| The Katyń Museum is the first of its kind in the world, a museum that is both a centre of martyrology and a place of research, documenting the Katyń crime perpetrated on twenty-two thousand prisoners of war and captives detained in the years 1939 and 1940 in Soviet camps and prisons. It was opened on 29 June, 1993 as a result of the efforts of various groups connected with the Katyń Families, as also thanks to the involvement of the Polish Army Museum (of which it forms a part) and the Commission for Preserving the Memory of Wartime Heroism and Sacrifice. Our centre testifies daily to the fact that "the memory of the crime remains in the nation, speaking of the past and shaping the consciousness of future generations".
The permanent exhibition, "MEMORY REFUSED TO BE PUT TO DEATH", arranged by artist Maria Irzyk, presents the last stage in the martyrdom of the victims of the act of genocide in 1940.Gallery 1 — shows the origin of the crime and the fates of the victims on their way to the place of execution. Maps, photographs and reproductions of documents present the German-Soviet agreement to divide the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe in 1939, which was immediately followed by the outbreak of World War II, consequent on the signing of the Molotov-Robbentrop Pact of 23 August, 1939 and the agreement to divide Poland of 28 September, 1939.
The Katyn memorials and monuments can be found all over the world: in Africa, in Australia, Canada, Britain, Russia, Poland, New Zealand & USA.
Also presented are the German aggression of 1 September, the Soviet aggression of 17 September and the decision to open NKVD prisoner of war camps of 9 and 10 September, 1939. The decision of Stalin and the Politburo of the United Bolshe¬vik Communist Party of 5 March, 1940 to murder 25,000 prisoners of war and captives, taken on the initiative of L. Beria, Director of the NKVD, is illustrated with the latter's own words justifying this unprecedented act of genocide:"(...) in connection with the fact that all are hardened enemies of the Soviet regime".
The Katyn Chapel in Gdynia. All photos Felix Molski |
In the next three galleries, mementos extracted from the ground in Katyń, Miednoye and Charkov in the course of exhumation in the years 1991 — 1996, are exhibited. They were found near the corpses in the hollows of death or in separate hollows, often burned, with damage that was intended to deprive them of any usefulness. They are elements of uniform, army kit, medical and camp equipment, items for personal use, products of wood made in the camps, objects of religious significance, souvenirs and personal valuables.
In each of these galleries, models of the woods in which the ditches of death were found are shown, along with photographs and plans of the camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostash¬kov. Besides these, in the galleries devoted to Charkov and Miednoye, photographs of the pre-war activities of the victims are presented as well as photographs picturing the chronolo¬gy of the exhumation in the years 1991 — 1996.
The gallery devoted to prisoners of the Kozielsk camp murdered in Katyń is filled with reproductions of German photographs sho¬wing the exhumation of 1943. Particular attention is drawn to the symbolic reconstruc¬tion of a grave with 1,500 photographs of the murdered, to a broken tree, a symbol of their lives, and to three crosses of beech planted by the Soviets with the aim of hiding the graves. Among the exhibits, pieces of a stretcher and of a coroner's table from the 1943 exhumation are especially noticeable.
All photos by Felix Molski |
In the gallery presenting the liquidation of the Starobielsk camp in Charkov, worth attention are a general's and a captain of horse's uniform, a tankman's overalls and the cassock of an army chaplain with a bishop's mitre, as also a box for communion wafers. The exhibition is completed by trunks of beech on which are hung sheets of black material with excerpts from poems about Katyń written on them — poems by outstanding Polish poets such as Nobel Prize Winners Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, Hemar, Wierzyński and Herbert.
In the gallery presenting police officers from the camp in Ostashkov, murdered in Kalinin (now Tver) and buried in Miednoye, attention is drawn to the symbolic reconstruction of a ditch with objects left by those murdered, capes belonging to a police officer and to an officer of the Border Defence Corps and documents extracted during exhumation in Miednoye in 1991 — 1995: identity cards, certificates, birth certificates, army papers, diaries, employment contracts, banknotes, newspapers and letters.
Whereas the earlier exhibitions demonstrate the mass character of the crime, in the last gallery the individual fates of the victims and their families are presented.
The Memory Gallery exhibits mementos and family relics presented to the Museum as gifts or loans by the families of the murdered from almost all over the world. On the walls of the side cabinets, 4,640 photographs of the murde¬red from all the camps are displayed, while the cabinets also contain family souvenirs, exchan¬ged every quarter on a rota basis: stripes, medals, diplomas, awards, identity cards, army papers, certificates and correspondence.
An additional element to the exhibition is Katyń art: plates, sculptures and medals as well as stamps and postcards; photographs of memo¬rials to the Soviet victims in Poland and abroad; books in Polish and in other languages about the Katyń crime, and a model of the memorial "To the Murdered in the East", located on Muranowska Street in Warsaw. The crowning exhibit is a calendar of the Katyń affair, from the 1939 aggression up to the year 2000, the sixtieth anniversary of the crime, which saw the dedica¬tion of the long-awaited cemeteries in Katyń, Charkov and Miednoye.
Apart from its presentation work, the Museum possesses an archival and research section. This comprises the following:
• archive — almost 30,000 pages, including more than 6,000 originals;
• accounts and studies — almost 8,000 sheets;
• iconography — more than 15,000 photographs,[] including approximately 3,000 originals;
• audio library — 30 cassettes;
• video library — 55 films and video recor¬dings;
• library with reading room — 300 volumes.
By Sławomir Błażewicz
Curator of the Katyń Museum
Charkow, Katyn, Miednoje: Polish Cemetery, Gdynia 2000, pages 28-29
The Katyn Museum - in Polish | 
