3
 
      
 
 
or Persia. That the Russian authorities should have said of 
      any Polish officer in Soviet jurisdiction that they had "no 
      information" also provokes incredulity; for it is notorious 
      that the N.K.V.D. collect and record the movements of individuals 
      with the most meticulous care.
 
      
 
 
10. In the third place there is the evidence of those who 
      have visited the grave: first, a Polish commission including, 
      among others, doctors, journalists and members of the Polish 
      Assistance Committee, a former president of the Polish Academy 
      of Literature and a representative of the Mayor of Warsaw; secondly, 
      another Polish commission which included priests, doctors, and 
      representatives of the Polish Red Cross Society; thirdly, an 
      international commission of criminologists and pathologists, 
      of which the personnel is given in Annex I. The report of this 
      commission forms Annex II to this despatch, and the reports of 
      the two Polish commissions add little to it. It is deposed by 
      all that several hundred identifications have been established. 
      All this evidence would normally be highly suspect since the 
      inspections took place under German auspices and the results 
      reached us through German broadcasts. There are fair grounds 
      for presuming that the German broadcasts accurately represented 
      the findings of the commissions, that the commissions' findings 
      were at any rate in some respects well founded, and that the 
      grounds were sound on which at any rate some of the identifications 
      were made.
 
      
 
 
11. In the fourth place there is the fact that a mass execution 
      of officer prisoners would be inconsistent with what we know 
      of the German army. The German army has committed innumerable 
      brutalities, but the murder by them of prisoners of war, even 
      of Poles, is rare. Had the German authorities ever had these 
      10,000 Polish officers in their hands we can be sure that they 
      would have placed some or all of them in the camps in Germany 
      already allotted to Polish prisoners, while the 6,000 other ranks, 
      % policemen and civil officials would have been put to forced labour. 
      In such case the Polish authorities would in the course of two 
      years certainly have got into touch with some of the prisoners; 
      but, in fact, none of the men from Kozielsk, Starobielsk or Ostashkov 
      have ever been heard of from Germany.
 
      
 
 
12. Finally there is the evidence to be derived from the confusion 
      which characterises explanations elicited from or volunteered 
      by the Soviet Government. Between August 1941 and the 12th April, 
      194, when the Germans announced the discovery of the grave at 
      Katyn, the Russian Government had, among other excuses, maintained 
      that all Polish officers taken prisoner in 1939 had been released. 
      On the other hand, in conversation with the Polish Ambassador, 
      a Russian official who had drunk more than was good for him, 
      once referred to the disposal of these officers as "a tragic 
      error." On the 16th April, immediately after the German 
      announcement, the Soviet Information Bureau in Moscow suggested 
      that the Germans were misrepresenting as victims of Russian barbarity 
      skeletons dug up by archaeologists at Gniezdowo, which lies next 
      door to Katyn. On the 26th April M. Molotov, in a note to the 
      Polish Ambassador in Moscow, said that the bodies at Katyn were 
      those of Poles who had at one time been prisoners of the Russians 
      but had subsequently been captured by the Germans in their advance 
      at Smolensk in July 1941 and had been murdered then by them. 
      On a later occasion, and when the German broadcasts gave reason 
      to think that some bodies were sufficiently well preserved to 
      be identifiable, the Russian Government put forward a statement 
      that the Polish officers had been captured by the Germans in 
      July 1941, had been employed upon construction work, and had 
      only been murdered shortly before the German "discovery" 
      was announced. This confusion cannot easily be understood except 
      on the assumption that the Russian Government had something to 
      hide.
 
      
 
 
13. The cumulative effect of this evidence is, as I said earlier, 
      to throw serious doubt on Russian disclaimers of responsibility 
      for a massacre. Such doubts are not diminished by rumours which 
      have been current during the last two and a half years that some 
      of the inmates of Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov had been 
      transported towards Kolyma, Franz Joseph Land or Novaya Oemlya, 
      some or all of these being killed en route. It may be that this 
      was so, and it may be that some less number than ten thousand 
      odd were destroyed and buried at Katyn; but whether the massacre 
      occurred (if it did occur) in one place or two places or three 
      places naturally makes no difference to Polish sentiments. These 
      will accordingly be described without reference to the uncertainty 
      which exists as to the exact number of victims buried near Smolensk.
 
      
 
 
14. With all that precedes in mind it is comprehensible that 
      the relatives and fellow officers of the men who disappeared 
      should have concluded that these had in fact been murdered by 
      their Russian captors and should picture their