Poland remembers victims of 1940 massacre by Soviets
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
13.04.2018 09:40
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Friday laid flowers and lit candles at a museum in Warsaw as the country marked a national day of remembrance for the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviets.
Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Commemorations were scheduled to take place nationwide throughout the day to observe the memorial day, which was established by the country’s parliament in 2007.
Poland’s lawmakers on Wednesday observed a minute's silence to pay respects to the victims of the wartime massacre.
Almost 22,000 Polish prisoners of war were killed in the spring of 1940 on orders from top Soviet authorities, according to Polish Radio’s IAR news agency.
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, thousands of Polish officers were deported to camps in the Soviet Union.
POWs from camps in Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov as well as Poles held in prisons run by the Soviet Union's NKVD secret police were among those murdered in April 1940.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP