Katyn

Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, thousands of Polish officers are taken prisoner, while the film follows the families left behind who spend years searching for news of their fate. It ultimately depicts the 1940 mass execution of Polish officers by Soviet forces at Katyn and the decades-long cover-up that followed.

The Katyn massacre was the April–May 1940 mass execution of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers, police, and intelligentsia by the Soviet NKVD, an atrocity the Soviet Union blamed on Nazi Germany until it finally acknowledged responsibility in 1990.

Director Andrzej Wajda, whose own father was among the victims, based the film closely on documented historical events and survivor testimony.

Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, joined by the Soviet Union on 17 September. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days after the invasion began.

The Westerplatte depot near Danzig held out for seven days against overwhelming odds and became a national symbol. Warsaw was besieged and surrendered on 28 September; the last regular units capitulated in early October.

Directed by Andrzej Wajda

Cast: Andrzej Chyra, Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Żmijewski, Danuta Stenka

Positioned at 1939–1943 within the Eastern Front / Soviet occupation phase of the war, as part of the Katyn massacre. This is entry 22 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• Katyn massacre
• NKVD
• Soviet occupation of Poland
• Polish officers

• 

  1939 Battle of Westerplatte

  1–7 September 1939

• 

  Westerplatte

  1–7 September 1939

• 

  Lotna

  September 1939

• 

  The Pianist

  1939–1945

• 

  Schindler's List

  1939–1945

• 

  Warsaw '44

  August-October 1944