Jedwabne and Katyn Blame False Equivalence Mackiewicz

The Katyn Wood Murders, by Józef Mackiewicz. 1951

Polish Rejection of Blame for Jedwabne is in NO Sense Comparable to the Soviet Rejection of Blame for Katyn. Can Katyn Be Equated With the Holocaust? Yes!

Published 11 years after the Katyn genocidal crime (1940) and 8 years after it became public, this 1951 work is one of the first, if not the first, English-language book on this subject. It quickly shows that there is not a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the Soviets were responsible for this sordid long-suppressed crime.

ENLISTING KATYN TO BLAME POLES FOR JEDWABNE

Nowadays, some Jews have found the audacity to level the charge that Poles not admitting fault for Jedwabne is the same as the Soviets long not admitting fault for Katyn. There is not the faintest valid comparison between the two.

As shown below, the circumstantial and forensic evidence implicating the Soviets for Katyn is, and always has been, overwhelming. On the other hand, Polish blame for Jedwabne is, at best, dubious. It is based on selective evidence, much of it not even from eyewitnesses, and from the likely-forced Communist 1949 Lomza Trials. Forensic evidence of German guilt has largely been ignored, and, worse yet, there are ongoing political pressures to prevent a detailed and unfettered forensic dig at Jedwabne.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, KATYN CAN SERIOUSLY BE COMPARED WITH THE HOLOCAUST

In the Foreword, Arthur Bliss Lane, the former U.S. Ambassador to early-postwar Poland, commented: “The Katyn Massacre of over four thousand [We now know of about 25,000 total] Polish Army officers was one of the most horrible crimes of World War II, equaling the barbarity of Hitler’s wholesale extermination of members of the Jewish race in the gas chambers of Oswiecim [Auschwitz] and Majdanek.” (p. v).

Lane’s perceptive statement is ironic (not to mention politically incorrect) in view of the modern tendency to elevate the Holocaust over that of non-Jewish victims of the Nazis, and the continuing policy of devaluing Communist crimes in favor of Nazi ones [whence the Double Genocide bogeyman].

THE KATYN COVERUP QUICKLY BEGAN TO UNRAVEL

There was never any serious doubt that the Soviets had committed this heinous crime. All correspondence of the incarcerated officers and their families came to an abrupt halt in the spring of 1940. (pp. 38-39). The International Commission formed by the Germans proved, by the state of incrustations inside the skulls, that the Katyn victims must have been murdered at least 3 years prior to spring 1943. (p. 116). The scale of the incriminatory documentary evidence itself is staggering: “About 3,300 letters and postcards were found on the bodies…None of these letters, none of these postcards bore a stamp or a date later than April, 1940.” (p. 148; see also p. 163).

Later, the Soviets (e. g, the Burdenko Commission) claimed to have found documents on the bodies dated up to 1941. But they never presented any independent evidence that these documents, even if genuine, had originated from the bodies! (p. 224).

THE BODIES OF THE MURDERED POLISH OFFICERS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN DOCTORED WITHOUT GIVING IT AWAY

Evidently aware of the unconvincing nature of their lies, the Soviets then tried instead to discredit the documentary evidence by making preposterous allegations of massive German doctoring of the bodies. Even if the Germans were to have attempted the Herculean task of disinterring thousands of bodies, removing all incriminating recent documents, and systematically planting thousands of old early-1940 documents (including thousands of convincingly-forged dated personal mementos) on them, this would have been impossible without leaving evidence of disturbance! The undisturbed nature of the bodies was proved by such things as the deformation of one body by its neighbor. (p. 117, 239). Mackiewicz, an invited Polish witness to the exhumations, himself saw: “Arms and legs entangled together, everything pressed down as by a roller…The pressed mass of bodies were squeezed together, glued with the cadaverous pulp as if soldered together…” (p. 147).

The individual bodies were themselves cheat-proof, in terms of removing and planting documents, as described by eyewitness Mackiewicz: “As everything was soaked and glued with a most loathsome, stinking and gummy cadaverous liquid, it was impossible to unbutton the pockets or pull off the boots. It was therefore necessary to cut them with knives in order to find the personal belongings.” (p. 143).

THE COMMUNISTS DID NOT EVEN KNOW HOW TO LIE CONVINCINGLY

Throughout the Katyn affair, the Soviet mendacity was not even internally consistent. Pointedly, the “Germans did it” accusation was an after-the-fact artifice in the wake of the spring 1943 German announcement of the massacre. Up to that time, Poles seeking the whereabouts of the missing Polish officers were NEVER told that the incarcerated officers had fallen into German hands. (p. 86, 93-94). Instead, they were given evasive and absurd brushoffs (e. g., “They must have all escaped to Manchuria.”).

Later, faced with the incriminating fact that the heavy coats on the Katyn victims are not worn in the Smolensk-area climate after April, and not until the ensuing winter, the Soviets changed their story. Instead of the Germans killing the Polish officers in July-August (1941), soon after the start of Operation Barbarossa, as originally claimed, the Soviets now assured us that the German killings of the captured Polish POWs supposedly took place in September-December (1941). (pp. 220-222).

CONCLUSION

Although the Soviets finally admitted responsibility for Katyn in 1990, which was only 50 years after the crime, this book remains relevant. There are a few revisionist groups that are still denying Soviet responsibility to this day, and there are some Jewish individuals that are distorting the facts about Katyn for their own ends.