Belorussian Katyn List Found

There are many Belarusians among the murdered Polish officers.

Documents containing information about 1996 Poles believed to have been executed in Soviet Belarus as part of the WWII Katyn crime have been hailed as “a ground-breaking discovery.”

Historians estimate that approximately 22,500 Poles, largely reserve officers, were executed on Stalin's orders by the Soviet Secret Police in the spring of 1940.

The murders took place at various points across the Soviet Union, including the Katyn forest near Smolensk.

A question mark has hung over the fate of over 3000 Poles on the so-called Belarusian list.

However, Russian historian Natalia Lebedeva, a leading expert on the Katyn massacre, has tracked down documents in Russia's Military Archives, providing information about 1196 missing Poles.

The documents, hand-written by one functionary, include a list of names of the internees, and information on the prisoners deportation to Minsk, with details concerning from where the Poles were transported from.

Historians believe that the Poles may have been buried in the Kurapaty woods, near Minsk, a site where many Soviet victims were interred.

The legacy has provided a thorn in Polish-Russian relations since Nazi Germany announced the discovery of several thousand bodies of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, on 13 April 1943.

Moscow blamed Berlin for the killings, and Russia only formally admitted guilt in 1990, following the fall of the Iron Curtain.

In April 2012, a landmark case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, concluded that the Katyn affair was “a war crime,” and that relatives of the victims had suffered “inhumane treatment.”

However, the court was unable to rule on whether Moscow's broken off 1990-2004 investigation into the crime has been an effective inquiry.

“Feelings are mixed, but there is relief that an influential institution like the Strasbourg court recognises the injustice done to the Katyn families,” said Izabella Saryusz-Skapska, head of Poland's Federation of Katyn Familes, in April.

She also stressed that “people who were arrested and detained in prisons in Belarus have yet to be found,” she said.

Owing to today's revelations, there is renewed hope that progress will be made in finding the final resting place of the missing Poles.