Muzeum Katyńskie w Warszawie

Warszawa

"Only the unbending buttons survived death, witnesses of the crime" – wrote Zbigniew Herbert in a poem dedicated to Edward Herbert, who was murdered in Katyn. A visit to the Katyn Museum, however, shows that thousands of mementoes have survived, and with them the memory of more than 20,000 Polish citizens murdered by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 in Katyn and other killing sites.The new Katyn Museum was ceremonially opened in 2015. It is housed within the brick walls of a 19th-century caponier of the Warsaw Citadel.The audio guide begins with the joyful moments of Poland regaining its independence and the struggles for its borders, including the war with Bolshevik Russia. We then journey through the period of the Second Polish Republic, up to its carving-up by the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. At this point the audio guide brings us to the crime itself – how it was planned and carried out. But that is not all. Next, we learn the story of the so-called Katyn lie and of the brave people who fought for the truth.Once we know about the crime, the audio guide takes us to a sanctuary of sorts – a place with reliquaries displaying thousands of objects that belonged to the victims and were recovered from the death pits. It is a deeply harrowing experience!