Polish Movie Night: Katyn

The year was 1939 and somewhere in Poland a large bridge was filled with people fleeing in opposite directions. Panicked families who were trying to escape the invading Germans, collided with their fellow countrymen coming from the opposite direction who were fleeing the murderous Soviets. 

The chaos and horror on this bridge form an all too realistic picture of Poland’s terrible predicament in the middle of the last century when it was caught between two evil dictatorships – Stalin and Hitler!

In 1939, Hitler and Stalin agreed to mutual non-aggression – they would join forces and not attack one another. The intent of their agreement was to join forces for the purpose of destroying Poland’s military command and eradicating its population of engineers, intellectuals and other citizens whose education and expertise might help the country to function independently. The agreement between Hitler and Stalin lasted only long enough for their armies to join forces and accomplish this mission.

In the spring of 1940, the Soviets proceeded with the “liquidation” of the Polish officer corps, shooting nearly 22,000 men in the Katyn Forest and burying them in mass graves. Meanwhile, the Nazis contributed to this project by shutting down universities and rounding up professors.

Afterward, when the Nazis and Soviets resumed their customary aggression, each used the other’s barbarity for propaganda. The Germans dug up the bodies in Katyn and promoted themselves as protectors of the Poles against Russian terror. The Russians later repeated the exercise, blaming Hitler and fudging the dates of the massacre so it could be added to the list of German atrocities.

This film takes you through the events leading up to the massacre and its aftermath, following a group of officers and their families through the agonies of war and the miseries of peacetime under Communism.

This is a terribly moving film that documents the Katyn atrocity and summarizes what the Poles had lived through and endured during one of the harshest and brutal periods of Polish history. This is a “must see” for every Polish-American and everyone interested in the history of the Soviet and German repressions.

Photos from Polish Movie night held at the Maumee Indoor Theatre on October 4th, 2009.  KATYN is an award winning documentary film about the true story of the massacre of over 20,000 Polish military officers in World War II.