Russia - Katyn Massacre Remembered
T/I: 10:49:54
Polish and Russian leaders on Sunday (4/6) laid a memorial stone
to mark the site of a mass grave in Katyn Forest about 400 km west
of Moscow of some 4,400 Polish officers executed in 1940 by the
Soviet secret police. Polish President Lech Walesa laid a cornerstone to the cemetery and Polish Primate Jozef Cardinal Glemp blessed the monument with a Catholic mass. Walesa, Glemp and others spoke to a crowd of 1,500 of mostly Polish people. The Russian leader
was represented by his Chief of Staff, Sergei Filatov.
SHOWS:
(KATYN, RUSSIA 4/6)
Soldiers and cardinals walking to memorial
Polish President Lech Walesa walking to memorial
Polish President Lech Walesa laying wreath at memorial to the
victims of massacre
Polish primate Jozef Cardinal Glemp walking
Sergei Filatov (Russian chief of staff) walking (white hair)
Polish soldiers
Bell being rung
Cardinal Glemp addressing crowd
Memorial candles burning
Lech Walesa listening to prayer
1.36
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Episode 71: The Katyn Massacre
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During the Spring of 1943, tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies were easening. However, recent news about the disappearance of Polish soldiers in the USSR did not work to smooth this alliance. In what came to be known as the Katyn Massacre, the bodies of thousands of Polish soldiers who had been shot in the head were found in eight communal graves in the Katyn Forest. Medical evidence proved that the Poles had been killed in 1940 by the Soviets. However, the truth was not revealed for almost fifty years.
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Katyn Memorial
Katyn Memorial at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army in Warsaw
Katyń [1080p] [pl, ru, en, fr, bg, vi, el, es, nl, pt, ro, sr, sl, tr, fi, hr, cs subtitles]
When the Soviet Union on 17 September 1939 invades Poland, Anna Aleksandrowna leaves her home in Krakow to search for her husband, the Polish captain Andrzej. She finds him together with other officers captured by the Red Army, but some minutes later he is pushed into a train, which will take all the Polish officers to a prison camp in Kozelsk in Russia. Anna and her daughter Nika is now stuck in the Soviet occupied zone, unable to go back to Krakow in the German zone, not until a brave Russian captain helps them to flee. 3 April 1940 Andrzej is transported from the prison camp in Kozelsk to the Katyn Forest, where thousands of Polish officers are killed. In 1943 the Germans capture this area and find the mass graves. 13 April 1943 they start announcing the names of the identified corpses through loudspeakers in Krakow. Anna is happy that Andrzej is not in any of the Katyn lists, which gives her some hope. 18 January 1945 the Red Army liberates Krakow from the Nazis. The Russians start blaming the Katyn Massacre on the Germans, proclaiming that it happened in 1941 instead of 1940. Everybody knows that this isn't true, but those who refuse to accept the Soviet version are imprisoned or killed by the Red Army.
KATYN: Slaughter and Silence Rare Documentary True Story PT2/4
Taken from a rare VHS ive owned since the early 90's.This is part 2 of 4. Check my channel for the rest of the parts.
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, mord katyński, 'Katyń crime'; Russian: Катынский расстрел), was a mass murder[1] of Polish nationals carried out by the Soviet secret police NKVD in April--May 1940. It was based on Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps, dated 5 March 1940. This official document was then approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including its leader, Joseph Stalin.[2][3] The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, the most commonly cited number being 21,768.[4] The victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkov prisons and elsewhere.[5] About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest being Polish doctors, professors, lawmakers, police officers, and other public servants arrested for allegedly being intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials and priests.[4] Since Poland's conscription system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,[6] the NKVD was able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar, Jewish, Georgian,[7] and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship.[8]
The term Katyn massacre originally referred specifically to the massacre at Katyn Forest, near the villages of Katyn and Gnezdovo (ca. 19 kilometres (12 mi) west of Smolensk, Russia), of Polish military officers in the Kozelsk prisoner-of-war camp. This was the largest of several roughly simultaneous executions of prisoners of war; the others included executions at the geographically distant Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps,[9] and the executions of political prisoners from West Belarus and West Ukraine,[10] shot at Katyn Forest, at the NKVD headquarters in Smolensk, at a Smolensk slaughterhouse,[2] and at prisons in Kalinin (Tver), Kharkov, Moscow, and other Soviet cities.[4] The Belorussian and Ukrainian Katyn Lists are NKVD lists of names of Polish prisoners to be murdered at various locations in Belarus and Western Ukraine.[4] The modern Polish investigation of the Katyn massacre covered not only the massacre at Katyn forest, but also the other mass murders mentioned above. There are Polish organisations such as the Katyn Committee and the Federation of Katyn Families, which again are inclusive of victims of the various mass murders at the various locations.[4]
Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943.[11] The revelation led to the end of diplomatic relations between Moscow and the London-based Polish government-in-exile. The Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the perpetration of the killings by the NKVD,[4][12][13] as well as the subsequent cover-up.[14]
An investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Soviet Union (1990--1991) and the Russian Federation (1991--2004), has confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres. It was able to confirm the deaths of 1,803 Polish citizens but refused to classify this action as a war crime or an act of genocide. The investigation was closed on grounds that the perpetrators of the massacre were already dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of Stalinist repression, formal posthumous rehabilitation was ruled out.[15] The human rights society Memorial issued a statement which declared this termination of investigation is inadmissible and that their confirmation of only 1,803 people killed requires explanation because it is common knowledge that more than 14,500 prisoners were killed.[16]
In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the massacre.[17]
Katyn (1940) - History Presentation
This video is a presentation of the history of the Katyn forest massacre of 1940 in which the Soviet NKVD murdered approximately 15,000 Polish officers from three camps and over 6,000 Poles held in prisons in occupied Eastern Poland (Belarus and Ukraine). The presentation is an overview which covers events before and during World War II, as well as how the matter was treated after the war. The presentation is made using a deck, and concludes with pictures of the Polish military cemeteries in Katyn, Kharkov and Mednoe, as well as three Katyn monuments in the UK, the USA, and Canada.
Paying tribute to Katyn massacre victims | Andrew Scheer
Today, Canadians of Polish descent and millions of Poles around the world commemorate the brutal murder of 22,000 Polish officers by communist secret police at Katyn Forest and other places in 1940.
For many Poles, the Katyn massacre symbolized the Soviet Union’s imperial ambitions and Stalin’s attempt to destroy the Polish intelligentsia and military. While the Soviet Union denied its involvement in the massacre, 79 years later the free people of Poland and Canada remember the innocent victims of this horrible crime. We must pledge to never forget these Polish heroes who fought for the freedom of their motherland.
In Canada, we cherish our close friendship and alliance with Poland and, having fought shoulder-to-shoulder alongside free Polish forces in the Second World War, continue to stand with them today as a full member of NATO.
On behalf of the Canada’s Conservatives, I join all Polish Canadians and Poles around the world in paying tribute to the victims of the Katyn massacre, and denouncing the crimes of communism.
Preps, security ahead of memorial for victims of Polish air tragedy
(17 Apr 2010)
1. Close of candles at monument to the Unknown Soldier
2. Wide of candles and monument
3. Close of candles and flowers
4. Wide of Pilsudski Square with stage where memorial will take place
5. Mid of Polish flags
6. Man lying on ground
7. Wide of crowd
8. Close of man reading newspaper
9. Close of newspaper headlines on funeral, pan to reader''s face
10. Wide of group of nuns arriving for memorial
11. SOUNDBITE (German) Radoslaw Lolo, memorial attendee:
I support it (burial in Krakow), it is not only the historic issue, our President died in a catastrophe, he was a president when he died, Katyn is a very special place for Polish history, I think it is a symbol.
12. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Katarzyna Grebyluha, memorial attendee: ++NON VERBATIM TRANSLATION++
Lots of people support it and are happy for President Kaczynski to be buried in Krakow with Polish kings. I agree with it too. It is only a minority of those who are protesting against.
13. Wide of crowd, UPSOUND: sirens
14. Woman with barking dog
STORYLINE:
Mourners from across Poland gathered in Warsaw early on Saturday ahead of a memorial service for the victims of the plane crash in western Russia which killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others.
Church bells tolled and emergency sirens sounded across Poland at 8:56 a.m. (0656 GMT) on Saturday to mark the minute a week ago that the plane crashed in Smolensk as it attempted to land in thick fog, also killing many of the country''s civilian and military elite.
The large public memorial service will be held later on Saturday in Warsaw''s Pilsudski Square, where hundreds of thousands of mourners are expected to gather.
The square has been outfitted with large display screens to show the services and oversized photos of the 96 people killed are scattered across the site.
Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk are to speak at the ceremonies in Pilsudski Square, along with Izabela Sariusz-Skapska, daughter of one of the victims.
There will be two minutes of silence starting at 12 p.m. (1000 GMT) followed by the reading of all 96 victims'' names and the playing of the national anthem. A funeral mass will take place afterwards.
Saturday is the first of two days of sombre ceremonies.
On Sunday, a state funeral in Krakow is slated to be attended by nearly 100 foreign dignitaries. But some world leaders cancelled their attendance, citing the volcanic ash cloud hanging over Europe, leaving numerous airports closed.
The crash plunged Poland into a deep grief not seen since the death of Pope John Paul II five years ago.
The Tu-154 plane went down in heavy fog after clipping a birch tree on approach to Smolensk airport. Kaczynski and his wife along with the dignitaries on board had planned to attend a memorial for thousands of Polish army officers executed in 1940 by the forerunner of the Soviet secret police in the nearby Katyn forest.
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Katyn - forgotten massacre 1940
The Katyn massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, Katyń crime; Russian: Катынский расстрел Katynskij rasstrel, Katyn shooting) was a series of mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings took place at several places, the massacre is named after the Katyn Forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered.
The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, with a lower limit of confirmed dead of 21,768. According to Soviet documents declassified in 1990, 21,857 Polish internees and prisoners were executed after 3 April 1940: 14,552 prisoners of war (most or all of them from the three camps) and 7,305 prisoners in western parts of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. Of them 4,421 were from Kozelsk, 3,820 from Starobelsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov, and 7,305 from Byelorussian and Ukrainian prisons. The head of the NKVD POW department, Maj. General P. K. Soprunenko, organized selections of Polish officers to be massacred at Katyn and elsewhere.
Those who died at Katyn included soldiers (an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 85 privates, 3,420 non-commissioned officers, and seven chaplains), 200 pilots, government
representatives and royalty (a prince, 43 officials), and civilians (three landowners, 131 refugees, 20 university professors, 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists). In all, the NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps. Altogether, during the massacre, the NKVD executed 14 Polish generals:
Leon Billewicz (ret.), Bronisław Bohatyrewicz (ret.), Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller (ret.), Aleksander Kowalewski (ret.), Henryk Minkiewicz (ret.), Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski (ret.), Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski (ret.), Leonard Skierski (ret.), Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysław Smorawiński, and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). Not all of the executed were ethnic Poles, because the Second Polish Republic was a multiethnic state, and its officer corps included Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Jews. It is estimated about 8% of the Katyn massacre victims were Polish Jews. 395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter, among them Stanisław Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski. They were taken to the Yukhnov camp or Pavlishtchev Bor and then to Gryazovets.
Up to 99% of the remaining prisoners were murdered.
Detailed information on the executions in the Kalinin NKVD prison was provided during a hearing by Dmitry Tokarev, former head of the Board of the District NKVD in Kalinin. According to Tokarev, the shooting started in the evening and ended at dawn. The first transport, on 4 April 1940, carried 390 people, and the executioners had difficulty killing so many people in one night. The following transports held no more than 250 people. The executions were usually performed with German-made .25 ACP Walther Model 2 pistols supplied by Moscow, but Soviet-made 7.62×38mmR Nagant M1895 revolvers were also used. The executioners used German weapons rather than the standard Soviet revolvers, as the latter were said to offer too much recoil, which made shooting painful after the first dozen executions. Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin, chief executioner for the NKVD
The killings were methodical. After the condemned individual's personal information was checked and approved, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with stacks of sandbags along the walls, and a heavy, felt-lined door. The victim was told to kneel in the middle of the cell, and was then approached from behind by the executioner and immediately shot in the back of the head or neck. The body was carried out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside and subjected to the same fate. In addition to muffling by the rough insulation in the execution cell, the pistol gunshots were also masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night. Some post-1991 revelations suggest prisoners were also executed in the same manner at the NKVD headquarters in Smolensk, though judging by the way the corpses were stacked, some captives may have been shot while standing on the edge of the mass graves. This procedure went on every night, except for the public May Day holiday.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 Polish inmates of Ukrainian prisons and those from Belarus prisons were probably buried in Bykivnia and in Kurapaty respectively, about 50 women among them. Lieutenant Janina Lewandowska, daughter of Gen. Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki, was the only woman P.O.W. executed during the massacre at Katyn.
11 PostCard Katyn Massacre
Katyn Massacre
Video Postcard Series from the 21 Convention Warsaw Poland 2019
National Museum dedicated to the series of mass executions of Polish military & police officers and intelligentsia carried out by the Soviets following the invasion of Poland in 1939.
The killings were approved of by the Politburo of the Communist Party and Stalin himself.
The intent was to deprive a potential future Poland a large portion of its military, police and intelligentsia talent. As such they were considered “avowed enemies of Soviet authority”.
This amounted to almost half of the Polish officer corps.
It is estimated that some 22,000 people were murdered.
The Nazis discovered several of the mass graves in 1943 and reported it to the International Red Cross. When the IRC asked for an investigation, Stalin immediately denied it and severed diplomatic ties with the Red Cross.
Successive Soviet governments would go on to perpetrate sustained denial until a Soviet investigation in 1990 and confirmation in 2004 by the Russian Federation.
Those killings in NKVD prisons were methodical. Individuals personal information was checked and approved, they were led into a cell and shot in the back of the head.
The killings went on from dusk to dawn. The process continued every night, except for the public May Day holiday until they finished, which took weeks.
The weapon of choice was a small caliber .25 ACP due to its low recoil to aid the executioner in prolonged utilization.
Katyn was a forbidden topic in postwar Poland and censorship of it was specifically mentioned in the “Black Book of Censorship”. Not only did the government suppress all references to it, but mentioning the atrocity was a dangerous act to commit facing beatings, detentions and ostracism.
In the late 1950’s Soviets took active steps to destroy documents related to Katyn massacre, but a memo from the head of the KGB to Nikita Khrushchev outlining this survived and was later made public.
The park and entry to the Museum lies in the center of the Warsaw Citadel and recreates a symbolic Katyn Forest and mass graves at the heart of it.
A part of the Citadel is an active duty military post and a Polish Officer training barracks that directly overlooks this symbolic park and the entry to the Museum. There is no margin of error in this spatial and visual relationship.
Inside the museum due to it being in former fortification, feels subterranean and vault like and showcases some 5,500 individual artifacts. Each taken off corpses removed from the mass graves. Each cubical a personal belonging tied to a singular individual.
The intimacy of the personal effect coupled with the sheer scale of them is simply overwhelming and deeply disturbing.
Poland isn’t forgetting.
Her Officer Corps is being forged in front of it.
Wish you were here!
Katyn Museum
Film about architecture of Katyń Museum
The video was made by Unit80 and GoldenSubmarine.
Special thanks to Wienerberger Polska, PBN Południe, PERI Polska, Ewa P. Porębska, Michał Krasucki, Aaron Betsky, Ewa Kowalska, Magda Sasal, Bogdan Izdebski, Wojciech Gil, Sławomir Frątczak, Dariusz Matlak, Marcin Szczelina
The museum constitutes an outstanding example of how pre-existing architecture can be employed to serve the designed purpose. The faraway forests which had witnessed the horrible Katyń massacres were somehow made present in a military fortification in the centre of the city. The exhibits tell the story of Katyń in a manner one could find in a book or a documentary.
“Our instincts could be summed up by the words of Peter Smithson: ‘things need to be ordinary and heroic at the same time. We were looking for an ordinariness whose understated lyricism is full of potential.'”
—Stephen Bates, Jury Chairman
The Katyń Museum was designed by Jan Belina Brzozowski and Konrad Grabowiecki with the team BBGK Architects, Jerzy Kalina (installations, site-specific) with the team Plasma Project, Justyna Derwisz, Adam Kozak and Krzysztof Lang with the team Maksa. It presents the tragic events of the Katyń massacre that took place during World War II and commemorates 22,000 Polish Prisoners of War murdered by Red Army.
I am impressed by the simplicity and strength of the design. The use of brick, plaster, and stained concrete, rather than the more monumental materials that are usual for such memorials, gives the place a humble and contemplative atmosphere. The deep cut with its view of the sky is truly dramatic, and stands in stark contrast to the delicacy of the imprints left by the personal effects and the ephemeral quality of the names incised in the wall.
—Aaron Betsky, Architect Magazine
The museum is located in the southern part of a 19th-century fortress—the Warsaw Citadel—and includes three historical buildings. The whole complex was designed as a park, with a symbolic Katyń forest in the centre of the main square. The 100 trees planted there refer to the truth about the dreadful war crime, which used to be concealed in the woods for more than 50 years. The main exposition is arranged on two levels of the Caponier—a historic fortification structure. The first level contains information about the Katyń massacre, where the visitors can learn about historical facts and see exhibits found in the mass graves in Katyń forest. The second level of the exhibition is devoted to personal tragedies of the victims’ families, constituting a place for contemplation.
The exit of the museum turns into the Death Tunnel—a 20-metre-long passage constructed from black concrete, designed by Jerzy Kalina. This dark corridor opens towards the Alley of the Missing Ones. “Missing” because the alley is filled with empty pedestals, on which only the professions of the deceased are engraved: “police officer, doctor, lawyer, architect…” The path leads further to the third building—the arcaded cannon stand with glazed arcades, displaying 15 plaques with the names of the 21,768 murdered officers.
Wherever the narration of the exhibition required it, the architects used stained concrete, turning it into a means of architectural expression. Parts of letters and other personal belongings of the victims are imprinted on the concrete, continuing the exhibition outside the buildings. The architectural expression here is especially strong. The gap between 12-meter-high walls dividing the Citadel leads in two directions: down—towards the plaques with the victims’ names, and up—towards the sky and light. An oaken cross placed among the trees concludes the dramatic story of Katyń.
The origins of architecture lie as much in tombs and memorials as they do in shelter, and the Katyn Museum takes us back to that sense of the fixing in one place of lives that were lived, but are now gone. As a grave marker you come across in the forest, which was Adolf Loos’ definition of pure architecture, it is effective and clear, despite its remove from the actual location. It reminded me exactly of the alienating, removing, and making present that are at the core of monumental architecture.
—Aaron Betsky, Architect Magazine
City of Buffalo rededicates Katyn Massacre memorial
A copper sculpture produced in 1980 by Buffalo, NY artist Józef Sławiński commemorating the victims of the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre was rededicated and returned to its longtime spot in the main lobby. The monument had been removed for cleaning and restoration.
Ceremony for repatriation of Kaczynski body
(11 Apr 2010)
1. Pull out from coffin carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski''s body to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and on his right, Poland''s ambassador to Russia, Jerzy Bahr
2. Officials standing solemnly during ceremony at Smolensk military airport
3. Putin and Bahr standing to attention next to coffin
4. Various of officials next to coffin, moving it towards airplane
5. Zoom in on coffin being put inside plane
6. Putin, Bahr and officials standing solemnly while coffin is placed inside plane
7. Officer playing trumpet
8. Bahr and Putin walking away
9. Putin and Bahr greeting officials
10. Zoom in on marching guard next to plane
11. Pan of marching guard next to plane
12. Close up of pilot in cockpit
13. Close up of propellers
14. Various of Putin and Bahr standing solemnly while plane taxis
15. Plane taking off
16. Putin and Bahr greeting officials
17. Motorcade leaving
18. Wide of crash site, near Smolensk airport
19. Mid of scene, debris, overturned airplane wheels in background
20. Mid of luggage from crashed airplane
21. Zoom out from marker to airplane debris
22. Close up of airplane debris
23. Officials near airplane wreckage
24. Close up of airplane debris
25. Close up of bagged debris
26. Wide of stone, flowers and lantern placed next to it
27. Close up of flowers and ribbons
STORYLINE:
The coffin carrying the body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski was flown from the Russian city of Smolensk to Warsaw on Sunday.
The plane took off from the same airport where the president and 95 others had been attempting to land at on Saturday but crashed in thick fog during the descent.
Among the dead were Poland''s army chief of staff, the navy chief commander, and heads of the air and land forces.
Kaczynski''s twin brother Jaroslaw flew to Smolensk on Saturday evening and identified the bodies.
Russia''s president Vladimir Putin stood solemnly next to the coffin in a short ceremony before the coffin was placed in a military plane.
Kaczynski''s coffin will be taken to the presidential palace after it arrives in Warsaw, the Polish government said. No date for a funeral has been set.
The party was headed to Smolensk to honour 22,000 Polish officers slain by the Soviet secret police in 1940 in the western Soviet Union.
The death of the president and much of the state and defence establishment in Russia, en route to commemorating one of the saddest events in the neighbouring nations'' long, complicated history, was laden with tragic overtones.
Polish-Russian relations had been improving recently after being poisoned for decades over the slaying of some 22,000 officers and others in Katyn forest and in other areas.
About 4,000 Polish army officers were killed in the forest by Josef Stalin''s NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, in 1940.
Russia never has formally apologised for the murders but Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin''s decision to attend a memorial ceremony earlier this week in the forest was seen as a gesture of goodwill toward reconciliation.
Kaczynski wasn''t invited to that event because Putin, as prime minister, had invited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk.
Kaczynski, 60, was the first serving Polish leader to die since exiled World War II-era leader General Wladyslaw Sikorski in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.
President Dmitry Medvedev declared Monday a day of mourning in Russia.
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Ceremony for repatriation of Kaczynski body
(11 Apr 2010)
The coffin carrying the body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski was flown from the Russian city of Smolensk to Warsaw on Sunday.
The plane took off from the same airport where the president and 95 others had been attempting to land at on Saturday but crashed in thick fog during the descent.
Among the dead were Poland''s army chief of staff, the navy chief commander, and heads of the air and land forces.
Russia''s president Vladimir Putin stood solemnly next to the coffin in a short ceremony before the coffin was placed in a military plane.
Kaczynski''s coffin will be taken to the presidential palace after it arrives in Warsaw, the Polish government said. No date for a funeral has been set.
The party was headed to Smolensk to honour 22,000 Polish officers slain by the Soviet secret police in 1940 in the western Soviet Union.
The death of the president and much of the state and defence establishment in Russia, en route to commemorating one of the saddest events in the neighbouring nations'' long, complicated history, was laden with tragic overtones.
Polish-Russian relations had been improving recently after being poisoned for decades over the slaying of some 22,000 officers and others in Katyn forest and in other areas.
About 4,000 Polish army officers were killed in the forest by Josef Stalin''s NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, in 1940.
Russia never has formally apologised for the murders but Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin''s decision to attend a memorial ceremony earlier this week in the forest was seen as a gesture of goodwill toward reconciliation.
Kaczynski wasn''t invited to that event because Putin, as prime minister, had invited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk.
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Katyn - Noia
This is our song Noia which is a part of the EP that will be released as soon as it is ready. Stay tuned!
peace and love
Katyn, families site visit
A documentary for the families visiting Katyn where the victims murdered by the Russians are buried.
Escorted by the Polish Army by train from Poland to Ukraine.
This is the most infamous site, but their were many others.
Made by Our Correspondent
Prof. Dr. Klaus Ziemer on Katyn
Prof. Dr. Klaus Ziemer (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University) giving the keynote lecture The Triangle between Germany, Poland and Russia at the Trilateral Youth Forum in Munich #triforum2014
Q&A session: Russian participant from Kaliningrad engages Prof. Dr. Klaus Ziemer on Katyn. We could discuss this for a long time, says Ziemer.
For the latest on the forum follow us on Twitter @triforum and Instagram! #triforum2014
The Trilateral Youth Forum The German-Russian-Polish Trialogue: Shared challenges, common future? brings together young German, Polish and Russian practitioners of civil society and politics. The 2nd Trilateral Youth Forum is taking place from 1st to 5th September 2014 in Munich, Germany.
KATYN RUSIA CU 3 ZILE INAINTE CA SA FIE UCISA TOATA CONDUCEREA POLONIEI IN ACCIDENT DE AVION