The Katyn Massacre was the mass execution of Polish military officers by the Soviet Union during World War II. After the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, Germany invaded Poland from the west and Soviet forces occupied the east. Consequently, tens of thousands of Polish military personnel fell into Soviet hands and they were interned at three camps in Kozelsk, Starobielsk, and in Ostashkov. On March 5th, 1940, the Politburo, the leading committee of the Soviet Communist Party, officially sanctioned a decision taken by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin to execute about 21,857 of the military officials held at these camps in the Katyn forest between April and May 1940. The death transports, which took up to 12-hours to make, from the three camps to the execution sites (Smolensk, Katyn, Kharkiv and Tver) began on the night of April 3rd. The Poles were murdered and buried, the content of their pockets included, in unmarked graves at the killing sites. 

The Katyn Forest massacre was not discovered until June 1941, when the Germans occupied the area. Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels waited until April 1943 to disclose the discovery of the bodies. The Soviets denied their involvement, claiming that the Nazis were responsible for the death. Documentation from their pockets, along with other physical evidence found on their corpses, showed that they were executed in early 1940 when the region was under Soviet control. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian government released documents proving that the Soviet Politburo and Interior Ministry (NKVD) had been responsible for the massacre and its cover up. 

One side of the medallion reads “Ahuman and Human” around the top, and the words “Remember Katyn” on the bottom. In between those texts around the border are  rows of bodies that depict the mass graves in which the murdered prisoners were found. The center of this side features a torture scene. An octopus-like man wields a sickle-like revolver and a hammer. The hammer, with the sickle, is a symbol of the Soviet Union, and an octopus is also indicative of communism. During 1936-37, anti-Communist French propaganda depicted Soviet Russia as an octopus, and the United States used the octopus as the perfect metaphor to detail the spread of communism. The symbol of Poland, a crowned eagle, appears to be emanating from the mouth of the man ensnared in the tentacles of the octopus.

One side depicts the crowned white-tailed eagle, the Polish national symbol. Below the eagle there is a possible reference to Poland’s national poet, Adam Mickiewicz. On the other side, the Lady of Czestochowa, a symbol of Polish unity, takes up the center of the medallion. Around the icon, the words ‘KOZELSK, STAROBELSK, KATYN and OSTASHKOV’ can be seen. Aside from Katyn, the three names refer to the camps in which the Polish prisoners of war were held before being transported to Katyn where they were executed. Kozelsk and Starobelsk were Soviet labor camps which held mainly Polish soldiers and other servicemen, while Ostashkov was also a Soviet labor camp but mainly held Polish policemen.

On one side, an image clearly depicts the military personnel who were massacred at Katyn. The depiction of the men facing away with their hands tied behind their backs is indicative of the manner in which the personnel were executed. The word Katyn is clear, and it is formed by the men’s shadows representing the long lasting shadow left by the massacre on the Polish people. The opposing side depicts a crowned eagle and a broken sword with the word “Honor.” Between is etched the words “PAMIECIi POLSKICH OFFICEROW LAMORDOWANYCH w KATYNICH” meaning In Memory of Polish Officers Murdered in Katyn.

On the first side, the inscription PAMIECI POLAKOW OFIAR STALINOWSKICH REPRESJI can be seen in the foreground which is translated as In Memory Of Polish Victims Of Stalin’s Repression. Joseph Stalin, was the secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-53) and the premier of the Soviet State (1941-53). He ruled the Soviet Union dictatorially for a quarter of a century, and transformed the Soviet Union into a major world power.  The prisoners, who are chained, are trudging in the direction of SYBIR which is Polish for “Siberia.” After the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Stalin deported 1.7 million Poles to a system of slave labor camps known as Gulag in cattle trucks, one of these being in Siberia. Conditions in these camps were brutal and mortality rates were frighteningly high, with total deaths in the Gulag reaching well into the millions. The opposite side shows prison bars and the words “JESZCZE POLSKA NIE ZGINIE” meaning “Poland will not die.”