For decades this incident was rooted in speculation and fear. The facts were either suppressed or cooked up. In 1940, more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war disappeared in Soviet territory without a trace.
SOUNDBITE: Andrzei Wajda, film director (speaking Polish):
"Censorship, control and the Katyn case in general were under a strict ban."
The Katyn forest in the Smolensk Region. This is where a mass grave of people in Polish military uniform was first discovered. That was in 1943 during the German occupation.
SOUNDBITE: Dmitry Khudykh, local resident (speaking Russian):
"The Poles lay in their grave in three or four rows -- side by side. Some were even layered on top of one another."
Who ordered the execution of the Polish prisoners of war? When exactly were they killed? What do eyewitnesses have to say about it after more than fifty years of silence? Why were the details of the Katyn tragedy kept secret for so long?
TITLE: KATYN
In Russia's north-west lies a monastery on an island at Lake Seliger. In 1940, it housed the Ostashkov prison camp, where more than 5,000 Polish Army servicemen and police were imprisoned. Boris Karpov was just a child at the time. He found out how the monastery had been turned into a prison camp for prisoners of war from a relative who was serving in the Soviet Union's secret police -- the NKVD.
SOUNDBITE: Boris Karpov, local resident (speaking Russian):
"Every day a special train was coming to the city of Ostashkov. The Polish prisoners of war barely had any roof over their heads. Therefore, all of the monastery's buildings were hastily adapted for their accommodation. Triple plank beds were made for that purpose."
Polish POWs were brought to the Soviet Union soon after the start of World War II. German troops had occupied Poland in the autumn of 1939 and Soviets entered the country's eastern regions. The Poles were sent to prison camps in Ostashkov, Starobelsk and Kozelsk.
The Poles were held in order to prevent any potential riots or attempts to restore Poland's territorial integrity. Among them was career officer Jakob Wajda, the father of Polish film director Andrzei Wajda. Jakob and his fellow Army servicemen were sent to the Kozelsk camp in the Smolensk Region.
SOUNDBITE: Andrzei Wajda, film director (speaking Polish):
"Unlike my father, most of those taken prisoner were not career officers. Rather, they represented the Polish intelligentsia. There were university professors, high school teachers, actors and artists among them; in short, all those who had been drafted into the Army in 1939."
In August that year the Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression treaty in Moscow, which later became known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This covert document detailed the partition of Eastern Europe.
On September the 1st, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. By September 17th, Soviet troops entered Poland as well. This rare footage shows a joint parade in the town of Brest. The Soviet brigade commander Krivoshein and General Guderian of Germany share a viewing
platform. The Polish Army had now ceased to exist.
SOUNDBITE: Andrzei Wajda, film director (speaking Polish):
"I never saw my father from that moment on. There was no word from him until he was taken prisoner by the Soviets."
