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Katyn

1

18pounder

Guest
as ive seen a post about a movie thought i'd post this
anyone seen the film ''katyn''?
Its a recent one.#
My Polish grandad was captured and taken prisoner in sept 1939 and was forced to slave in Siberia,most of his mates were killed or starved to death.

The NKVD even used dogs instead of the bullet to kill unwilling and sick workers.The NKVD were totally barbaric in the treatment of ''prisoners''.
The poor polish people were totally screwed, Nazis's from the West,NKVD from the East.

I have his diary at home that reminds me not to moan about the cold or being hungry.

He was kept in various pow camps and couldnt understand why the russian solgiers had noisey machines on all night.
It is only many years later he realised the noise was to hide the noise of the killings that later became known as the Katyn massacre.

sorry i'm going on again.

Anyone seen it?
 
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havent seen the film but i watched a documentary many years ago when the mass graves were excavated.
the germans blamed the russians and vice versa it was a riveting documentary and wouldn't mind seeing it again now i know a little more about it.
regards
tomsk
 
tomsk said:
havent seen the film but i watched a documentary many years ago when the mass graves were excavated.
the germans blamed the russians and vice versa it was a riveting documentary and wouldn't mind seeing it again now i know a little more about it.
regards
tomsk
Click to expand...

the russians only officially admitted to this horror in 1990!

Ive read some reviews about this new film Katyn,and they all say it is very good and its written by an 83 year old polish director.
I might watch it tonight with a box of tissues, i'm such a wuss when its something like this.

I would like my Grandads diary published.
I wonder if there are any publishes on BOCN?

REGARDS
Doug
 
Doug,

Where kind I find this movie? Is it coming out on a certain date or has it already been out for a while then dropped. It is on DVD riight now. I'm kinda confused.

Mark:tinysmile_hmm_t2::tinysmile_hmm_t2:
 
Hi Doug try and get hold of a copy of issue no92 of After the Battle magazine its dedicated to the Katyn massacre , loads of pictures and maps it also includes a bit about other massacre sites ,regards Dave
 
V40 said:
Doug,

Where kind I find this movie? Is it coming out on a certain date or has it already been out for a while then dropped. It is on DVD riight now. I'm kinda confused.

Mark:tinysmile_hmm_t2::tinysmile_hmm_t2:
Click to expand...

The film was released in the UK and USA last year, but being a foreign language film it only got a limited release.
The DVD is available in the UK so you shoud be able to get hold of a copy in the states.
 
Why is it that atrocities carried out by Germany 1933-1945 are commonly known, yet the far higher number of deaths at the hands of the Soviet Union are ignored?
 
Falcon said:
Why is it that atrocities carried out by Germany 1933-1945 are commonly known, yet the far higher number of deaths at the hands of the Soviet Union are ignored?
Click to expand...

Thats a very difficult question to answer.

The atrocities carried out by both sides during WW2 are incomprehensible.

Ive tried to answer this question many times and have become uncomfortably stuck.

Ive tried to work out why anyone would want to kill children,babies, the infirm,elderly,sick,or otherwise diffrent for a 'cause' and have become depressed.

I have studied the rise of Nazism from the early 1920's and i'm still at a loss how,in the end these things happen.

But i do have a better understanding of how this horrific evil came about.

I have to do alot of studying with regards to Soviet history,you always have to go back a long time to see how situations and culture develope.

All i can say is i believe we were all (and some still are) obsessed with Nazi Germany and demonising the German people.
You still hear comments from folk in the UK ''dont mention the war''.

This obsession,i believe stems from fear.
Fear that Nazi Stormtroopers were very close to marching up to Buckingham Palace.
Fear that we would have all been bombed to anialation.
Fear that Hitler could have invaded Britain.

It was such a close situation and I think its just stuck with us.
We didnt have to fight The Russians like that.

We didnt have to be interested in a war far away.
Russians officials have kept alot secret and have only just recently disclosed and acknowledged many war crimes.

I'm sure there is still more horror to come out of the old Soviet Union yet.
 
Self publish it

There are also book publishers that print on order. I can send you the information. About how you would advertize it I'm not sure but there must be many sites that would list it and you could have your own web site that interested parties could find.
 
How these animals turn up I believe their are certain qualities in them that will do anything if ordered to. These qualities are the following:

1) The belief that you are superior to other races.
2) Once you kill a human being and it is under the auspices of you firiends and higher up commanders being present and you also believe in No1, you'll do it.
3) A person who has it in their blood to do so for whatever the reason.
4) The desire to make , or punch your ticket to the top.
5) The first one you shoot you'll experience all sorts of emotions, and.
6) The subseqent shootings will be easier and easier to do to the point that it might be a joke to you.

Personnally, I believe that it is the fact that it all comes down to the who thinks they are a superior race, and the enemy is his subordinate.

Remeber the Japanese during WWII who treated many POW's as animals and found no glory in surrendering to the allied forces. This the way they treated their prisoners as dogs because the did surrender.
 
Christopher Browning - Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, a study of German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) Reserve Unit 101, used to massacre and round up Jews for deportation to the death camps in Poland in 1942. The conclusion of the book, which was much influenced by the experiments of Stanley Milgram, was that the men of Unit 101 were not demons or Nazi fanatics but ordinary middle-aged men of working-class background from Hamburg, who had been drafted but found unfit for military duty. These men were ordered to round up Jews and if there was not enough room for them on the trains, to shoot them. The commander of the unit gave his men the choice of opting out of this duty if they found it too unpleasant; the majority chose not to exercise that option. Browning argued that the men of Unit 101 killed out of a basic obedience to authority and peer pressure, not blood-lust or primal hatred. The implication of the book is that most people placed into a group and given the choice between killing and belonging to the group or not killing and not belonging, will choose the former. Additionally the book demonstrates that ordinary people will more than likely follow orders, even those they might personally question, when they perceive these orders as originating from an authority.

An excellent and disturbing read.

TimG
 
V40 said:
How these animals turn up I believe their are certain qualities in them that will do anything if ordered to. These qualities are the following:

1) The belief that you are superior to other races.
2) Once you kill a human being and it is under the auspices of you firiends and higher up commanders being present and you also believe in No1, you'll do it.
3) A person who has it in their blood to do so for whatever the reason.
4) The desire to make , or punch your ticket to the top.
5) The first one you shoot you'll experience all sorts of emotions, and.
6) The subseqent shootings will be easier and easier to do to the point that it might be a joke to you.

Personnally, I believe that it is the fact that it all comes down to the who thinks they are a superior race, and the enemy is his subordinate.

Remeber the Japanese during WWII who treated many POW's as animals and found no glory in surrendering to the allied forces. This the way they treated their prisoners as dogs because the did surrender.
Click to expand...

true, there are millions of possible ingredients that come together to make the conditions as such that people will do terrible things in the time of war.
My Grandfather re-married in the UK and served in the RAF.
It emerged that he had a wife and Family in Poland but they are believed to have been killed.
Alot died at the hands of the Russians and the Nazi's.

My Grandad carried a terrible guilt around with him until he died
-he felt guilty because he had lived when so many others died.
Could you imagine this guilt?
So many of his friends and family.

After the war there was great pressure from the British Government for Poles to go back to Poland,and alot were repatriated or forced back.
Even the ones that had fought in the RAF or Army.
I think the Polish suffered very badly and i believe not enough is known about this history.
 
deep

Hoping I offend no one, remember its ordinary people who actually carry out the torture, experiments and killing for reasons they decide make it acceptable at the time. People have done nasty things to other races for a long long time because they are percieved as different in some way, its how we are. I dont need to give examples history is full of them and the media still is. What we should be doing is remembering all these terrible things and do our best to prevent them happening again, not blaming old cultures or groups and thinking of them as extreme in some weird way. 2pr
 
Falcon said:
Why is it that atrocities carried out by Germany 1933-1945 are commonly known, yet the far higher number of deaths at the hands of the Soviet Union are ignored?
Click to expand...

Have you statistics to back that up?

I'm not sure that Stalinist crimes are ignored Falcon. As this is a thread about a Soviet war crime I'm rather confused by your statement.
 
Lots of programmes knocking about in Sky TV and the land of Internet nowadays are starting to reveal the truth about 'Uncle' Joe Stalin... I for one am glad for that.
He was with the allies,so im sure there was a lot of 'turn a blind eye' going on?

regards

waff
 
If anybody wants a good primer on Stalin and WW2 I'd recommend the BBC TV series and book 'World War II: Behind Closed Doors' by Laurence Rees.

Theres a large section on Katyn massacre and the allies reaction, or lack of it, to the crime.

I'd still like to see Falcons statistics for deaths re Nazi German/Stalinist Soviet Union.
 
Hi,
If someone want this movie, write PM to me.

...in Polisch language, but maybe is possible to find somwhere Englisch subtitles?

Regards.
 
hope i havent opened a hornets nest.
Great points have been made,but the best was made when it was said
''we should try and learn from these things to ensure they dont happen again''.

and of course never forget,or gloss over these things either,to do so would be a crime in its self.

Interesting thread,i'm pleased no one has jumped on any particular group,at the end of the day war is terrible.

I'm left with a very interesting diary and a great respect for my Grandfather and the struggles he and millions of others had to endure because of others.
Maybe one day i will have it published ,i think it would make very interesting reading of the Polish plight,which is often overlooked.

regards
 
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