Katyn: Stalin's Massacre and the Triumph of Truth

by Allen Paul

Overview

Twenty years ago, Allen Paul wrote the first post-communist account of one of the greatest but least-known tragedies of the twentieth century: Stalin's annihilation of Poland's officer corps and massive deportation of so-called "bourgeoisie elements" to Siberia. Today, these brutal events are symbolized by one word: Katyn, a crime that still bitterly divides Poles and Russians. Paul's richly updated account covers Russian attempts to recant their admission of guilt for the murders in Katyn Forest and includes recently translated documents from Russian military archives, eyewitness accounts of two perpetrators, and secret official minutes published here for the first time that confirm that U.S. government cover-up of the crime continued long after the war ended. Paul's masterful narrative recreates what daily life was like for three Polish families amid momentous events of World War II—from the treacherous Nazi-Soviet invasion in 1939 to a rigged election in 1947 that sealed Poland's doom. The patriarch of each family was among the Polish officers personally ordered by Stalin to be shot. One of the families suffered daily repression under the German General Government. Like thousands of other Poles, two of the families were deported to Siberia, where they nearly died from forced labor, starvation, and neglect. Through painstaking research, the author reconstructs the lives of these families including such stories as a miraculous escape on the last transport of Poles leaving Russia and a mother's daring ski trek over the Carpathian Mountains to rescue a daughter she had not seen in six years. At the heart of the drama is the Poles' uncommon belief in "victory in defeat"—that their struggles made them strong and that freedom and independence, inevitably, would be regained.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780875806341
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2010
Edition description:	1
Pages:	430
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Allen Paul is a former Associated Press reporter and political speechwriter. In April 2009, the President of Poland awarded Allen Paul the Order of Merit for Katyn.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xvii

Note on Sources xxi

Prologue 3

1 The Interlude 5

2 Hitler's Command 18

3 A Failed Escape 24

4 Case White 30

5 Capture 40

6 Diabolical Schemes 52

7 Camp Life 72

8 House Calls 88

9 The Liquidations 103

10 Trains to the East 116

11 The Remnant 124

12 Life on the Steppes 148

13 Bad-Faith Agreements 160

14 Crumbling Hopes 177

15 Exodus 193

16 Wolf's Find 210

17 The Rupture 223

18 Death Knell 238

19 The Whitewash 257

20 Clandestine Designs 273

21 Moments of Truth 285

22 The Allies' Blind Eye 304

23 Rescue 319

24 Echoes of O'Malley 334

25 The Quest for Truth 344

Epilogue 356

Appendix-Katyń Forest Execution Order 361

Notes 365

Bibliography 393

Chronology 401

Index 411

About the Author 423

Editorial Reviews

Allen Paul has thoroughly researched the murders, but more important, he has laid bare the massive cover-up of the murders and of the Soviet guilt—a cover-up that appears to have involved Roosevelt and Churchill, as well as Stalin.

The Boston Globe

Paul marshals an impressive array of research gathered from unpublished documents, monographs, and interviews to support his interpretations. The detailed personal experiences of three Polish families woven through the text transform what otherwise would be a standard historical narrative into a poignant testimony to the remarkable capacity of human beings to endure tyranny in its most inhumane form.

The Washington Post

Not only a riveting human drama but a powerful historical exposé.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Allen has given us the complete story of Katyn. A wonderful companion to my film!

Andrzej Wajda

Poles everywhere fell in love with this book. Twice a bestseller in Poland.

Malgorzata Maruszkin

Vividly written, intensely personal and passionately anti-Soviet.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A moving reconstruction of the human side of these events... the volume is especially valuable in its tracing of individuals and families through the barbarous darkness of the 1940s.

The New York Times

As Allen Paul makes plain in his often moving history of the Katyn massacres, Stalin's execution order was a deliberate attempt to eliminate the Polish educated classes and clear the ground for eventual Soviet dominance of the country.

The New York Review of Books

A masterful chronicle.... Paul tenaciously tracks the Katyn cover-up and its festering repercussions.

-- "Publisher's Weekly"

A moving reconstruction of the human side of these events... the volume is especially valuable in its tracing of individuals and families through the barbarous darkness of the 1940s.

-- "The New York Times"

Allen has given us the complete story of Katyn. A wonderful companion to my film!

--Andrzej Wajda, Academy Award-winning Director of Katyn

Allen Paul has thoroughly researched the murders, but more important, he has laid bare the massive cover-up of the murders and of the Soviet guilt--a cover-up that appears to have involved Roosevelt and Churchill, as well as Stalin.

-- "The Boston Globe"

As Allen Paul makes plain in his often moving history of the Katyn massacres, Stalin's execution order was a deliberate attempt to eliminate the Polish educated classes and clear the ground for eventual Soviet dominance of the country.

-- "The New York Review of Books"

Not only a riveting human drama but a powerful historical exposé.

--Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser

Paul marshals an impressive array of research gathered from unpublished documents, monographs, and interviews to support his interpretations. The detailed personal experiences of three Polish families woven through the text transform what otherwise would be a standard historical narrative into a poignant testimony to the remarkable capacity of human beings to endure tyranny in its most inhumane form.

-- "The Washington Post"

Poles everywhere fell in love with this book. Twice a bestseller in Poland.

--Malgorzata Maruszkin, Publisher-Non-Fiction, Bertelsmann/Poland

Vividly written, intensely personal and passionately anti-Soviet.

-- "St. Louis Post-Dispatch"

From the Publisher