Katyn Massacre Memorial - St. Adalbert Cemetery, Niles, IL, USA - World War II Memorials / Monuments on Waymarking.com

The memorial consists of a large cross with St. Mary gently holding one of the victims, whose hands are bound. There are numerous inscriptions in both English and Polish. The English plaque reads:

'MONUMENT IN HONOR and MEMORY
"Golgota of the East"
Dedicated to the martyrdom of Poles, who gave their lives for the Fatherland - hostages of the war slain in 1940 by the Soviet NKVD: Officers of the Polish Army, spiritual leaders, intelligentsia, police officers, soldiers and border patrol shot in Katyn and Miednoje, Charkow, Minsk-Kuropaty, Kijow-Bykownia... Tortured and murdered in Kazakh, Siberia and other areas of the inhumane Soviet territory.'

There are also 2 bronze reliefs graphically depicting the horrors of the mass executions.

From Wikipedia (visit link) :
'The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of Polish military officers and intelligentsia carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", aka the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings took place at several places, the massacre is named after the Katyn Forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered.

The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in April 1943. When the London-based Polish government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it. The USSR claimed the Nazis had killed the victims in 1941 and it continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the perpetration of the killings by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government.

An investigation conducted by the office of the Prosecutors General of the Soviet Union (1990–1991) and the Russian Federation (1991–2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres but refused to classify this action as a war crime or as an act of mass murder. The investigation was closed on the grounds the perpetrators were dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of the Great Purge, formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable.

In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for ordering the massacre.'

An additional tragedy followed in 2010. From the Chicago Wargamer site: (visit link)

"The Katyn Monument was designed by noted Polish artist Wojciech Seweryn, who immigrated to Chicago in the 1970's. More significantly, Seweryn was the son of a Polish Army officer killed in the Katyn massacre. To add to the tragedy, Wojciech Seweryn was killed, along with Polish President Lech Kaczynski, in the 2010 Polish Air Force Crash near Smolensk. Along with Seweryn and the President, several government officials as well as relatives of victims of the Katyn Massacre were on their way to mark the 70th anniversary of the event. All aboard were lost. A new monument was placed in 2011 nearby the Katyn Memorial to honor those lost in the disaster."

Here's another website featuring worldwide memorials to the massacre:
(visit link)

Date of Dedication: 01/01/2007 Property Permission: Public Access instructions: Drive and park. Open Mon - Sun 8:00 am - 7:00 pm. Access times: From: 8:00 AM To: 7:00 AM Location of waymark: St. Adalbert Cemetery 6800 N. Milwaukee Ave. Niles, IL USA 60714 Commemoration: Katyn Massacre of 1940 Website for Waymark: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Include a photo containing, at minimum, the monument and your GPSr. We'd prefer a photo containing YOU at the monument, but we understand that some people are camera-shy.
Also include a bit about your visit here.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.