•HRES 986 IH 
Whereas the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Af-
fairs, 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 west-
ern Soviet Union, where many were subject to lengthy in-
terrogations; 
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 exe-
cuted 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 Re-
public, 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 Mas-
sacre; 
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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•HRES 986 IH 
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 gov-
ernment-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 con-
trol; 
Whereas the Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility 
for the Katyn Massacre, blaming the Nazis and con-
cealing 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, Evi-
dence, and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre, 
which is referred to as the Madden Committee; 
Whereas, after reviewing witness testimony and relevant doc-
uments, 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 me-
morial falsely blaming the Nazis for the massacre; 
Whereas, in 1988, demonstrators marched in Warsaw to de-
mand an official inquiry into the Katyn Massacre; 
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•HRES 986 IH 
Whereas, on April 13, 1990, 50 years after the executions of 
the Polish prisoners and 47 years since the day the dis-
covery of the mass graves was announced, the Soviet gov-
ernment issued a statement accepting responsibility for 
the Katyn Massacre and calling it ‘‘one of the most hei-
nous 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 con-
firmed 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 out-
break of World War II, ignoring the facts of the Molotov- 
Ribbentrop Pact and the coordinated Nazi and Soviet in-
vasions of Poland; 
Whereas, in October 2019, Russian officials ordered the re-
moval of a plaque at a former regional NKVD head-
quarters in Tver commemorating the estimated 6,000 
Poles murdered in the building as part of the Katyn Mas-
sacre; 
Whereas President Putin and the Government of the Russian 
Federation use these historical revisionist narratives, in-
cluding 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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•HRES 986 IH 
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 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) honors the lives and legacies of the approxi-
mately 22,000 Polish soldiers and civilians who were 
murdered by the Soviet People’s Commissariat for 
Internal Affairs, or NKVD, during the Katyn Mas-
sacre 80 years ago; 
(2) recognizes the witnesses, scholars, activists, 
and demonstrators who fought to bring the truth of 
the Katyn Massacre to light in the face of the cover- 
up campaign orchestrated by the Soviet Union; 
(3) condemns both past and present attempts 
to cover up truth of the Katyn Massacre; 
(4) condemns broader efforts by the Govern-
ment 
of 
the 
Russian 
Federation 
to 
spread 
disinformation about the history of World War II; 
and 
(5) encourages education about the facts of the 
Katyn Massacre, including the horrors of the mas-
sacre itself and subsequent attempts to deny it or 
cover it up. 
Æ 
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