Massacres Poland

Poland says a member of the Soviet secret police who signed the order for the World War II massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest is still alive and should be interrogated, the PAP news agency reported in Warsaw. It is alleged that Pyotr Karpovich Soprunenko, then a major in the secret police, signed the list of 4,200 officers ordered to be executed at Katyn in the spring of 1940. Justice Minister Aleksander Bentkowski said Soprunenko is living in Moscow.

The mayor of a town where Poles killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors in 1941 said he has resigned because town councilors failed to support efforts to memorialize the wartime massacre. The resignation of Jedwabne's mayor, Krzystof Godlewski, followed a July 10 commemoration in which President Aleksander Kwasniewski begged forgiveness for the massacre but said Nazi occupiers had incited it. Research published last year revealed that Poles, not Nazis, killed the Jews of Jedwabne.

Poland broke a longstanding taboo Thursday by allowing a newspaper here to publish evidence that points to Soviet responsibility for a massacre of Polish army officers in World War II.

Spent ammunition of the type used by Nazi soldiers was found during the exhumation of a mass grave of Jews massacred by their Polish neighbors in 1941, investigators said Tuesday. They said the type and position of the bullets and shells could indicate that Nazis fired at Jews trying to flee a burning barn where hundreds perished. But they emphasized that it would take more forensic work to draw any conclusions about who did the shooting.

The Polish government for the first time placed responsibility on the Soviet Union for the World War II Katyn massacre of more than 4,000 captive Polish officers. "We think everything indicates that the crime was committed by the Stalinist NKVD (secret police)," government spokesman Jerzy Urban told a news conference in Warsaw. Poland's Communist rulers had claimed--as the Soviets maintained--that the Germans committed the massacre at Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

Josef Stalin's executioners, acting on his orders, massacred 15,131 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940, a Soviet newspaper said Wednesday in an article based on previously secret KGB archives. The expose in the weekly Moscow News was the first published admission of the systematic slaughter in the Russian region that has soured Soviet-Polish relations for five decades. The story contradicted previous Soviet claims that Adolf Hitler's Gestapo agents committed the World War II killings.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, seeking to defuse the single biggest issue poisoning relations between the Soviet Union and neighboring Poland, gave Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski documents Friday that showed that Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish army officers during World War II and buried them in mass graves in a Russian forest.

Spent ammunition of the type used by Nazi soldiers was found during the exhumation of a mass grave of Jews massacred by their Polish neighbors in 1941, investigators said Tuesday. They said the type and position of the bullets and shells could indicate that Nazis fired at Jews trying to flee a burning barn where hundreds perished. But they emphasized that it would take more forensic work to draw any conclusions about who did the shooting.

Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski went to the Katyn Forest on Saturday and paid tribute to the thousands of Polish army officers killed and buried there by the Soviet Union's secret police during World War II. His visit came one day after the Soviet government reversed nearly 50 years of official denial and admitted committing the massacre. The Soviet Union had long blamed Nazi Germany.

With the main rabbi of the Polish capital watching, workers removed soil Thursday from a mass grave of Jews in preparation for an exhumation to determine how many people died. Poland's Jewish community reluctantly accepted the government's decision to exhume the bodies of Jews massacred nearly 60 years ago in the northeastern town of Jedwabne as part of an inquiry that also will examine whether anyone should be criminally charged.

Investigators in Poland completed a partial exhumation of a mass grave of Jews killed by Poles in 1941, the prosecutor supervising the operation said. The exhumation, in the northeastern town of Jedwabne, began last week as part of a government probe launched after a book described how Poles, not Nazi troops, killed as many as 1,600 Jews there.

With the main rabbi of the Polish capital watching, workers removed soil Thursday from a mass grave of Jews in preparation for an exhumation to determine how many people died. Poland's Jewish community reluctantly accepted the government's decision to exhume the bodies of Jews massacred nearly 60 years ago in the northeastern town of Jedwabne as part of an inquiry that also will examine whether anyone should be criminally charged.

Poland says a member of the Soviet secret police who signed the order for the World War II massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest is still alive and should be interrogated, the PAP news agency reported in Warsaw. It is alleged that Pyotr Karpovich Soprunenko, then a major in the secret police, signed the list of 4,200 officers ordered to be executed at Katyn in the spring of 1940. Justice Minister Aleksander Bentkowski said Soprunenko is living in Moscow.

Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski went to the Katyn Forest on Saturday and paid tribute to the thousands of Polish army officers killed and buried there by the Soviet Union's secret police during World War II. His visit came one day after the Soviet government reversed nearly 50 years of official denial and admitted committing the massacre. The Soviet Union had long blamed Nazi Germany.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, seeking to defuse the single biggest issue poisoning relations between the Soviet Union and neighboring Poland, gave Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski documents Friday that showed that Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish army officers during World War II and buried them in mass graves in a Russian forest.

Josef Stalin's executioners, acting on his orders, massacred 15,131 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940, a Soviet newspaper said Wednesday in an article based on previously secret KGB archives. The expose in the weekly Moscow News was the first published admission of the systematic slaughter in the Russian region that has soured Soviet-Polish relations for five decades. The story contradicted previous Soviet claims that Adolf Hitler's Gestapo agents committed the World War II killings.

Investigators in Poland completed a partial exhumation of a mass grave of Jews killed by Poles in 1941, the prosecutor supervising the operation said. The exhumation, in the northeastern town of Jedwabne, began last week as part of a government probe launched after a book described how Poles, not Nazi troops, killed as many as 1,600 Jews there.

The mayor of a town where Poles killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors in 1941 said he has resigned because town councilors failed to support efforts to memorialize the wartime massacre. The resignation of Jedwabne's mayor, Krzystof Godlewski, followed a July 10 commemoration in which President Aleksander Kwasniewski begged forgiveness for the massacre but said Nazi occupiers had incited it. Research published last year revealed that Poles, not Nazis, killed the Jews of Jedwabne.

The Polish government for the first time placed responsibility on the Soviet Union for the World War II Katyn massacre of more than 4,000 captive Polish officers. "We think everything indicates that the crime was committed by the Stalinist NKVD (secret police)," government spokesman Jerzy Urban told a news conference in Warsaw. Poland's Communist rulers had claimed--as the Soviets maintained--that the Germans committed the massacre at Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

Poland broke a longstanding taboo Thursday by allowing a newspaper here to publish evidence that points to Soviet responsibility for a massacre of Polish army officers in World War II.