Katyń Memorial Service

Katyń Commemoration Ceremony

The 85th Anniversary to commemorate the victims of the Katyń genocide in April 1940 was held on Sunday 27 April at the Katyń Memorial in Gunnersbury Cemetery, West London. The ceremony, organised by The Polish Ex-Combatants Association in Great Britain Trust Fund and assisted by the Polish Scouts, was conducted by Ceremony Marshall Jacek Bernasinski. The annual commemoration was attended by around 300 people, including the Polish Ambassador HE Piotr Wilczek,  Vice-Consul Anna Tarnowska-Waszak and Defence Attaché Col Rafał Nowak. The Polish Air Force Memorial Committee was represented by the Chairman Krzysztof de Berg, Julian Kowalski and Marek Borzecki who laid a wreath on its behalf.

On 1 September 1939, Germany attacked Poland. The Polish army fought valiantly, but on 17 September, Germany’s ally, the Soviet Union, attacked from the East.  The Polish Army had no chance of defending attacks from two fronts and Poland was divided effectively in half between Germany and the Soviet Union.  The Soviets immediately started a programme of Sovietisation, through organised ethnic cleansing and social genocide.  Hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens were forcibly deported to the depths of the Soviet Empire, many to their deaths in appalling conditions.  Thousands of Polish officer prisoners of war, border guards, police, professors, teachers, priests, rabbis and community leaders were sent to special camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostaszkow and Miednoje, plus many other places.

In April 1940, at the request of the Head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin ordered the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), to carry out mass executions of these prisoners. Around 4,500 corpses were later found in mass graves in the Katyń forest, others being executed at other sites. In all approximately 22,000 people were executed.

What came to be known as the Katyń Massacre was commemorated by the Polish Community living in exile immediately after the end of the Second World War.  The Polish Community wanted to create a lasting memorial to their murdered comrades, but as a result of Soviet pressure, the British authorities firstly refused permission.  The victims of the Katyń genocide had to wait until the 1970s when permission was finally granted to erect the Katyń Memorial in Gunnersbury Cemetery, which was unveiled on 18 September 1976.