Presentation of the book "Killed in Kalinin, buried in Miednoje"
29.10.2019
On October 23, 2019, the book "Killed in Kalinin, buried in Miednoje" (Убиты в Калинине, захоронены в Медном) was presented. The three-volume work contains more than 6,000 biographical notes of Polish prisoners of war in Ostashkov, who died in captivity or shot by the decision of the USSR authorities on March 5, 1940. The book also published source materials documenting the crime and exhumations of victims carried out in 1991 and 1995.
The book is the result of many years of cooperation between Russian and Polish historians (including the Institute of National Remembrance, Katyn Museum, the Information and Search Office of the Polish Red Cross). Thanks to meticulous research, it was possible to reconstruct the fate and approximate date of the death of thousands of Polish citizens, mostly officers of uniformed services and state officials, imprisoned after the USSR's aggression against Poland in the Ostashkov camp. The publication also includes unique photos of victims and their families. The main scientific editor is Aleksander Gurjanow, head of the Polish section of the "Memorial" Association.
The significance of the publication goes beyond the exclusively Polish context, because it is an example of historical work in the classic sense of the word. The book collects all available testimonies, through which victims and witnesses of crime speak to us. Fills the information vacuum in which superficial and unreliable opinions are disseminated. The memory of the Katyn massacre is an important element of Polish national identity and a way of persevering and finding the truth, in which numerous Russians are invariably accompanied by Poles - memorial activists, historians, journalists and prosecutors.
In addition to the excellent factual layer, the publication also has great sentimental value for the families of the victims, who for many years could not know the fate of their loved ones. Thanks to the work of Russian historians, in cooperation with their Polish colleagues, the descendants of the murdered could know the approximate date of their death.
The publication is available free of charge on the website of the Memorial Association:
https://www.memo.ru/media/filer_public/db/6b/db6bd42e-9210-4d68-a420-e8864be5194e/mednoe_t1.pdf - volume 1
https://www.memo.ru/media/filer_public/63/45/63459530-a889-48ab-919e-e592bda63d42/mednoe_t2.pdf - volume 2
https://www.memo.ru/media/filer_public/1d/35/1d35faca-c978-46ac-b56d-52cd390705c2/mednoe_t3-ispr.pdf - volume 3
It should be emphasized that the publication is another work of the Memorial Association after "Killed in Katyn", in which an effort was made to present each of the Polish citizens shot by the NKVD in the spring of 1940.
The video of the meeting is available on the Institute of National Remembrance website: