Period Timeline: PRL
1 June 1946 - 2 June 1946
The International Military Tribunal in Nürnberg questions witnesses in the Katyń crime case. Because of the dismissed evidence of the Soviet side the case is excluded from the final text of the judgment.
22 December 1952
The end of work of the US Congress Katyń committee with a final report confirming the NKVD’s perpetration of the Katyń crime.
7 July 1957
Germany’s 7 Tage weekly publishes a report by an NKVD officer from Minsk on the liquidation of camps at Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov.
9 March 1959
KGB boss Alexandr Shelepin offers Nikita Khrushchev to destroy 21,857 sets of record files of the Katyń crime victims.
21 April 1971
BBC airs a documentary on Katyń. The murder issue is brought before the English Parliament, but the Parliament fails to take any initiative on it.
21 April 1987
In Moscow, People’s Poland and the USSR sign a declaration on cooperation in ideology, science and culture which provides a basis for the setting up of a Joint Commission for the “Blank Pages” in History.
1 April 1988
An expert report of the Polish part of the Joint Commission questions the Burdenko Commission’s findings on the Katyń crime.
References
- From a letter addressed by the Chairman of the State Security Committee of the Soviet Council of Ministers, A. Shelepin, to Nikita Khrushchev
- Alicja Patey-Grabowska
- From a directive for the Soviet ambassador in London
- Hanka Świeżawska
- From a statement by the Committee for Social Self-Defence “KOR”
- From a memo by head of the CPSU CC’s International Department V. Falin
- From a CPSU CC’s memo on the “Katyń issue”
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