The Katyn Curse

The Katyn Curse

Sixteen days after the Germans invaded Poland from the west, the U.S.S.R. invaded from the east, capturing tens of thousands of Poles including thousands of ethnic Polish military officers who were then interned in the Kozelsk POW camp, 12 miles west of Smolensk, Russia, in the Katyn forest.

In April, 1940, the executions by the NKVD began and when it was over, some 21,768 Poles were dead, including about 8,000 officers at Kozelsk as well as over 13,000 others of the Polish intelligentsia, police, industry leaders, landowners, lawyers, minor government officials, and priests. (Statistics taken from Wikipedia.)

It was for the 70th anniversary of that mass slaughter by Russian Communists that Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his entourage of 88 people from similar walks of life were traveling to Russia on a commemorative, mournful journey when their ancient Russian-built airliner crashed in thick fog, near the Katyn forest.

The irony of that crash, Polish elite of 2010 dying near the site of the murders of thousands of the Polish elite in 1940, is too rich to be overlooked.

As Poland entered a 2-week period of national mourning, Russian President Medvedev and Premier Putin expressed heartfelt sympathies for the Polish losses and speculation began that the elite passengers had insisted the pilot land the plane despite warnings not to do so in the fog.

All aboard, including the 88 passengers and 8 crew were killed on impact: http://bit.ly/cpJTQk

Without trying to mitigate the loss to Poland and to the Polish state . . .
(read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1624)