Who Massacred The [?] At Katyn?

Chronicle (Levin), 13 January 1949, Page 5

Who Massacred The [?] At Katyn?

(N.Z.P.A.—

- Reuter .

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Received Wednesday, 7 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 12. Tn a letter to the Daily Telegraph. Lieutenant-Gencrul W. Anders, forme. General Oilicer ('ominnnding the L'olis'u Forces in Ita.lv, intervenes in the newspaper controversy wliich lias been pro ceeding in the Telegraph about the responsibilitv for the niassaere of SOOi) I'olish otficers and 7cO(l other ranks at Katyn, early in the war. The controversy arose when a forme r leader of the Polish 1'easant Party, Mi. Stanislaw Mikolajzcyk, published a hook in wliich he charged the Russians with responsibilitv for this erime. Mr. 1). N. 1'rilt, K.C., M.l'., theu wrote to rhe Telegraph claiming that the evi dence pointed to the massacre Iiaving been earired out by Germans during their oecupation of Poland. This assertion was contrudieted by other correspondents who supported Mr. Mikolajzcyk's charges against the Russians. Lieutenant-General Anders, who says that the Poles murderod at Katyn ini'luded many of his friends and many of Poland 's most eHicient oitii-ers, states that from the rnoment he was released from a Bussian prisoner of war cam]^, and placed in eommand of the Polisii Army in Kussia,* he prosecuted every possible inquiry in an effort to ascertain the fate of members of the I'olish forces who had been takou prisoner by the Russians when they overran a section of Poland after the German invasion. He even carried these inquiries as far as .Stalin personally but was quite unable to obtain any satisfaetion. Lieutenant-General Anders „ claims that the fact that German ammunition was found in the mass graves of the murdered Poles, is no proof whatever that they were actually killed by the Germans and recalls that much German ammunition was sold to the Russians before the war and that several types of Russian firearms, including pistols carried by the Russian secret police, used ammunition indistinguishable from that supplied to the German forces. Lieutenant-General Anders also recalls that the Nure'mburg Tribunal examined evi dence a bearing on this erime and was unable to satify itself that the Germans were responsible. In view of this he demands that anotlier independent international tribunal be sot up to sift the evidence and fix responsibilitv for the massacre. -The general does not charge the Russians in so many words with responsibility but says tha't the hook has already been published in Poland and will appear shortly in English which "unniistakeably points to the real authors of the erime." This book, says LieutenantGeneral Anders, to which he has contributed the foreword, eontains every document and item of evidence pertaining to the Katyn case, including imporrant evidence which was not available to the Nuremburg Tribunal. j