Remarks: Encounter with Katyn

About the Book: Generally, there are two major approaches in research on Katyn: the perspective of the victims and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the perpetrators‘ perspective. In his Encounter with Katyn Wolsza has touched upon another dimension of this atrocity, which has not been addressed in the work done so far. He describes the stories of over 60 representatives of various social groups who visited the Katyn site in 1943. The postwar Communist regime in Poland consistently plugged the Katyn Lie and conducted a campaign of repression and reprisals against witnesses of the Soviet crime. They were accused of collaboration with the Germans, forced to cancel testimonies about the real perpetrators, put under surveillance, and imprisoned. Some of them had to leave the country. Wolsza’s book portrays the Katyn Massacre not only as the extermination of Polish elites by a totalitarian regime, but also as a symbol of the struggle for universal values such as memory, truth, and justice. This corresponds to the wider perspective of the struggle of an enslaved society fighting for its freedom and independence. About the Speaker: Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz holds The Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at The Institute of World Politics, where he also serves as a Professor of History and teaches courses on Geography and Strategy, Contemporary Politics and Diplomacy, Russian Politics and Foreign Policy, and Mass Murder Prevention in Failed and Failing States. He is the author of Intermarium: The Land Between the Black and Baltic Seas and numerous other books and articles. Professor Chodakiewicz is the head of the Center for Intermarium Studies at The Institute of World Politics. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and has previously taught at the University of Virginia and Loyola Marymount University.