World War II · Film · 2007
Katyń
A Polish cavalry captain taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1939 keeps a diary in captivity, while his wife and daughter in Kraków wait years for the truth about what happened to him.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 4 places.
Stop 1: Jagiellonian University, Kraków
Back in Kraków, Anna sees her father-in-law, a professor, arrested by the Germans together with his colleagues.
Stop 2: Kozelsk prisoner camp
In a freezing monastery camp, Andrzej records in his diary the names of every officer taken away.
Stop 3: Katyn Forest
Key location
The prisoners are driven into the forest in groups; the diary stops.
Stop 4: Kraków
After years of German lists and then Soviet silence, the family finally learns the truth, at a price.
What really happened
After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September 1939, the NKVD held Polish officers, police and members of the intelligentsia in camps at Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov. In April and May 1940, on Politburo orders signed by Stalin, about 22,000 of them were shot, some 4,400 of the Kozelsk prisoners in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.
Germany announced the discovery of the graves in April 1943; Moscow blamed the Germans and kept that lie until 1990. Andrzej Wajda's father, Captain Jakub Wajda, was murdered in the massacre. The film also shows Sonderaktion Krakau, the German arrest of 183 Kraków academics in November 1939, and the postwar pressure to stay silent.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Katyń
- Directed by
- Andrzej Wajda
- Countries
- Poland
- Languages
- Polish, Russian, German
- Released
- 2007
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Eastern Front
- Themes
- Prisoners of war
- Politics
- True story
