Title: Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution honors the Polish soldiers and civilians whose lives were lost at the hands of the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (also known as the NKVD) during the Katyn Massacre. The resolution condemns Russia's efforts to spread disinformation about the Katyn Massacre and World War II.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 986 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 986

       Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 28, 2020

Mr. Lipinski (for himself, Mrs. Walorski, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Smith of New 
 Jersey, and Mr. Tonko) submitted the following resolution; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               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;
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;
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;
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 
        Molotov-Ribbentrop 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 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 approximately 
        22,000 Polish soldiers and civilians who were murdered by the 
        Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD, 
        during the Katyn Massacre 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 Government 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 massacre itself and 
        subsequent attempts to deny it or cover it up.
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