10-04-2010, 12:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-04-2010, 12:46 PM by Jan Klimkowski.)
The symbolism of this is immense.
At Katyn, Stalin and the NKVD executed the majority of the Polish officer corps.
Now, the Polish President and the entire Polish Army Command have died in Russia on their way to pay homage and respect to those thousands of slaughtered officers.
In Poland, this will play as Katyn Mark 2. Once again, the officer corps has been eliminated.
Katyn was part of the deliberate liquidation of the Polish intelligentsia - officers, doctors, professors, teachers - implemented by the USSR as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The officers in particular were shot, their families deported to Siberia.
As a personal footnote, at the beginning of WW2, my 7-year-old father was arrested in the middle of the night in a small town near Lwow, Poland, and deported to Siberia, by the NKVD, because he was a male relative of two Polish army officers. Those officers were uncles of my father. Neither officer survived the war, and they may well be amongst those slaughtered by the NKVD at Katyn.
More broadly, the point is that the USSR sought to blame the Katyn massacre on the Nazis. Western governments, including Churchill and the British government, spent decades officially accepting the Russian version of events, even though the evidence showed that Katyn was clearly and unequivocally a Soviet war crime.
In addition, the Katyn massacre does not fit in with orthodox Russian history about the Great Patriotic War, and - to my knowledge - is not taught in Russian schools or accepted as a Soviet atrocity by most Russians.
Combined with events in Krygyzstan, it is entirely plausible that Putin is fighting an undeclared covert war with NATO. In Asia, he has sabotaged American and NATO military access in Krygyzstan, and in Europe, the Polish President and military top brass, who were in favour of US missile bases on Polish soil, have now met their end.
En route to Katyn.
Once again, the symbolism of this event for Poles is immense.
At Katyn, Stalin and the NKVD executed the majority of the Polish officer corps.
Now, the Polish President and the entire Polish Army Command have died in Russia on their way to pay homage and respect to those thousands of slaughtered officers.
In Poland, this will play as Katyn Mark 2. Once again, the officer corps has been eliminated.
Katyn was part of the deliberate liquidation of the Polish intelligentsia - officers, doctors, professors, teachers - implemented by the USSR as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The officers in particular were shot, their families deported to Siberia.
As a personal footnote, at the beginning of WW2, my 7-year-old father was arrested in the middle of the night in a small town near Lwow, Poland, and deported to Siberia, by the NKVD, because he was a male relative of two Polish army officers. Those officers were uncles of my father. Neither officer survived the war, and they may well be amongst those slaughtered by the NKVD at Katyn.
More broadly, the point is that the USSR sought to blame the Katyn massacre on the Nazis. Western governments, including Churchill and the British government, spent decades officially accepting the Russian version of events, even though the evidence showed that Katyn was clearly and unequivocally a Soviet war crime.
In addition, the Katyn massacre does not fit in with orthodox Russian history about the Great Patriotic War, and - to my knowledge - is not taught in Russian schools or accepted as a Soviet atrocity by most Russians.
Combined with events in Krygyzstan, it is entirely plausible that Putin is fighting an undeclared covert war with NATO. In Asia, he has sabotaged American and NATO military access in Krygyzstan, and in Europe, the Polish President and military top brass, who were in favour of US missile bases on Polish soil, have now met their end.
En route to Katyn.
Once again, the symbolism of this event for Poles is immense.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war