Evidence of Crime - Katyń 1940 - 2010

Evidence of Crime: Katyn 1940-2010 is a Polish documentary written and directed in 2008 by Paulina Maciejowska. In March 1940, on Stalin's orders, the Soviet government signed a secret decree, ordering the execution of Polish "nationalist anti-revolutionaries" held in camps and prisons. This was carried out by the secret police N.K.W.D. Some 22,000 army officers, teachers, priests, doctors and Polish intellectuals were murdered. The massacre took place in the Katyn Forest, in the Smolensk region, and the families of those murdered were exiled to remote places in Asia. The fate of those murdered was unknown until 1943 when a mass grave was found in the Katyn Forest. The Nazis blamed the Soviets who denied any connection to the massacre. In 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that Katyn was a Soviet operation. The film presents one of the most valuable testimonies concerning the Katyn massacre: the testimony of Dmitrij Tokariew, the head of the NKVD in Kalinin, registered by the Russian Public Prosecutor's Office in 1991, reveals the mechanism of action of the Soviets. Dmitrij Tokariew testified about the murder of the Polish officers in a three hour long videotape that was shown to journalists. Tokariew excelled as commander of N.K.W.D and was appointed to liquidate the camp in Katyn. He performed the task with honors within a month. Every hour 40 officers were killed. The film includes dramatized footage as well as archive photographs and footage.