The thing is, most of the personal effects were lost during the end of the war, and many of the official records were destroyed, lost or altered. This has been well documented by legitimate sources from the Polish Underground. Finding truths from Lenin or Stalin-era is like finding a needle in a haystack. The Soviets, unlike the Germans, had a penchant for altering documentation, or destroying it when the need arose.
I am a Katyn scholar myself, and I have been doing a literature review for over a year now on Katyn; the best source for "official Russian documents" and their translation is:
Cienciala, A. M., Lebedeva, N. S., & Materski W., "Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment" Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, USA 2007
This text is the official documentation Packet No. 1 handed over by Boris Yeltsin on 14OCT92 to Polish government and scholars.
Now, from a political standpoint I do not see the Russians turning over any documentation until the WWII generation is gone... if there is any remaining. As an American-Pole, of course I want to see justice done; however, politically speaking the world had the chance several times to right this wrong (Nuremberg, Polish Inquiry '46, US Senate '52, etc.) nothing was done, because it is a political hot kielbasa. The new Russian view is that Katyn was a political crime, not a war crime and therefore does not need further explanation.
I agree with this to a certain point. The victim can always cry victim, and we as Poles take this crime very seriously. Yet compared a simple search on RJ Rummel's website or even Wikipedia will reveal more damaging and harrowing genocides/exterminations/liquidations. Katyn must be looked at in the historical context of time, era, political winds and agendas. If FDR or Churchill raised it and pushed WWII may have ended much differently.
The Soviets admitted guilt, monuments were changed and even though reparations are not sought, no one was brought to justice - unlike the Jew peoples and their drive to find anyone who wore a NAZI uniform.
Fitzgibbon, Paul, Davies, Zawodny all postulate the NKVD men who committed the murders were killed themselves; those who ordered were killed, assassinated, or imprisoned themselves.
Justice will never be done, Katyn is about honoring and remembering those lost. Katyn and justice are words that no government official wants to use in the same sentence.
H
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