Katyn secret files released for first time in Moscow

Moscow - Secret documents containing information about the Katyn massacre were released for the first time from Kremlin archives in Russia on Wednesday - 70 years after some 22,000 Polish officers were murdered by Soviet troops in the western Russian town.

Russia's federal archives bureau, Rosarchiv, published numerous files compiled by the former Soviet secret police organization NKVD on the internet, following a decree by President Dmitry Medvedev.

Although the release of the documents was a first in Russia, the files had already been made public a few years earlier by Poland, Rosarchiv leader Andrei Artisov was quoted as saying by the news agency Interfax.

Russia is ready to be completely open about the backdrop to the bloody incident, he added.

The documents show that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the execution of some 22,000 soldiers and civilians in Katyn and other places in the spring of 1940, Artisov said.

Signatures also prove that all of Stalin's successors in the Kremlin reviewed the documents.

"They took note of the crime, then the files were sealed again," Artisov said.

After World War II, Soviet authorities blamed the massacre on the Nazis. Russia did not acknowledge responsibility for the mass killings until 1990.

Deliberately forged "evidence" of "German guilt" were found in the archives, Artisov said.

"But in the place where most of the Poles were shot, there were never any German troops," he noted.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/320957,katyn-secret-files-released-for-first-time-in-moscow.html.