In Art and Literature
The Katyn massacre is a major element in many works of film, literature and the fine arts. The first book in English titled "The Katyn Wood Murders" was published by Polish émigré Józef Mackiewicz in 1951 in New York. For example, it is central to the plot in the W.E.B. Griffin novel The Lieutenants, which is part of the Brotherhood of War series, as well as in the Robert Harris novel Enigma and the film of the same name. James R. Benn's Rag and Bone (Billy Boyle series) uses the Katyn Massacre as a central plot element. Polish poet Jacek Kaczmarski has dedicated one of his sung poems to this event. In a bold political statement during the height of the Cold War, Serbian film director and screenwriter Dušan Makavejev used original Nazi footage in his 1974 film Sweet Movie. The Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik wrote an orchestral score in 1967 called "Katyn Epitaph" in memory of the massacre.
In 2000, U.S. filmmaker Steven Fischer produced a public service announcement titled Silence of Falling Leaves honoring the fallen soldiers, consisting of images of falling autumn leaves with a sound track cutting to a narration in Polish by the Warsaw-born artist Bożena Jędrzejczak. It was honored with an Emmy nomination.
The 1999 Academy Honorary Award recipient, Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, whose father, Captain Jakub Wajda, was murdered in the NKVD prison of Kharkiv, made a film depicting the event, Katyn. It focuses on the fate of some of the mothers, wives and daughters of the Polish officers killed by the Soviets. Some Katyn Forest scenes were re-enacted. The screenplay is based on Andrzej Mularczyk's book Post mortem—the Katyn story. The film was produced by Akson Studio, and released in Poland on 21 September 2007. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008 for the Best Foreign Language Film.
In 2008, British historian Laurence Rees produced a 6-hour BBC/PBS television documentary series entitled World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West. The Katyn massacre was a central theme of the series.
Read more about this topic: Katyn Massacre
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