{"id":33655,"date":"2017-04-05T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T12:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=33655"},"modified":"2026-04-05T01:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:26:13","slug":"the-marches-of-the-shadows-this-is-how-poland-remembers-the-martyrs-of-katyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2017\/04\/05\/the-marches-of-the-shadows-this-is-how-poland-remembers-the-martyrs-of-katyn\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marches of the Shadows: This is How Poland Remembers the Martyrs of Katyn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1940 <strong>the Soviet NKVD, following orders of Stalin, assassinated to 22,000 Polish officers in the forest of Katyn.<\/strong> Year after year their compatriots remind them with a startling march.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2017\/02\/24\/this-is-how-the-communist-party-of-spain-justified-the-nazi-soviet-invasion-of-poland\/\">This is how the Communist Party of Spain Justified the Nazi-Soviet Invasion of Poland<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2017\/02\/14\/armia-krajowa-75-years-ago-was-founded-the-largest-resistance-movement-of-the-ww2\/\">Armia Krajowa: 75 years ago was founded the largest resistance movement of the WW2<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>This initiative, which takes place in early April - the murders were perpetrated in spring - since 2008, is called \"Marsze Katy\u0144skie\" (Marches of the Shadows). The largest of them, the Marsz Katy\u0144ski in Warsaw - which took place last Sunday - involved <strong>hundreds of reenactors uniformed like officers and chaplains of the Polish Army and also police and some civilians<\/strong>, escorted by other reenactors with uniforms of the Soviet NKVD, the infamous political police of Stalin, executor of the murders. <strong>The march run in silence. Polish officials show serious faces. They walk towards death.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/3\/2805\/33011016764_182f523a1a_c.jpg\" style=\"width:665px; height:auto;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Piotr Moos has published in his Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/piotr.moos\/posts\/1493438750680908\">an excellent set of photos of the march of Warsaw<\/a>. The ones I show in this post come from that set. In it we see that <strong>as the moment of execution approaches, the Polish officers bow with their hands tied behind their backs:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/3\/2869\/33469699440_0658138e36_c.jpg\" style=\"width:665px; height:auto;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Shots are heard. The martyrs were killed one by one, shot at the nape of the neck. <strong>As they fall, a black veil - representing death - spreads over them:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c2.staticflickr.com\/4\/3947\/33698033812_c5594c9130_c.jpg\" style=\"width:665px; height:auto;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In this video of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC-S8kgg8Fv8t5rzMDGZ2w1Q\">Ryszard Jaz<\/a> we can see <strong>the beginning of the march of Warsaw:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/baXaeKIdfuE?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the second part we see <strong>the moment the execution<\/strong>, after which the Polish officers quietly sing the Dabrowski's Mazurka, the national anthem of Poland:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fJOQzyaFmLw?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I dedicate this post as a memorial to those martyrs.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><big>Cze\u015b\u0107 i chwa\u0142a bohaterom!<\/big><br \/>\n<small>Honor and glory to the heroes!<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1940 the Soviet NKVD, following orders of Stalin, assassinated to 22,000 Polish officers in the forest of Katyn. Year after year their compatriots remind them with a startling march.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,10373],"tags":[2959,10370,419,10452,10389],"class_list":["post-33655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-world","tag-katyn","tag-poland","tag-stalin","tag-ussr","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}