Katyn, << KAH tihn, >> Massacre was a mass murder of around 20,000 Polish army officers by the Soviet Union during World War II (1939-1945). The killings occurred in 1940 at Katyn, a village near the city of Smolensk in what was then the Soviet Union. At least 17,000 more Polish soldiers and civilians were murdered and buried in the nearby forests. For 50 years, the Soviet government denied responsibility for the massacre.
In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union attacked and then divided Poland. Both sides imprisoned thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians. In 1940, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin ordered the execution of all Polish army officers in custody, hoping to eliminate resistance to Soviet authority.
Mass graves at Katyn were found during the war, but Germany and the Soviet Union each blamed the other for the massacre. After the war, Communists took power in Poland and forbade any mention of the Katyn incident.
The truth went unknown until 1989, when a Polish newspaper published a 1945 Red Cross report that blamed the Soviets for the massacre. Later, the post-Communist Polish government also blamed the Soviet Union. In 1990, the Soviet government finally admitted its responsibility for the Katyn murders, as well as the killing of thousands of other Polish prisoners of war.
