Difference between revisions 7841559 and 7841563 on simplewiki

{{Infobox civilian attack
| partof      = the aftermath of the [[Soviet invasion of Poland]] (during [[World War II]]) and [[Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946)]]
| map         = {{Location map
 |            USSR
 | caption  =
 | width    = 250
 | label    =
 | position = right
 | border   = infobox
 | float    = center
}}
|image        = Trzy krzyze.jpg
|image_size   =
|caption      = Katyn-Kharkov-Mednoye memorial in [[Świętokrzyskie Mountains]], [[Poland]]
|date         = April–May 1940
|type         = Mass murder
|fatalities   = 22,000
|injuries     =
|victims      = [[Poles]]
|perpetrators = [[Soviet Union]] ([[NKVD]])
|location     = [[Katyn (rural locality)|Katyn]] Forest, [[Tver|Kalinin]] and [[Kharkiv]] prisons in Soviet Union
|coordinates  =
}}
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 aboutclose to 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 and May 1940. [[Stalin]] ordered it on [[Lavrenty Beria|Beria]]'s advice. Close to 22 000 people were killed in Katyn and surrounding areas like Katyn Forest. 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]] on December 23 1953. He had worked with the British in the 1920s.{{fact|date=July 2020}} Merkulov and five other Beria accomplices were also executed on December 23 1953.
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[[Category:Massacres during Word War II]]
[[Category:1940s in the Soviet Union]]


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