| This narrative (along with photographs) made part of an exhibition "ANZAC Centenary" in the Polish Club in Ashfield. When the USSR learned a Katyn Monument Committee had been formed in England it went on the offensive. Stories began to appear in the English media portraying Poles as irresponsible fascists hell bent on destroying British/Soviet relations. Soviet Ambassadors demanded that the British Foreign Office (FO) take ‘appropriate measures to prevent the creation of the memorial’. The Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs made the same demand to Alec Douglas-Home, his British counterpart. The Polish Stalinist puppets governing Poland, followed suit. On the economic front, trade was threatened. Britain believed it had already lost 3 contracts over the issue and now the Ł100 million deal for building an Ursus Tractor Works at Warsaw was in jeopardy.
Many high profile Britons would not be cowed. Louis Fitzgibbon, Airey Neave, Lord Arran, General Roy Butcher, Lord Monckton, Sir George Sinclair, The Marquess of Salisbury, Lord St Oswald, Lord Barnby and Churchill’s grandson, Winston S, took part in the work of the Katyn Monument Committee and moved it forward. The British Government, however, caved in to the Soviets. It took the stand that ‘nothing could be gained by provoking the Soviets unnecessarily’. The FO pressured Airey Neave, MP, telling him that if he could only get his parliamentary colleagues and the project organisers to NOT inscribe ‘1940’ on the monument then perhaps he could continue as Patron of the Sue Ryder Foundation. Neave refused to be turned and warned that he would fight the British Government if it tried to block the project.
Finding a site for the Monument proved difficult. Time after time, government permission could not be obtained. A Conservative Councilman in the Borough of Kensington offered a plot of land near St Luke’s Church, but the FO stirred up opposition and bureaucratic obstruction and stonewalling ensued. Borough officials were schooled about the threat to the Ursus contract and other international implications. The Anglican Diocesan Advisory Committee lodged an objection and a subsequent Court ruling went in their favour.
The Monument Committee eventually obtained a site at the small and inconspicuous Gunnersbury Cemetery in West London. A 20 foot obelisk of black Nubian granite was erected. The USSR stridently opposed the ‘1940’ inscription. The British Press reported that on twelve separate occasions the Soviets demanded that the FO prevent any opening Ceremony; regardless, the Katyn Monument was unveiled on 18th September, 1976. Only nine of the 46 nations invited sent representatives; Britain was not one of them. The Defence Minister allowed military personnel to attend but they were banned from wearing uniforms or medals. Sir Frederick Bennett and Major John Gouriet were defiant and each wore their full military regalia.
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The British Labour government boycotted all the following annual festivals held at the Katyn monument, including the ceremony on November 11th, 1976, when the Virtuti Militari, Silver Cross, number 14384, was bestowed to the martyrs of Katyn. This decoration is now housed in the Sikorski Museum in London. Margaret Thatcher was the first Prime Minister to give British Government recognition to the annual observances and other ceremonies held at the Katyn Monument at Gunnersbury.
The 8 year ‘Battle of the Katyn Monument’ captured the attention of Ronald Reagan. In 1976, four years before he was elected President, Reagan aired the story of the unveiling on his radio program. He told his listeners all that was known about Katyn at the time. Reagan believed the best way to beat the Soviet Union in the ‘Cold War’ was to expose the hidden evils behind its benign mask.
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Katyn Monument Unveiling – Ronald Reagan Radio Broadcast – 2nd November 1976.
In a tiny cemetery in Gunnersbury, England on September 18th- (1976) seven thousand people from
all over the world gathered for the unveiling of a monument. It’s a twenty one foot pyramid burying the
inscription,” Katyń 1940” and the carved polish eagle with a crown of barbed wire.
Katyń is a name we should all remember. It’s the name of a forest (in Poland) but the monument does
not memorialize a place. It is dedicated to 14,500 polish officers who served in the defence of Poland
when the Nazis were invading from the west and the Russians from the east. The officers disappeared
when the invading forces met and divided Poland. A few years later a mass grave was found at the
Katyń forest. It contained the bodies of 4500 of those polish officers who had been executed and
buried there. What of the other 10,000? Its believed they were put on barges that were toed out into icy
arctic waters and sunk, drowning all on board.
For a time this massacre was thought to be just another Nazi atrocity, but with the Nuremburg trials the
truth was finally revealed. The 14,500 officers had been captured by the Russians and murdered in
1940. The date now inscribed on the memorial. As a matter of fact the Germans had found the grave in
1943 in what had been Russian occupied territory following the partition of Poland. The 4500 had dug
the grave and then standing on the pits hedge had been machine gunned.
The selection of Gunnersbury cemetery is an interesting side line under relations between the free
world and the Soviet Union. Maybe we need to be reminded there is still a polish government in exile in
London. In 1971 the movement to honour the murdered offices was started and because London is the
home of that exile Polish government, it was decided London should be the site of the memorial. The
British government was subjected to bitter and constant pressure from Moscow to prevent the raising
of such a monument. Year after year the British government blocked every location selected by the
memorial commission. Finally, in some way the tiny, obscure, Gunners Bury cemetery was found and
ended up as the only possible location for the memorial.
Lord Oswald, vice chairman of the commission spoke with the dedication but let it be known there was
no official representative of the British government nor the Church of England present. He declared, “
intrinsic also and essential is the date 1940, engraved upon the face because that relates in stone
another element of the truth which only the guilty, the ignorant and the ignoble still crave to deny.”
A
member of parliament and former conservative cabinet minister, Julian Amery, made known that he
had invited representatives of other countries in letters to forty two embassies. Only seven sent
representatives to the little cemetery for the memorial ceremony and only one of the seven was a
major power. There was Bolivia, Brazil, Columbia, Liberia, South Africa, Uruguay and you’ll be proud
I’m sure to know, the United States of America. This is Ronald Regan, thanks for listening.
Katyn Monument Unveiling – Ronald Reagan Radio Broadcast – 2nd November 1976.
Listen to R. Reagan's speech. 3 mins 16 sec.
Translation of Reagan's broadcast. Na małym cmentarzu w Gunnersbury w Anglii, 18-ego września (1976r) zebrało się 7000 ludzi z całego świata w celu odsłonięcia pomnika. Jest to piramida 21 stóp wysoka z napisem, „Katyń 1940”, i z wyrzeźbionym polskim orłem w koronie owiniętym drutem kolczastym.
Katyń jest to nazwa którą powinniśmy wszyscy pamiętać. Jest to nazwa lasu w Polsce. Ale ten pomnik nie upamiętnia tego miejsca, lecz jest ofiarowany 14,500 polskim oficerom, którzy służyli w obronie Polski po napaści Nazistów z zachodu i Sowietów ze wschodu. Officerowie ci zaginęli gdy najeźdzcy podzielili Polskę. Po kilku latach zbiorowe mogiły zostały odkryte w Katyńskim lesie. Zawierały 4,500 rozstrzelanych i pochowanych ciał polskich oficerów. Pozostaje pytanie, jaki los spotkał pozostałych 10,000 oficerów? Przypuszczano, że byli umieszczeni na barkach które były odholowane do wód arktycznych i zatopionie wraz z nimi.
Przez jakiś czas podejrzenie okrutnej zbrodni spadało na Nazistów, ale sąd Norymberski odkrył prawdę. 14,500 polskich oficerów było uwięzionych przez Rosjan i zamordowanych w 1940 roku. Data ta jest wyryta na pomniku. Faktem jest, że Niemcy odkryli te groby w 1943 roku w rosyjskiej strefie okupacyjnej po podziale Polski. Oficerowie wykopywali własne groby i byli wepchnięci do nich po zastrzeleniu.
Wybranie cmentarza Gunnersbury jest bardzo interesujące ze względu na stosunki ówcześnie panujące między wolnym światem a Związkiem Sowieckim. Należy tu wspomnieć, źe Polska ma rząd na uchodźstwie w Londynie. W 1971 roku wystąpiono z ideą by powstał pamiątkowy pomnik w Londynie, siedzibie emigracyjnego rządu polskiego. Postaniowiono, że pomnik ten usytuowany powinien być w Londynie. Rząd Brytyjski był pod bardzo silnym naciskiem Moskwy by pomnik nie został wzniesiony. Rok po roku rząd brytyjski blokował lokalizację pomnika. Ostatecznie, bardzo mały, zaniedbany cmentarz Gunnersbury został zakwalifikowany jako jedyna możliwa lokalizacja pomnika.
Lord Asward, wiceprzewodniczący komisji powstawania pomnika, działał z dużym poświęceniem. Przy odsłonięciu pomnika nie było reprezentantów brytyjskiego rządu ani przedstawiciela Kościoła Anglikańskiego. Lord Asward stwierdził, że data 1940 jest istotna poniewaź stanowi drugi element prawdy wyryty na pomniku, którą winni, ignoranci i podli ludzie próbują ciągle zatajać. Członek parlamentu i były konserwatywny minister, Julian Amery ogłosił, że zaprosił na otwarcie pomnika reprezentantów 42-ch krajów. Na małym cmentarzu w ceremonii otwarcia pomnika było reprezentowanych tylko 7 państw oraz jeden kraj z siedmiu współczesnych potęg gospodarczych i militarnych. Były to: Boliwia, Brazylia, Kolumbia, Liberia, Południowa Afryka, Urugwaj i, będziecie państwo dumni, że potęgą tą były Stany Zjednoczone.
Mówił Ronald Regan. Dziękuję za uwagę. | 
