III 

116TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 566 

Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

MAY 7, 2020 

Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. RISCH, and Mr. DURBIN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Katyn 

Massacre. 

Whereas, on August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet 

Union secretly pledged nonaggression toward one another 

through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in which they divided Poland between themselves; 

Whereas Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west on 

September 1, 1939, and the Soviet Union invaded Poland 

from the east on September 17, 1939; 

Whereas over 60,000 Polish soldiers died in combat defending Poland from these invasions; 

Whereas, after the Red Army invaded Poland, it captured 

thousands of Polish military personnel and civilians, 

many of whom had fled east from the Nazi invasion; 


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Whereas the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD, took charge of the Polish prisoners from 

the Red Army and transferred them to the Kozelsk, 

Starobilsk, and Ostashkov internment camps in the western Soviet Union, where many were subject to lengthy interrogations; 

Whereas, on March 5, 1940, Soviet General Secretary Josef 

Stalin and three Soviet Politburo members signed an 

NKVD order to execute nearly 22,000 prisoners by 

shooting that also identified more than 10,000 additional 

Polish prisoners for possible execution; 

Whereas, in April and May 1940, the NKVD summarily executed the condemned Polish prisoners at several sites in 

the Soviet Union, including at the Katyn Forest west of 

Smolensk in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and buried them in mass graves; 

Whereas, in April 1943, occupying Nazi troops discovered 

eight mass graves in the Katyn Forest with the remains 

of many of those Polish prisoners; 

Whereas, following this discovery in the Katyn Forest, the 

mass executions by the Soviets of the Polish prisoners 

from all three camps became known as the Katyn Massacre; 

Whereas the 21,892 victims of the Katyn Massacre included 

military officers, chaplains, professors, doctors, lawyers, 

engineers, teachers, journalists, and refugees, many of 

whom were military reservists who had been mobilized as 

a result of the Nazi invasion; 

Whereas between 700 and 900 Polish Jews were killed in the 

Katyn Massacre; 


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Whereas the Soviet Union falsely blamed Nazi Germany for 

the massacre and broke off diplomatic relations with the 

Polish government-in-exile following a request by the government-in-exile that the International Committee of the 

Red Cross examine the Katyn mass graves; 

Whereas an international medical commission excavated the 

area in Spring 1943 and determined that the massacre 

occurred in 1940, when the area was under Soviet control; 

Whereas the Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility 

for the Katyn Massacre, blaming the Nazis and concealing evidence of its guilt, for nearly 50 years; 

Whereas, on September 18, 1951, the United States House 

of Representatives established the Select Committee to 

Conduct an Investigation and Study of the Facts, Evidence, and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre, 

which is referred to as the Madden Committee; 

Whereas, after reviewing witness testimony and relevant documents, the Madden Committee unanimously found that 

the NKVD, and thus the Soviet Union, was responsible 

for the executions and recommended a trial before the 

International World Court of Justice; 

Whereas scholars in the United States and United Kingdom 

published books and articles demonstrating the truth of 

the Katyn Massacre during the decades of Soviet denial; 

Whereas, in Poland in 1981, the Solidarity movement erected 

a memorial with the inscription ‘‘Katyn, 1940’’ that the 

Communist government removed and replaced with a memorial falsely blaming the Nazis for the massacre; 

Whereas, in 1988, demonstrators marched in Warsaw to demand an official inquiry into the Katyn Massacre; 


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Whereas, on April 13, 1990, 50 years after the executions of 

the Polish prisoners and 47 years since the day the discovery of the mass graves was announced, the Soviet government issued a statement accepting responsibility for 

the Katyn Massacre and calling it ‘‘one of the most heinous crimes of Stalinism’’; 

Whereas on that day Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev 

gave the Government of Poland copies of Soviet archival 

materials pertaining to the executed prisoners that confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacre; 

Whereas, in recent months, President Vladimir Putin and 

other Russian officials have attempted to propagate a 

false narrative that Poland was responsible for the outbreak of World War II, ignoring the facts of the MolotovRibbentrop Pact and the coordinated Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland; 

Whereas, in October 2019, Russian officials ordered the removal of a plaque at a former regional NKVD headquarters in Tver commemorating the estimated 6,000 

Poles murdered in the building as part of the Katyn Massacre; 

Whereas President Putin and the Government of the Russian 

Federation use these historical revisionist narratives, including false accusations about Polish responsibility for 

World War II, as a tool in their attempt to whitewash 

Soviet history, elevate Russia’s international position, and 

sow political discord among its neighbors and adversaries; 

Whereas the Katyn Massacre fits into a larger pattern of 

Communist governments around the world persecuting 

their citizens and denying their people freedom, which 


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has resulted in the deaths of up to 100,000,000 people 

since the Russian Revolution of 1917; and 

Whereas the year 2020 marks the 80th anniversary of the 

Katyn Massacre: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) honors the lives and legacies of the approxi3 mately 22,000 Polish soldiers and civilians who were 

4 murdered by the Soviet People’s Commissariat for 

5 Internal Affairs, or NKVD, during the Katyn Mas6 sacre 80 years ago; 

7 (2) recognizes the witnesses, scholars, activists, 

8 and demonstrators who fought to bring the truth of 

9 the Katyn Massacre to light in the face of the cover10 up campaign orchestrated by the Soviet Union; 

11 (3) condemns both past and present attempts 

12 to cover up truth of the Katyn Massacre; 

13 (4) condemns broader efforts by the Govern14 ment of the Russian Federation to spread 

15 disinformation about the history of World War II; 

16 and 

17 (5) encourages education about the facts of the 

18 Katyn Massacre, including the horrors of the mas19 sacre itself and subsequent attempts to deny it or 

20 cover it up. 

Æ 


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