WAS KATYŃ GENOCIDE? Polish officers were killed

Genocide has a certain nature to it. I should know, I did so many cases on it in International Criminal Law. It doesn't strictly depend on the number but the character of the crime.

lesser

Would not even be such a bad idea - they can rezone Bautzen and Cottbus to recreational parks. (Absorbtion park?)

Did the Soviets attempt to kill the entire Polish nation in Katyn? Don't think so, therefore it's not genocide. Did they do this based on racial issues? No, both are Slavic ppl and the Soviets wanted to weaken any future Polish state, should it re-emerge. This last bit means that they were kinda anticipating the Polish nation to live on (even the Nazis anticipated on that, only they saw a future role for the Poles as slaves, following the Lebensraum-principle), hence not to wipe them off the face of the earth like the Nazis tried with the Jews and the Ottomans tried with the Armenians. That, my friend, makes the events in Katyn mass-murder and not genocide. And in order to wipe out an entire nation, one usually has to kill 100.000's or millions. That's what the numbers stand for.

M-G (impropria impropriae est)

Yes, exactly! Many people tend to change the meaning of words to make it compatible with their wishes.

For the less perceptive readers - I higlighted the words "or in part" :-)

It is neither only about nations. They targeted particular group of people on territory that they planned to absorb, according to their nationality and social status.

Seanus

Fact remains that the Soviets at Katyn did not aim to wipe out the Poles as a whole, which in my opinion makes it mass-murder, not genocide.


Where exactly does militairy personnel fit in?

M-G (doesn't want to diminish the fact that it was terrible, but I am sure all understand that)

Read post no. 166 again, please :-)


Do you mean Polish military personnel? Besides, it wasn't only military personnel
but also lawyers, priests or land owners for example.

M-G, I didn't say otherwise. I've already classed it as a war crime and it didn't have the character of genocide. I was making the point that it isn't numbers that decide the matter. Numbers are relative in this case anyway.

Seanus - you're a smart fella, so maybe you can explain to me how can
there be a war crime without a factual state of war?

I still think that...


So, why do you class it as a "war crime"?

Ok, suppose I have a truck full of machine guns. I park it in the middle of a market square somewhere. The market square is packed with ppl. I then get out the machine guns and shoot everybody there. Suppose also that nobody runs away and nobody is able to stop me. I shoot, say, 1200 ppl there. They are all part of the same nationality. I know this, because I have done research and I know that at that day at that time there are only members of that particular race/etnicity/religion. I succeed in my plan. 1200 ppl of the same group have been killed. What have I committed? Genocide or mass-murder?

M-G (curious)

For me the answer is obvious - you targeted the specific ethnic/racial/religious group
based only on their ethnicity/race/religion with the intent to destroy them (a part of
that nation/race/religious group)...

...which fits the definition of genocide under the international law.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Under_international_law


You have commited genocide.

Torq, the Soviets had already crossed the border and the war was already under way. It fitted the billing of a war crime because it served the ends of a wartime objective. It was wilful killing designed to further their ultimate post-war objective of imposing communism with the bare minimum of resistance.

Also, another important aspect of war crime is the inextricable link with the orders passed down from the leader. Stalin endorsed it and it funnelled down to the soldiers, NOT hitmen, to kill Polish inteligentsia.

I go with the war-crime. However, I am still not convinced that it's genocide. But I guess we will never find a definitive answer to that.

M-G (going to watch a movie)

In April 1940? The war between Poland and USSR?


I see what you're getting at, Seanus, but the decisive factor for me is the fact that
there wasn't a war between Poland and USSR at the time.


Such a huge task could only be passed down to the army. Nazis also used their military
personnel, NOT hitmen, to destroy Jewish population of Europe.

You remind me those Poles who claim that Bereza Kartuska was not a concentration camp. Neither you or them respect widely recognized definitions.

No they didn't. They used the Sonderkommandos, which you could compare to hitmen. In fact they had to proceed secretly in order to avoid the German army seeing what was happening as Hitler feared that they would revolt.

M-G (wonder why that was as he was so convinced of his own correctness)

Nope, there was a war going on from Sep 3 1939. Also, they were classed as POW's. Furthermore, civilians were affected, a major part of a war crime.

The leader knew that there would be a war and it was a war crime in nature. Besides, the invasion had already happened.

Interrogation, political agitation and then declaration of "hardened and uncompromising enemies" of Soviet authority. Deemed Polish "Nationalists and Counterrevolutionaries." It was a SELECTIVE deprivation of Poland's Military and Intellectual elite which ultimately would weaken Poland as a whole. Massacre carried out by military. Fits declared description of Genocide. In my opinion, Genocide. Isolated group which ultimately would weaken Poland as a whole. Others, consider it mass murder due to the Russian military carrying out the execution. Genocide typically is carried out by military.

Military SS formations were also used in the holocaust and the entire camp system.
Also SS and Wehrmacht units were often supervising the departure and loading of
transport trains to death camps.


Which is strange as many of them were captured after the military operations
were over and many of them weren't even military personnel but lawyers, land-owners,
settlers and priests. Some POW's!

*off to catch some z's*

But they were not part of the Wehrmacht. Where as the perpetrators of Katyn were members of the Red Army. There is a difference.


Besides that I have serious doubts about this; how do you explain that the Sonderkommandos had to operate in a secretive way to keep their actions hidden from the Wehrmacht's eye?

M-G (SS looked and acted like an army, but were not, in general)

I don't know, but Wehrmacht units were most definitely used in the realization of Holocaust.

I did a quick google and got:

"during the invasion of the Soviet Union the Wehrmacht was systematically
involved in the realization of the Holocaust"

hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/1/79

or

ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/wehrmacht.htm

...there's probably more info on that in the Internet.

T (now really off to catch some z's)

Torq, the important thing was that the Soviets invaded and took Polish POW's. It doesn't need an official declaration in this case.

Seanus, it's not about the official declaration of war. I stated plainly in one of my previous
posts that whether the war was declared or not is irrelevant as long as there is a factual
state of war. There was NO factual state of war between Poland and USSR in April 1940
when the genocide was commited.

It doesn't matter. It was a crime conducted during a war. The label is just different.

Just 500 lawyers, priests and landowners out of how many priests, lawyers and landowners that were in Eastern Poland at the time of their arrest?

A group of 500 out of your total of 22,000 Katyn victims not that many by any stretch of credibility. And I doubt if they represented 0.5% of all the Polish priests, landowners and lawyers of Eastern Poland so not a significant number at all. It doesn't diminish the fact a crime was committed but no one can serioulsy claim it was a genocidal crime.

There were 10 times as many deserters on the execution list than your 'many of them weren't even military personnel but lawyers, land-owners, settlers and priests.


Only if you ignore the restistance organisations that were set up in Soviet occupied Poland (as were they of course in German occupied Polish lands). Thus by ignoring the fact that resistance organistations were set-up and that the NKVD memorandum specifically mentions POWs involved in insurgent organisations were to be executed, you arrive at the absurd statement that war did not exist in 1940. The NKVD were fighting against Polish resistance organisations at every twist and turn, and they were much more successful in infiltrating and breaking-up such organisations than the Germans ever were, the NKVD having had many more decades ruthless experience in using executions, torture and deporatations to break resistance to Stalinist control.


So did the Jewish Order Police, so I guess they were guilty of Holocaust crimes as well!

I guess Polish locomotive drivers such as Stefan Kirsz* who in his own words was a locomotive co-driver and led the Jewish transports from Rava_Russkaya to Belzec were also guilty of Holocaust crimes.

*Source: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps —page 69.


Without doubt!


How would you compare the social status of the 6,000 deserters on the NKVD memorandum to the group of Polish generals?

In the document there is no particular single group targetted but a number of groups of which the largest majority were Polish military commisioned officers, who came to be held seperately from the tens of thousands of other ranks who were freed shortly after capture. I believe this was also the case in German occupied Poland ie. after the siege of Warsaw ended all Polish military forces were ordered out of Warsaw and after processing in holding camps the other ranks were released and the officers deported to German POW camps.

On the Katyń memorandum they were not even all Polish, 3% were not. So nationality doesn't seem to be a factor, other than most prisoners taken in Poland by the Soviets were naturally Polish.

Well, if you want to use that particular definition, the Polish nation committed genocide against the Jews. At Jedwabne and Kielce parts of a religious group were destroyed. And of course we'll need to add the genocide which Poland committed against Ukraine (the Lvov pogrom et al).

Alternatively we could agree that none of the above was genocide (I certainly wouldn't describe it as genocide).


You may wish to debate that point with by General Michał Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz. He was the leader of Związek Walki Zbrojnej (later to become the Armia Krajowa) forces in the areas under Soviet occupation and was arrested and imprisoned by the NKVD in March 1940.

Who was released in August 1941 and obviously not considered 'elite' enough to be murdered by NKVD in Torq's genocide!

What war, Seanus? It was April 1940, so it certainly wasn't between Poland and USSR.

I know that there was a war at that time between Denmark, Norway, France,
and Germany (also Great Britain was at war with the Germans) but it would be
VERY odd if Soviets tried to use the war between these countries to justify
calling their genocide a "war crime".


You really have some kind of an obsession with numbers, Sjam. I told you that, in my
opinion, it's the nature of the crime itself and not the numbers that matter.



I don't think that Soviets can use the existence of partisan groups as an excuse
to call the murdering of regular army officers, settlers, lawyers, landowners and
priests a "war crime".

Well, that isn't the key point. I have to review the legislation, though. A war crime is one typical of war and not necessarily conducted during wartime. I'll get back to you on this, Torq.

Can you perhaps explain why the Sikorski-Mayski Polish-Soviet Union Agreement of 30 July 1941 says "The Soviet Government grants amnesty to all Polish citizens now detained on Soviet territory either as prisoners of war or on other sufficient grounds, as from the resumption of diplomatic relations." If there really was no war, why were there prisoners of war?


I note that you completely ignore the fact that by your definition of genocide Poland committed genocide on the Jews and the Ukrainians.

I also note that you have still not explained why the people sjam and I have listed were charged with war crimes (in addition to crimes against humanity) but not with genocide. Could it perhaps be that people who have more than a passing knowledge of international law know the difference between war crimes and genocide while you clearly do not?