POLISH OFFICERS’ FATE

Otago Daily Times, Volume 25205, Issue 25205, 20 April 1943, Page 3

POLISH OFFICERS’ FATE

A SOVIET ALLEGATION MURDERED BY GERMANS LONDON, Apl. 18. The fate of some thousands of Polish officers whose bodies the Germans announced finding near" Smolensk, where, they alleged, the Russians murdered and buried them, was again mentioned in Moscow and London at the weekend. The Moscow radio, broadcasting to Germany, said: “There were some former Polish prisoners in the area west of Smolensk when our forces withdrew in 1941, after which they and other Polish citizens fell Into the hands of -their German executioners. Tlie Germans killed some immediately, and kept others alive for a special occasion, which has now come. The Germans have shot thousands of unarmed people, supplied the bodies with touched-up documents from the Gestapo archives, and buried the victims on Soviet soil. The fact that the bodies were not decomposed showed that the Germans murdered these Polish officers recently. The Germans want to make the world forget their crimes by slandering the Soviet. They have overshot the mark this time with their much-too-fresh bodies, imperishable diaries, false witnesses, and shady investigators. The Gestapo’s hand can be easily traced in this hideous frameup.” The Polish Cabinet in London issued a statement condemning “the hypocritical indignation of the German propaganda, which will not succeed in concealing from the world their cruel, repeated and continuing crimes committed against the Poles.” The statement listed the atrocities committed by the Germans against the Poles, and concluded with a reference to “ the Germans’ impudent claims to appear in the role of defenders of Christianity and European civilisation.” A message from Stockholm states that, according to reports from Berlin, Germany welcomes the Polish Government’s appeal to the Red Cross for an investigation into the German allegations that the Russians near Smolensk murdered 10,000 Polish officers. The Germans now claim to have captured four ’ Russian secret police who commanded the execution, and apparently “ confessions ” will soon be forthcoming. The Berlin correspondent of the newspaper Tidningen declares that the Germans in the autumn of 1942 were aware of the existence of the Poles’ communal grave, but started digging only two weeks ago. The correspondent does not explain why the Germans had not used this piece of propaganda for seven months.