opinii publicznej kapłan, szykujący się do emerytury, stał się ofiarą zbrodni politycznej. Czy zadecydowało jego zaangażowanie w upamiętnianie Katynia? Bezkompromisowe kazania? A może niebezpieczna wiedza zgromadzona przez lata posługi na Cmentarzu Powązkowskim? Pytania te po dziś dzień nie doczekały się satysfakcjonującej odpowiedzi. Jedno jest pewne: śmierć księdza Niedzielaka była początkiem tragicznej serii tajemniczych zgonów innych niepokornych duchownych w tym ostatnim roku istnienia PRL -księdza Stanisława Suchowolca i księdza Sylwestra Zycha. Stefan Niedzielak urodził się 1 września 1914 r. w Płocku. Tam spędził dzieciństwo i wczesną młodość. Jako kilkunastoletni chłopiec poczuł powołanie kapłańskie i na rok przed maturą przeprowadził się do Warszawy, gdzie wstąpił do Metropolitalnego Seminarium Duchownego. Po kilkuletniej formacji przyjął, już po wybuchu wojny (w 1940 r.), święcenia kapłańskie. Jako sympatyk idei narodowych włączył się w tym czasie w konspiracyjną

This article examines Polish-Soviet, and subsequently Polish–Russian, relations through the lens of successive bilateral efforts to address “blank spots” in the shared history of these two neighbors. Considered are the different institutional guises such attempts have taken, the events and topics scrutinized, the ways in which both sides sought to mitigate the negative impact of troubled pasts on the present, and how effective these iterative bodies ultimately proved in countering contentious historical legacies. Evaluated as well is the extent to which they were affected by wider political dynamics and how these influenced their ability to function effectively.

The article contains an analysis of the accounts of the Smoleńsk catastrophe of April 10, 2010 in Russian media. On account of a specific context of this tragedy (the 70th anniversary of the Katyń massacre) the article is also an attempt to highlight the role of the collective memory of the Katyń massacre in Polish-Russian relations. The analysis has been done on the major Russian opinion-forming press
titles.

RESUMEN

Proponemos recordar en este artículo el descubrimiento, después de 85 años, de las fosas de Katyn a partir del testimonio de una serie de periodistas e intelectuales españoles que, a pesar de la incómoda coyuntura socio-política en la que vivía el régimen franquista tras los reveses de las potencias del Eje, no dudarían en continuar enarbolando, a partir de aquellas famosas masacres, la bandera de los totalitarismos como baluarte en la defensa de la civilización occidental frente a la barbarie comunista.

ABSTRACT

We propose to recall in this article the discovery, after 85 years, of the Katyn graves from the testimony of a series of Spanish journalists and intellectuals who, despite the uneasy socio-political situation in which the Franco regime lived after the setbacks of the Axis powers, would not hesitate to continue hoisting, from those famous massacres, the banner of totalitarianism as a bulwark in the defense of Western civilization against communist barbarism.

The discovery of the mass killings of Katyn in Poland was received with sympathy and interest in Spain, where memories of the civil war and the killings of Paracuellos were still very fresh. The "martyrdom of Poland", for many a fellow Catholic country, was deeply felt and discussed.

"Bartmanski and Eyerman carefully detail and explain the tangled, distorted, and fraught history of the killing of 14,500 Polish military officers and over 7,000 other Polish citizens—representing a significant segment of the elite, professional class of Polish society—by the Soviet army in April 1940. Three years later, when some of the corpses were discovered, the Soviets blamed the Germans for perpetrating the mass killing. This is the basic story the Soviets would claim for decades, with various levels of tenacity, official decree, and threats to the families involved. In the meantime, most if not all of the families knew the truth: members of the Soviet army had killed their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, and nephews. Knowledge of the truth needed to remain unspoken, under threat of losing access to education, jobs, and a public life without harassment in Poland. It remained, for several decades, a personal sorrow and burden rather than a trauma that could be collectively felt and talked about. They write: "Cultural trauma became possible only when the directly affected individuals and communities were able to express themselves, verbally and visually, in a sustained way and project their personal tragedies onto the larger moral screen of the nation."

Literal screens—ones that show films— as well as literature played a crucial role in the extension of the trauma of the massacre and of the distortion of the truth from the affected families to the Polish people and beyond. The transformation of "Katyn" from an occurrence known to a few to a symbol of Polish collective suffering depended on families becoming cultural agents "creating and sustaining the trauma narrative" and on "intellectuals/politicians" who, after official suppression ended, could also create, sustain, and spread the symbolization of "Katyn".

One of the most prominent of these intellectual carriers is the well-known film director Andrzej Wajda, who depicted Katyn in a film in 2007. Wajda emphasized the importance of “showing Katyn to the world” and aimed at triggering moral and cultural shock. The film’s plotting technique moved from the actual victims of the Soviets’ mass murder to the suffering of their families, especially the wives and sisters of the victims."

Katyń refers to the execution of approximately 22,000 Polish citizens by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) in 1940. Polish and Russian historians of the Katyń massacre maintain that Stalin ordered the executions because those taken captive were considered an elite, and were the future leaders of an independent Polish nation. There are a number of narratives on Katyń that refer to the elimination of Polish prisoners as an attempt to 'decapitate' and 'debrain' the Polish nation. Katyń is framed as an attempt to destroy a very specific version of Polish national identity, and a nation represented by a male-oriented body politic. Those who were killed at Katyń are often portrayed as 'martyrs'. This martyrological narrative of Katyń is situated within a broader mythological narrative of Polish history and national identity known as 'Polish messianism'. This messianic myth developed in response to the partitions of Poland in the late 1700s. Polish nationalism in this era developed alongside a romanticised myth of Polish History in which Poland was viewed as an innocent 'victim' of oppression. Katyń has become a particularly powerful symbol within this history of victimisation. In this paper I focus on narratives of the body in order to analyse the ways in which the figure of the martyr is deployed to (re)produce particular ideas about history and national identity. What are the effects of using the word 'martyr' to describe the Katyń dead? And whose bodies are (re)membered within this narrative?
Keywords: Katyń, martyrdom, national identity, narrative,
Polish messianism, body politics.

This article examines the connection between mourning, memory, and national identity in Poland after World War II, with specific reference to the Katyn Massacre. In 1940, approximately 22,000 Polish citizens were executed by the Soviet secret police under Stalin’s orders, and then buried in mass graves. In 1943, German soldiers discovered one of the graves in the Katyn Forest. Stalin denied responsibility for the massacre and accused the Germans of committing the crime. Successive Soviet governments denied culpability for the Katyn massacre until documents that proved Soviet guilt were released under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, and then Boris Yeltsin in 1992. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s work on mourning, this article argues that mourning and historical memory are integral to recreating a sense of national identity after traumatic events. Commemorations and memorials are often instrumental in aiding this memory work. In post-World War II Poland, however, Soviet policy dictated which ...

The article describes the life of Major Zygmunt Kunisz, one of the victims of the Soviet crime of 1940. He was an artillery officer of armoured trains during the Polish-Bolshevik war, and after the war he served in the 22nd and 28th Light Artillery Regiment, and from 1935 as quartermaster in the 4th Heavy Artillery Regiment. In September 1939, he took command of the newly formed 1st artillery battalion of this Regiment, which he commanded during the September Campaign. After the Soviet aggression against Poland, Major Zygmunt Kunisz was taken prisoner by the Soviets in unknown circumstances. He spent several months in a prisoner-of-war camp in Starobelsk and was then murdered in a prison in Kharkov in April 1940. In Polish literature, this officer was often confused with his younger brother Tadeusz, also an artillery officer in the rank of major, in reports relating to the September 1939 campaign. This paper is based mainly on archival documents, memoirs and materials provided by Maria Kunisz, granddaughter of Stanisław Kunisz, Zygmunt’s older brother. The purpose of this article is to clarify the discrepancies and misinformation still existing in relation to Major Zygmunt Kunisz, who was posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2007.

Przedmiotem artykułu jest odbiór zbrodni katyńskiej w prasie francuskiej w latach 1943-1946. Tekst, nawiązuje również do postrzegania zbrodni katyńskiej przez Francuzów współcześnie. Tekst pojawił się w dodatku do "Dziennika Polskiego" 5.III.2020, przygotowywanym przez krakowski oddział IPN. Jest to również streszczenie mojej szerszej naukowej pracy, która została napisana w całości w języku francuskim.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Od dziecka uczono nas, że pięknie jest umierać za ojczyznę. Słowa: śmierć i ofiara to blizny naszej tożsamości narodowej. Otaczają nas pomniki i muzea śmierci. Celebrujemy wielokrotnie poniesioną ofiarę. Jedenastego listopada odzyskaliśmy niepodległość, ale po ilu latach niewoli!

Rafał (Raphael) Lemkin is currently the best–known Polish lawyer, whose name appears invariably as a point of departure for international discussions about genocide. He is the author of The German New Order in Poland and in 1944 published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, containing the term: “genocide”. At the time of the Nuremberg Trial Lemkin acted as adviser to United States Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. Subsequently, he worked on devising an act of law that would define the principles of penalising the crime of genocide. On 9 December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In Poland the revival of interest in Lemkin has its positive and negative sides. The former undoubtedly include changing or rather initiating an alteration of a situation embarrassing or outright insulting for Poland, namely, when Polish–language versions of the above–mentioned books about the Axis occupation were not available and Lemkin was not mentioned in assorted studies. The latter aspect involves his sui generis sacralisation and elevation, hindering a critical discussion about his achievements, since such a debate could be interpreted as questioning them. This article endeavours to examine the conception of genocide from the viewpoint of an historian, and reflects on the extent to which it could become an instrument of historical analysis.