List of Katyn massacre memorials explained

Katyn massacre memorials commemorate the 1940 Katyn massacre by the Soviet NKVD.

Australia

Outside the Dom Polski Centre in Adelaide, Australia, there exists a monument to commemorate both the victims of the Katyn massacre and the Polish soldiers killed in WWII.[1]

Austria

In front of in Vienna, Austria, there is a monument both to Katyn and Smolensk Polish tragedies.[2]

Canada

In Canada, a large metal sculpture has been erected in the Polish community of Roncesvalles in Toronto, to commemorate the killings.[3] The monument is found at Beaty Boulevard Parkette.

Hungary

In 2008 there was a plaque erected at the Árpád Gimnázium, Grammar Schools wall at Budapest for commemorate the massacre.

Poland

Many cities in Poland now have memorials to the massacre in public spaces as well as within churches and cemeteries. For example, in Wrocław, a composition by Polish sculptor Tadeusz Tchórzewski is dedicated to the Katyn victims. Unveiled in 2000, it is in a park east of the city's centre, near the Racławice Panorama building. It shows the 'Matron of the Homeland' despairing over a dead soldier, while on a higher plinth the angel of death looms over, leaning forward on a sword.[4] There is also the Katyn-Kharkiv-Mednoye memorial in Świętokrzyskie Mountains, Poland.[5]

Russia

South Africa

In South Africa, a memorial in Johannesburg commemorates the victims of Katyn, as well as South African and Polish airmen who flew missions from southern Italy to Poland to drop supplies over Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising.[11]

Ukraine

In Ukraine, a memorial complex was erected to honor the over 4300 officer victims of the Katyń massacre killed in Pyatykhatky, 14 kilometres/8.7 miles north of Kharkiv in Ukraine; the complex lies in a corner of a former resort home for NKVD officers. Children had discovered hundreds of Polish officer buttons whilst playing on the site.[12]

United Kingdom

There are several Katyn memorials in the UK, the best known of which was unveiled on 18 September 1976 at Gunnersbury Cemetery in London, amid considerable controversy.[13] [14] During the period of the Cold War, successive British governments objected to plans by the UK's Polish community to build a major monument to commemorate the massacre.[13] [15] [16] The Soviet Union did not want Katyn to be remembered, and put pressure on Britain to prevent the creation of the monument.[13] [17] As a result, the construction of the monument was delayed for many years.[15] [16] After the local community had finally secured the right to build the monument, no official government representative was present at the opening ceremony (although some politicians did attend the event unofficially).[13] [15] [16]

Another memorial in the UK was erected three years later, in 1979, in Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.[18] A memorial tablet by Ronald Sims has also been installed in the Airmen's Chapel within Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire (there is a large Polish community in the county and each year a service is held to remember the massacre). In 1985, a memorial by Alexander Klecki was erected at Clifton Cathedral by the Polish community in Bristol.[19] There is also a Katyn memorial in Manchester's Southern Cemetery, unveiled in 1990, on one of the first occasions the British Government publicly acknowledged Katyn was a Soviet, rather than Nazi, war atrocity.[20]

United States

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Katyn Memorial Monument Australia . 2024-06-04 . monumentaustralia.org.au.
  2. Web site: Katyn Massacre - Vienna, Austria - Disaster Memorials on Waymarking.com . 2024-06-04 . www.waymarking.com.
  3. Web site: Roncesvalles Village Commemorates Tragedy in Poland. Welcome to Roncesvalles Village. 10 April 2010. Roncesvalles Village. 6 August 2011.
  4. Web site: Wroclaw Statues — Monument to the Victims of the Katyń Massacre . wroclaw.ivc.pl . 25 February 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090821200244/http://www.wroclaw.ivc.pl/english/zabytki/pomnik-kozielsk/index.html . 21 August 2009 .
  5. Web site: Katyn massacre: how the truth prevailed. 2020-10-23. Katyn massacre: how the truth prevailed Communist Crimes. en.
  6. News: Katyń: Otwarcie polskiego cmentarza wojennego . Fakty/PAP . 28 July 2000 . 4 August 2011 . pl . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110928230450/http://fakty.interia.pl/news/news/katyn-otwarcie-polskiego-cmentarza-wojennego%2C27660 . 28 September 2011 .
  7. Jagienka Wilczak, Rdza jak krew: Katyń, Charków, Miednoje, Polityka, 31/2010
  8. Web site: 30 Years After Admitting WWII Massacre of Polish POWs, Katyn Memorial Plaques Removed in Russia.
  9. Web site: Times . The Moscow . 2020-05-08 . Russian City Removes Plaques Memorializing Polish POWs Massacred By Stalin . https://web.archive.org/web/20240604114953/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/08/russian-city-removes-plaques-memorializing-polish-pows-massacred-by-stalin-a70222 . 2024-06-04 . 2024-06-04 . The Moscow Times . en.
  10. Web site: Russia removes memorial to Katyn Massacre in new attack on historical truth . https://web.archive.org/web/20240604120207/https://khpg.org/en/1588896084 . 2024-06-04 . 2024-06-04 . Human Rights in Ukraine.
  11. Web site: About Katyn Memorial . February 2002 . Department of Arts, Culture, and Heritage in the City of Johannesburg . 4 July 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111123161207/http://www.joburg.org.za/culture/built-heritage/monuments/katyn-memorial . 23 November 2011 .
  12. News: Neal. Ascherson. An accident of history. The Guardian. 17 April 2010. 29 November 2010. London.
  13. Book: Anna M.. Cienciala. Wojciech. Materski. Katyn: A Crime without Punishment. 16 February 2011. 2007. Yale University Press. 978-0-300-10851-4. 243–245.
  14. Book: Meller, Hugh. London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer. 14 January 2011. 10 March 1994. Scolar Press. 978-0-85967-997-8. 139.
  15. Web site: Katyn in the Cold War . 11 February 2011. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 4 August 2011.
  16. News: The Katyn Massacre and Beyond. Brian. Crozier. National Observer. Autumn 2000. 4 August 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110723215714/http://www.nationalobserver.net/2000_autumn_106.htm. 23 July 2011. dead.
  17. Book: Sanford, George. Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory. 16 February 2011. 2005. ROUTLEDGE CHAPMAN & HALL. 978-0-415-33873-8. 195.
  18. BBC News: "Katyn remembered at Cannock Chase on 70th anniversary ", 19 May 2010
  19. Book: Harrison, Peter. Guide to Clifton Cathedral. Clifton Cathedral. 2020. Bristol.
  20. News: Tadeusz Lesisz: Pole who sailed with the Royal Navy and saw action on. 12 October 2009. independent.co.uk. 20 November 2016.
  21. "National Katyn Memorial Foundation ". National Katyn Memorial Foundation, 8 October 2005. Retrieved 4 August 2008.
  22. News: Polish-American Artist Among Victims of Plane Crash. Virginia H.. 16 April 2010. US Mission Poland. U.S. Embassy in Warsaw and U.S. Consulate in Kraków. 4 July 2011.
  23. Stokes, Charlotte, Bronze Ladies, Corporate Giants, Saints and Sinners: Public Art in Oakland County, Odyssey Research Monographs Vol. III, No. 1, Oakland University, 1991 p. 34
  24. Web site: Exchange Place. Paulus Hook. Carmela. Karnoutsos. Jersey City. Past and Present. New Jersey City University. 4 July 2011. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20040814221758/http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/E_Pages/Exchange_Place.htm. 14 August 2004.

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