POLAND IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR 335their families at home. And then the correspondence suddenly ceased. From that
time on, only one man from the 15,000 was .ever seen alive again. He was sent
for interrogation to Moscow at the time that the original camps were being dis-
banded. In April 1943, 4,32-1 corpses were disinterred by the Germans in the
Katyn Forest, on the bank of the Dnieper near Smolensk. Most had their hands
tied behind their backs, and each had a German bullet in the base of his skull.
Many had decipherable documents in their pockets. There is no doubt who they
were. The Nazis claimed that they had been killed by the Soviets in April 1940.
The Soviets claimed that they had been killed by the Nazis in the winter of 1941.
This explanation was dropped when someone pointed out that the victims were
wearing summer uniform. One International Commission assembled by the
Germans supported the German claim; another, assembled by the Soviets, sup-
ported the Soviet claim. To people who need final, documentary proof, the mat-
ter is still open. Yet to the satisfaction of most fair-minded or neutral observers,
Soviet guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt. The Katyn Forest massacre
was the only 'Nazi War Crime' which the Soviets never mention. In oredr to sow
confusion, they would even build a national war memorial for Byelorussia at a
nearby village called Khatyn (sic). In Polish eyes, this one concealed crime
became the symbol for countless other recorded atrocities committed by the
USSR against the Polish nation. For decades, the fate of the missing 20,000 offi-
cers could only be imagined. It was not officially confirmed until 1990, when, on
the fiftieth anniversary of the crime, President Gorbachev finally found the
courage to confess to Stalin's guilt and to reveal the location of two other mass
graves.^18
It would be wrong, however, to suppose that the NKVD confined their atten-
tions to the class enemy. They were equally merciless with those few Polish com-
munists who had survived the recent Purge. Wladyslaw Gomulka was one, who,
finding himself in 1940 in the Soviet Zone in Lwow, preferred to take his chance
with the Germans in the General-Gouvernement. The conclusion is unavoid-
able. At this stage, the USSR was seeking to prevent the resurrection of an inde-
pendent Poland in any form whatsoever. Stalin was outpacing Hitler in his
desire to reduce the Poles to the condition of a slave-nation incapable of ruling
itself.
There is little doubt that if the Nazi-Soviet Pact had lasted much longer, the
goal of the two participants with regard to Poland would have been achieved.
By 1941, the Nazi extermination machine was moving into top gear. The
Soviet needed no encouragement. Isolated from all outside help, the Polish
nation could not conceivably have survived in any recognizable form.
Fortunately for them, the vagaries of war turned in their favour. The Poles
were saved by the German attack on Russia. Although four long years of
horror remained, the Germans were to prove incapable of annihilating Poland
single-handed. The Soviets, who for two years had acted as Hitler's chief
accomplices, turned for Polish assistance. The Poles were spared total annihi-
lation.