Katyn Page #3

This is her handwriting.

My name.

Thank you.

I'll return it in a few days.

No need.

I really have another.

Mom,

Mr. Wieslaw's

brought a package for you.

- Hello, Madam.

- Hello.

It's from Germany.

You have to sign the receipt.

One moment. Here.

Thank you.

- Please wait.

- Not this time, Madam.

Please forgive me.

Read, please.

The Sachsenhausen camp

commander

regrets to inform you that

on March 4, 1 940,

Prof. Jan died in jail of

an untreated cardiac defect.

- Jesus' holy name be praised.

- For ever and ever.

- Here.

- Thank you.

What's that list?

The names of all

they transport away.

I have everybody from

the 1 st transport on April 3.

Men are easy to lose, but their families

and the army are waiting for them...

- As they say, diaries don't burn.

- Buttons...

That's what will be left of us.

I wonder where they send us?

- To neutral countries maybe.

- Where did you hear that?

We were vaccinated against typhus.

With the Soviets that means

- we're off on a long journej.

- Attention!

I'm reading

the following names...

They've read your name.

Your things and off.

I'm staying.

Don't worry, Jerzy.

This is not the last transport.

You'll come on the next one

and I'll get good

lodgings ready.

Zygmunt Szymkiewicz, major doctor,

a letter from a Health Dept.

Cracow,

April, 1 3, 1 943

Roman Zajaczkowski land engineer

His service papers were found.

Antoni Danda,

military rank unknown,

a Town Hall sec.,

a letter attached.

Dr. Henryk Peche,

captain, physician.

Ferdynand Marecki,

his student card

and a telegram attached.

Edmund Baszkowski

b. in Kalisz in 1 903,

lawyer.

Marian Dobrowolski,

lieutenant pilot,

engineer designer...

- Goniec Krakowski, please.

- I got the latest. Here.

Stanislaw Jakubowicz

lieutenant, no personal details.

Wladyslaw Deszczka,

cartographer,

b. March 2, 1 892.

Stanislaw Kaczmarek,

pilot, 2nd lieut.

His weapons license

and calling cards attached.

Piotr Martin

engineer.

An inocculation certificate

from Kozielsk attached.

Daszkiewicz, 2nd lieut.

ID attached.

- He isn't there?

- No.

One cannot lose

a husband and son.

Right.

My sonny.

He's not there.

But I don't understand why

he didn't hide or escape.

You told me

it was possible.

- Why didn't you persuade him?

- You know I tried.

- Why wasn't I there?

- You wouldn't've helped.

Andrzej paid the same

duty to the uniform, as Father,

- to the university.

- But he should've been rescued.

My son is necessary.

You think that

I don't know that?

That I don't feel it?

If he'd felt he was needed...

I don't know, maybe...

He wouldn't have left you,

the child, me...

Why do you speak

as if he were no more.

He's not on that list!

Do you hear?

But that accursed list has

the name of that Lieutenant Jerzy

- and the general, their commander.

- So what?

He's not there and that's that.

If he could save himself,

even all alone, he did because that's

what I feel. I feel that Andrzej lives.

It can't be that something

happened to him somewhere,

which I don't know.

He is part of me.

And no part of me has died.

Yes, yes...

A letter has come, Mom.

Official. From the Germans.

- Propaganda Abteilung...

- What can they want from you?

In connection with

the Katyn list.

They tell relatives

to come.

Let's go.

On behalf of our leader

Adolf Hitler,

I'd like to express my

heart-felt condolences

on account of the tragedy that

befell your husband, the General.

It's an unprecedented crime

committed by the Soviets

on Polish POW's in Katyn.

The Fhrer ordered to return

to you the Virtuti Militari cross.

Thank you.

Please see the statement

and next read it.

News spread very fast

of finding...

bodies of Polish officers,

including my husband's...

The wife of the General,

I'll pray for the Soviet

criminals to be punished...

The conversation

will be recorded.

I take it that everything

has been written out here.

Your questions

and my answers.

Exactly. Read it out

loud, please.

You can start now, please.

You can start now, please.

Read it!

Madam, you need this

statement as much as we do.

You wouldn't like to send your

daughter letters from Auschwitz?

Please come with me!

The daughter stays here.

Sit down!

- Don't you leave me here, Mom!

- Wait here.

Please.

Behind the front line

near Smolensk,

the Katyn Forest, the site

of a horrendous mass murder,

where the butchers of Kremlin

ordered executioners

to commit a bestial murder

on 1 2,000 Polish POW's,

officers and noncoms.

A German Medical Committee along with

a Polish forensic expert Dr. Praglowski

ascertained the typically Bolshevik

way, a shot in the back of the head.

The exit wound is in the forehead or in

the upper part of the victim's skull.

Father Jasinski is performing

exequies over the open mass graves.

A symbolic handful of dust from

the General-Gouvernement

is thrown over the graves.

All those Polish offcers were

murdered in the spring of '40.

There are many Polish

generals among the victims.

This bears out what fate

awaited all European nations

from the Bolshevik

murderous plague.

Yet with his heroic attitude, the

German soldier protects our continent.

To complete the list

of names given before

of the murdered

by the Bolsheviks...

Mom!

Mom!

... we give you further

names of the victims:

Wladyslaw Godziszewski,

lieutenant,

b. June 22, 1 895,

high school teacher.

Lucjan Gawronski,

captain,

Olgierd Druchowicz, major,

electrical engineer.

Cracow, Jan. 1 8, 1 945

- The hated Nazi flag hit the

cobblestones of the Krakow marketplace.

Thousands of hands tore into pieces

the symbol of German rule over

the ancient capital of Polish kings.

Mom, see who's arrived?

Our maid Stasia.

How elegant you look!

Stasia...

- So we've survived.

- Yes...

Sit down.

We worried about you.

Well, it was hard.

We had to hide.

My husband took to the forest.

He was in the People's Army.

- Could we help you?

- No, thank you.

It's quite different now.

My husband Edek

can do a great deal now.

Your things remained

here in the pantry,

a whole trunk.

Ewa, fetch it please.

Madam, I'd like...

You remember?

I'd like to return it.

I promised to keep it

and I did.

What have you

brought us?

Dad's saber...

Thank you very much.

- So I'll be going...

- Your trunk.

No, no, give it to the Red

Cross for the poor.

My husband was nominated

the Starosta of Piotrkow.

So I have to go.

I thought you decided

to stay on as a maid.

I didn't see the General's

wife throughout the whole war.

Now you are the lady.

Yes, Madam, please.

Dad!

- Andrzej.

- Dad!

Andrzej.

Nika...

She's grown.

Forgive her.

She's looking forward to

seeing Father.

I'm sorry

to have disappointed you.

- But your face...

- You recognize me?

You're Jerzy, a lieutenant

from my son's regiment.

Yes, a major now, but it's me.

But they said you were dead.

I saw the name and rank

- on the list everything...

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