Katyn Massacre - Memorials

Memorials

Several memorials of the massacre have been erected worldwide. During the Cold War, the British government objected to plans to build a major Katyn monument in the UK. The Soviet Union did not want the Katyn massacre to be remembered, and demanded that the British government prevent the erection of the monument. The British government did not want to antagonize the Soviets, and the construction of the monument was delayed for many years. When the local community secured the right to build the monument, no government representative was present at the ceremony (although representative of the British Conservative Party opposition were present). A monument was finally unveiled on 18 September 1976 at the Gunnersbury Cemetery amid controversy. Another memorial in the UK was erected three years later, in 1979, in Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.

In Russia, in 2000, the memorial at the Katyn war cemetery was opened. Previously, the site featured a monument dedicated to the "victims of the Hitlerites". In Canada, a large metal sculpture has been erected in the Polish community of Roncesvalles in Toronto, Ontario, to commemorate the killings. In South Africa, a memorial in Johannesburg commemorates the victims of Katyn as well as South African and Polish airmen who flew missions to drop supplies for the Warsaw Uprising.

In Wrocław, Poland, a composition by Polish sculptor Tadeusz Tchórzewski is dedicated to those killed at Katyn. Unveiled in 2000, it is located in a park east of the city's centre, near the Racławice Panorama building. It shows the 'Matron of the Homeland' despairing over a dead soldier, while on a higher plinth the angel of death looms over, leaning forward on a sword.

In the USA, a golden statue, known as the National Katyn Massacre Memorial, is located in Baltimore, Maryland, on Aliceanna Street at Inner Harbor East. Polish-Americans in Detroit erected a small white-stone memorial in the form of a cross with a plaque at the St. Albertus Roman Catholic Church. A statue, the Katyń Memorial, commemorating the massacre has also been erected at Exchange Place on the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey. Other memorial statues are located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and Niles, Illinois.

In Ukraine, a memorial complex was erected to honor the over 4300 officer victims of the Katyń massacre murdered in Pyatykhatky, 14 kilometres/8.7 miles north of Kharkiv in Ukraine; the complex lies in a corner of a former resort home for NKVD officers. Children had discovered hundreds of Polish officer buttons whilst playing on the site.