Department of State Research Topics I want to... Records
Relating to the Katyn Forest Massacre at the National Archives
Summary of events Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union each invaded
Poland in September of 1939, having divided the country into
separate spheres of influence under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
While the Germans began a massacre of Jews and Poles in western
occupied Poland, the Red Army arrested and imprisoned thousands
of Polish military officers, policemen, and intelligentsia
during their occupation of eastern Poland. Prisoners of war and
civilian internees captured by the Soviets were placed in
several camps in the western USSR, run by the Soviet People's
Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD, a predecessor
organization to the modern FSB-camps including Kozielsk,
Ostashkov, and Starobielsk. In April 1943, in the Katyn Forest
near Smolensk in the Soviet Union, occupying German troops
discovered eight large graves containing the remains of
thousands of the Polish Army officers and intelle