Difference between revisions 7056637 and 7056639 on simplewiki

[[File:The Katyn Massacre, 1940 HU106212.jpg|thumb|In 1943, the Germans discovered what happened in Katyn. This is an original picture from 1943: it shows exhumed bodies waiting to be examined.]]
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The '''Katyn massacre''' is the name of a series of [[Massacre|killings]] by the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] army during [[World War II]]. Members of the [[NKVD]] killed aboutnearly 22,000 [[Poland|Polish]] [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]]. In a [[forest]] near [[Katyn]], about {{convert|20|km}} from [[Smolensk]], most of the prisoners killed were [[Officer|officers]]. The Katyn massacre happened in April & May 1940. [[Stalin]] ordered it on [[Lavrenty Beria|Beria]]'s advice. Between 4,000 and 5,000 people were killed in Katyn. In 1990, the Soviet Union/Russia [[wikt:admit|admitted]] it was responsible. In 1990, [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] officially apologised. The Katyn massacre is one in a series of [[NKVD prisoner massacres|similar massacres]] where up to 100,000 people were killed. Between 400 and 450 prisoners survived. People used their stories to change Soviet history books after the apology.

In the 1980s, Michail Gorbachev said that Beria and [[Vsevolod Merkulov]] were responsible. He said that the Katyn massacre was one of Stalin's [[wikt:atrocity|atrocities]]. Beria was accused of [[treason]]. He was [[Execution|executed]] in 1953. He had worked with the British in the 1920s.{{fact|date=July 2020}} Merkulov was also executed in 1953 for being close to Beria. Beria and Merkulov were never [[Trial|tried]] for what they did at Katyn.⏎
 with 5 other associates.  


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[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:1940s in the Soviet Union]]