In addition to the extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany, other mass deaths occurred on both sides of the fighting forces during World War II. One of these massacres was revealed on April 13, 1943 AD by German forces in the Katyn Forest outside Smolensk. Russia.

The mass graves discovered there discovered the remains of 4,400 Polish officers who had been killed by the NKVD on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in April / May 1940, and although the Soviets denied involvement to protect their relationship with other allied powers, However, the investigation by the Red Cross blamed the Soviet Union, and in 1990, the Soviets finally claimed responsibility.

Locals in the Smolensk region in Russia reported that the Soviet Union had been using the area around the city, known as the Katyn Forest, to carry out secret executions since 1929 CE, and since the mid-1930s the measures have been directed by PKK leader Lavrentiy Beria, a man known for his harsh approach. To those who were seen as enemies of the Soviet Union.

This area of ​​the Katyn forest was surrounded by barbed wire, and was carefully monitored by the subordinates of the NKVD, and the locals knew and did not want to end up as victims of the regime, in 1939, with the beginning of World War II, the Russians invaded Poland from the east, taking advantage of their agreement. With the Germans known as the Nazi Soviet Pact.

As the Soviets moved to Poland, they captured Polish army officers and imprisoned them in prisoner of war camps, and, in addition, detained Polish intellectuals and religious leaders, hoping to eliminate the threat of a civil uprising by targeting civilians who were seen as influential.

Officers, soldiers and influential civilians were arrested in one of the three camps in the interior of Russia - Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ustashkov, and most of the civilians were placed in the first camp, which also housed elements of the military. Each camp operated in a manner similar to the initial Nazi concentration camps - and their goal was to 're Educating the detainees, hoping to get them to adopt the ideas of the Soviet Union and to give up their allegiance to the Polish government.

It is believed that few of the approximately 22,000 people held in these camps have successfully declared their re-education; Therefore, the Soviet Union decided to follow alternative procedures to deal with them, and in the meantime, relations with the Germans were faltering, and the Nazi German government officially launched Operation Barbarossa, its attack on its former Soviet allies, and on June 22, 1941, as they did with their blitzkrieg war against Poland, the move The Germans quickly and on July 16, Smolensk fell to the German army.

The release of Polish prisoners: As the rapid change in the war faded, the Soviet Union quickly sought support from the Allied forces, and as a show of goodwill, the Soviets agreed, on July 30, 1941, to release former members of the Polish army, and many members were released, but nearly Half of the estimated 50,000 prisoners of war under Soviet control were not found in December 1941.

When the Polish government-in-exile asked London for the men's whereabouts, Stalin initially claimed that they had fled to Manchuria, but changed his official position to say that they ended up in an area captured by the Germans last summer.
When the Germans invaded Smolensk in 1941, NKVD officials fled, leaving the area ungoverned for the first time since 1929. In 1942, a group of Polish civilians (who were working for the German government in Smolensk) discovered the corpses of the Polish army in an area of ​​the Katyn forest known as Hill Goats.

It was within the area that was previously patrolled by the NKVD, and this discovery raised suspicions within the local community but no immediate action was taken since winter approached, the following spring with the peasants' urging in the area the German army began to dig the hill, and the search for A series of eight mass graves contained the bodies of at least 4,400 people, and the bodies were largely identified as members of the Polish Army; However, some Russian civilian bodies were also found at the site.

It appears that the vast majority of the bodies were more recent while others were likely going back to a period of time when the NKVD initially moved to Katyn Forest, and all civilian and military casualties, and had suffered the same method of death by a shot in the back of the head while their hands were tied behind Their backs.

Certainly, the Russians were behind the killing and were eager to seize the opportunity of propaganda, and the Germans quickly convened an international committee to investigate these mass graves, and the Polish government in exile also requested the participation of the International Red Cross, which conducted a separate investigation. The same result was that the Soviet Union was responsible for the death of these individuals sometime in the 1940's.

As a result of the investigation, the Polish government-in-exile cut off relations with the Soviet Union, however the Allied powers were reluctant to accuse their new ally the Soviet Union, and the Soviets' attempts to blame the mass graves on the German army resulted in an elaborate deception, and since the Germans were not removed from the graves of the Germans When they are discovered.

The Soviets were able to carry out their own exhumation process, which they photographed in great detail, and during filming, it was revealed that the exhumation of the bodies was discovered that contained documents that “proved” that the executions took place after the German invasion of Smolensk and the documents that were discovered, which were later proven to be forged, included money and letters And other government documents, all dated to show that the victims were still alive in the summer of 1941, when the German invasion took place.

The Soviets announced the results of their investigations in January 1944, where they supported their findings with witnesses in the region who were threatened with giving testimonies in favor of the Russians, and the Allied forces once again remained largely silent. However, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked his envoy in the Balkans. George Earl is conducting his own investigation into this matter.

Earl's findings in 1944 confirmed earlier German and Polish allegations that the Soviets were responsible, but Roosevelt did not disclose the report publicly for fear that it would harm already sensitive relations between the Soviets and other allied powers, and the commission also examined whether any American officials were complicit in the cover-up to protect Soviet relations. America during World War II or not, and the commission was of the opinion that there was no specific evidence of coverage; However, they felt that the American public was not fully aware of the information the US government had regarding the events in the Katyn Forest.

Although most members of the international community blamed the Soviet Union, the Soviet government did not accept responsibility until 1990, as the Russians uncovered similar mass graves near two other prisoner of war camps (near Mednoye).

The killings in all three camps are now known as the Katyn Forest Massacre, and on July 28, 2000, the official Catherine Memorial Complex was inaugurated, which includes a 32-foot (10 meters) Orthodox cross, a museum (Gulag on Wells), and sections dedicated to each of the Polish victims. And the Soviets.