La Seconde Guerre mondiale était-elle inévitable ?

Il y a une part d'exercice intellectuel un peu vain dans cette question. Après tout, la Seconde Guerre mondiale a bien eu lieu. Pourquoi alors s'interroger sur l'inévitabilité des événements qui ont conduit à son déclenchement ?

Probablement parce qu'en savoir plus sur les circonstances qui ont conduit à ce sauvage déclenchement de violence peut nous permettre d'éviter de recommencer.

Or la diabolisation absolue du régime hitlérien rend l'analyse difficile car elle conduit inévitablement à accorder à la dictature hitlérienne une rationalité et une légitimité qui lui est refusée par la vulgate actuelle.

A posteriori, la victoire a validé la déclaration de guerre à l'Allemagne par le Royaume-Uni et par son client, la France tout comme l'alliance avec l'Union soviétique. La terrible épreuve subie par le peuple juif d'Europe est avancée comme justification de la guerre.

Pourtant il est légitime possible d'avancer l'hypothèse que le génocide des Juifs ne fut pas la cause de la guerre, mais une conséquence de la guerre totale voulue par les Alliés et de leur refus de toute paix négociée (la capitulation sans conditions).

Des auteurs avancent que sans cet enchaînement fatal d'évenements, les Juifs de l'Europe allemande auraient connu un sort terrible, mais en grande partie auraient survécu tout comme les Palestiniens qui ont payé le prix fort lors de la naissance de l'Etat d'Israël en 1947.

L'écrivain conservateur Peter Hitchens avance sur son blog du Daily Telegraph que la guerre trouve son origine dans les garanties accordées par le Royaume Uni à la Pologne en mars 1939.

Selon Hitchens, sans cette garantie, le gouvernement polonais serait probablement parvenu à un accord avec l'Allemagne sur la question de Dantzig et du corridor pour relier ce territoire au Reich et, ce faisant, aurait préservé le pacte de non-agression avec l'Allemagne.

L'analyse de Peter Hitchens est plus subtile que ces quelques lignes de présentation et je vous engage vivement à la lire. D'autant plus que ce débat est impensable en France où le mythe de la France victorieuse dans la Seconde Guerre mondiale ne supporte pas le moindre doute car il est consubstentiel avec les deux régimes mis en place après 1945 avec la double onction gaulliste et communiste.

Pour en revenir au preésent, la triste expérience de la Seconde Guerre mondiale nous apprend que le sentiment d'impunité et la diabolisation sont les deux ingrédients du cocktail qui conduit au désastre.

Aujourd'hui, la politique israélienne se conduit à l'abri d'un sentiment d'invulnérabilité accordé par l'absolue sujetion dans laquelle se trouvent les Etats-Unis. La diabolisation réciproque des acteurs majeurs du conflit israélo-musulman interdit le dialogue et la négociation. Comment parvenir à une solution avec l'Iran si le régime est diabolisé ?

De même que la garantie accordée à la Pologne a envenimé les choses, l'appui inconditionnel des Etats-Unis à Israël rend vain tout espoir de paix reposant sur un accord sur le fond.

• What might have been
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• A few responses to contributors on the Dunkirk matter. 'Stan' argues: ‘Germany would still have invaded Norway, Denmark and France and the low countries whether we promised to defend Poland or not. The invasion of France would have required our entry into the war, but even if we tried to keep out of it we could not have committed any more of the RN, RAF or army to protect our Far East interests in case we left ourselves defenceless against invasion by Germany - so Singapore et al would have fallen to the Japanese anyway.
• ‘We would have gained nothing by not declaring war in 1939 - just delayed it until May 1940. And seeing how we didn't actually do much until then (other than build up our depleted armed forces) it would have made absolutely no difference whatsoever.’
• Once again, he is taking the guarantee to Poland and the resulting September declaration of war by Britain and France as unavoidable givens. Why did Hitler invade France in May 1940? Because France had declared war on Germany in September 1939. Would he have done so if France had not declared war? My whole argument is that these events are not unavoidable givens. There was no political, military or other good reason for the guarantee to Poland, which was a sort of emotional spasm by Neville Chamberlain when he realised he had been fooled over Czechoslovakia (the only excuse for Chamberlain would have been if he had genuinely concluded the Munich agreement as a cynical way of delaying war till we were ready. But it wasn't so. He genuinely trusted Hitler to keep his word).
• If the guarantee to Poland wasn't inevitable (and it wasn't) then that means that our declaration of war in September 1939 (and France's) were likewise not inevitable. I'd add that, without our guarantee, the Polish government might well have behaved differently. It might even have conceded Danzig. It had by then developed a Polish-controlled port at Gdynia. And then what? I am as much of an admirer of modern Poland as anybody, and I regard the Nazi-Soviet (or Russo-German) partition of that country in 1939 as an act of appalling cruelty and barbarism.
• But the pre-1939 Polish state was not a specially lovely thing, and we should recall this, not least to avoid sentimentality about diplomacy.
• Hitler had regarded Poland as an ally, or at least as no trouble, for some years, and with reason. And that wasn't just because many Polish politicians were nearly as Judophobic as he was. He signed a non-aggression pact with Warsaw in 1934. Joachim von Ribbentrop offered to renew that pact in October 1938 while 'heroic' Poland was also squalidly gobbling up Czech land, scavenging after the break-up of Czechoslovakia.
• A brief note on this neglected incident. When Czechoslovakia was on its knees after Munich, Poland (as an ally of the Reich) demanded that it be given the ethnically-mixed Czech region known as Zaolzie - an old Versailles grievance. The Czechs, powerless and broken, caved in and (to German glee, as this spread the guilt of Munich) Polish tanks rolled into Cesky Tesin on 1st October 1938. The usual stuff followed - language persecution etc - and thousands of Czechs either left or were forced out.
• The Poles also refused Ribbentrop's Danzig offer at this time, apparently confident that their good relations with Berlin would survive.
• Then at the end of March 1939, having been fooled over Munich, which Chamberlain had genuinely believed was a permanent peace, Britain and France suddenly guaranteed Poland's independence (though not, interestingly, its territorial integrity, an implicit assumption that a deal might be done over Danzig. What's more the guarantee didn't apply to an attack by the USSR, luckily for Britain which would otherwise have had to declare war on Stalin in late September 1939).
• A month later, the Warsaw-Berlin non-aggression pact was unilaterally abrogated by Hitler (April 28, 1939, during an address before the Reichstag). Germany then renewed its territorial claims in Poland, which had been shelved during the period of the pact.
• Without the Franco-British guarantee to Poland, would events have followed this course? Impossible to be sure, but without that guarantee (which they touchingly believed would be fulfilled) the rather unprincipled Polish government might well have been more willing to give up Danzig, and so preserve the pact with Berlin (which until 31st March 1939 had been their principal foreign engagement). That concession, plus allowing the Germans unhampered roads and railways across the corridor, would have been a much less serious loss to Poland than the Sudetenland had been to Czechoslovakia. And, while it most certainly would not have been the end of Hitler's demands on Poland, it would certainly have delayed war in the East, and altered its shape and direction.
• In that case, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - a direct consequence of the decision by Britain and France to refuse Hitler a free hand in the East, without possessing the forces to carry out this policy - might never have taken place. Germany's drive into the USSR might have come earlier (and perhaps through Poland).
• But what Stan doesn't explain is why, without the guarantee to Poland and the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France (not the other way round, remember), Germany would have felt any urgent need to invade a largely passive France, hunkered down behind its Maginot fortifications, let alone to attack Britain. The German seizure of Norway and Denmark was also a consequence of the Polish guarantee. There is no reason to believe it would have happened had there been no Polish guarantee. Also, 'building up our depleted armed forces', as he dismissively describes it, was no small thing.
• Then we have D.G.Harthill, who posted: ‘Keith Rogers informs that Hitler “admired Britain” ’. He had an odd way of showing it. E.g. in his Directive No.13 of May 24, 1940: ‘The next object of our operations is to annihilate the French, English and Belgian forces that are encircled in Artois and Flanders.’ On learning the ineffectiveness of artillery shells in Dunkirk’s sand dunes, ‘he suggested that anti-aircraft shells with time fuses be used instead’ in order ‘to cause a mass bloodbath among the English who were waiting for rescue’. His army aide recorded that he particularly wanted ‘SS units to participate in the final annihilation’ of the encircled British. Göring recorded Hitler’s objections to the Heer’s humane treatment of British POWs: ‘They round up the British as prisoners with as little harm to them as possible. The Führer wants them to be taught a lesson they won’t easily forget.’ (‘The Blitzkrieg Legend’, Karl-Heinz Frieser, p. 312)
• Karl-Heinz Frieser, a colonel in the Bundeswehr and head of the Department of World Wars I & II at the Potsdam Military History Research Institute wrote: ‘Hitler’s decision to launch the Polish campaign is one of the most catastrophically wrong decisions in German history.’ (Frieser, p.17) It was ‘catastrophically wrong’ because the Anglo–French guarantees to Poland turned a two day campaign into the start of the Second World War leading to Germany’s destruction. Hitler had gambled that after the repeated surrenders by the Western powers since 1935 they would surrender yet again—he was surprised as any when they did not. Hitler’s chief interpreter, Paul Schmidt, described the ‘ghostlike scene in the Reich Chancellery’ following the translation of Britain’s declaration of war: ‘[T]here was total silence … Hitler sat there as if petrified and stared straight ahead. … After a while, which seemed like an eternity to me, he turned to Ribbentrop who kept standing at the window as if frozen. “What now?” Hitler asked … Göring turned to me and said: “If we lose this war, may Heaven have mercy on us!” ’ (Frieser, p.12)’
• Again, Mr Harthill refuses to go back to the real point of decision - the Anglo-French guarantee to Poland in early 1939. He presupposes the inevitability of the Polish guarantee, and thus the inevitability of war in September 1939 and the inevitability of combat between British and German forces in May 1940. All this is quite correct if you assume the Polish guarantee was inevitable. My point is that it wasn't, and that it was unwise.
• Of course, once we were engaged in war, Hitler would not have hesitated to use maximum violence against us. His 'admiration' for the empire was conditional on the Empire staying out of continental affairs.
• As for the thoughts of Karl-Heinz Frieser, it is perfectly true that Hitler was amazed that Britain actually declared war in September 1939 (Ribbentrop had told him it wouldn't happen). But he (and the world) were soon afterwards still more amazed by the swift collapse of French and British arms in France (read William Shirer's account of it all, in his Berlin Diary - it is now impossible to imagine a world in which France was viewed - as it was in September 1939 - as a near-invincible military power. But it was so.
• As for Goering's remark, the Germans did not, of course lose *that* war. They won it almost totally. Britain was defeated, but not actually occupied or subjugated, and had no realistic hope of bringing troops into direct combat with the Germans on the European continent - the only way in which we could actually have won. (Does anyone have any thoughts about what would have happened to Britain if Hitler had decided to launch against her one half of the forces he sent into the USSR in 1941?)
• So the invasion of Poland and the war which followed, and which really ended at Compiegne with the French surrender on 21st June 1940, did not 'lead to their destruction'. The war that they lost was the subsequent war, against the USSR (which they also started) and eventually the USA (against whom they also declared war). Had they been content with their May 1940 victories, they would probably have endured unchallenged until now. And there's another line of speculation for anyone who's interested.
• It's also true that with a very few small things turning out differently, they could have been holding a victory parade in Red Square by October 1941, soon afterwards in possession of the Caucasus oilfields and most of the Soviet industrial and extractive economy, plus millions of new slaves, and so more or less invincible on European soil.
• But once again, I doubt if either of these things would have been possible if France and Britain had remained in powerful armed neutrality, building up their forces, repairing their alliance with Belgium, manoeuvring Roosevelt into engagement and gaining knowledge of Hitler's methods, on Germany's Western flank. And if this position is so immoral, then surely so was that of the USA, which stayed out of the European war until Hitler declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor, one of the few instances when he actually fulfilled a diplomatic obligation that didn't suit him.
• 31st March 1939 is the day to think about. From then on, all that happened was more or less inevitable. But without that guarantee, things could have been very, very different. The question is, would it have been better or worse? And in my view that is the subject under discussion.

Antisémitisme polonais

Professeur de philosophie à l'université de Varsovie, Jakub Kloc-Konkolowicz a publié le 18 janvier dernier dans les colonnes du Frankfurter Rundschau un article consacré à l'antisémitisme polonais à l'occasion de la parution en Pologne de l'ouvrage de Jan Tomasz Gross Fear, Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz (New York 2006).

Jan Tomasz Gross has taken on the difficult task of removing blind spots in Polish history. His new book Fear has sparked an emotional debate in the country of his birth, where anti-Semitism is not a popular subject.
In recent days a new chapter in the emotional debate over Polish anti-Semitism has opened in Poland. The occasion is the Polish edition of a new book by the Princeton historian of Polish origin Jan Tomasz Gross. The book with the punchy title Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz (New York 2006) revolves around a central question: "How was Polish anti-Semitism possible after Auschwitz?" According to the reports by Holocaust survivors cited by the author, rather than being welcomed with open arms, Polish Holocaust survivors were met in their hometowns by the cynical question "Are you still alive?!"

The Holocaust victims were confronted with more or less open hostility on the part of the Polish population, which ultimately ended in pogroms. Gross' book examines three of these in detail, in Rzeszow (1945), Krakow (1945) and the most notorious pogrom in Kielce (1946) in which 37 Jews were murdered.

For Gross, neither the allegedly widespread participation of Polish Jews in the slowly consolidating Communist regime nor the horror stories circulating about the ritual murder of Christian children were the real reasons for these occurrences. Ultimately, economic interests were behind the events. Many Poles had taken possession of Jewish property after the German occupiers fled, and the Holocaust survivors' return was perceived as a real threat. Regardless of the pretexts for the pogroms, Gross writes, their real purpose was to get rid of the inconvenient victims.

Although many Poles had heroically come to the aid of their fellow Jewish citizens by providing them with shelter at their own peril, most had looked on with indifference – sometimes even approval – at the crimes committed by the German occupiers on the Jews. Pangs of conscience can be very effective, destructive even, especially when they veil a clear interest.

Gross is particularly critical of the Polish Catholic Church, maintaining that with the exception of the Bishop of Czestochowa, clerics not only did nothing to protect Jewish survivors from assaults after the war, but even sought explicitly to justify these attacks to a greater or lesser extent. Nevertheless, one must add, Gross' controversial book was printed in Poland by a respectable Catholic publisher.

This is not the first time that a book by Gross has created a stir in Poland. The publication in 2001 of his "Neighbors" had already kindled an emotional debate about the Polish population's involvement in the Holocaust. That book dealt with the murder of the Jewish residents of Jedwabne (a small town in Eastern Poland) in 1941. For decades under the Communist regime this crime was attributed to the German troops. It was only with Gross' assertion that Polish neighbours had carried out the crime that an investigation initiated by the Polish Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) confirmed direct Polish participation (leaving the role of the German occupiers open).

Even before the report was published, Alexander Kwasniewski, then Polish president, officially apologised for the Jedwabne murders "in the name of those Poles whose consciences are troubled by this crime."

Many people never forgave Kwasniewski for this apology. Most Yad Vashem trees (dedicated to the "Righteous Among the Nations" who risked their lives to save threatened Jews during WWII) bear Polish names. Poland was the sole occupied country where helping Jewish citizens was punishable by death. Under the occupation, the Polish underground Armia Krajowa initiated a structure unique in Europe (called Zegota) which offered aid – including military support – to the Jews.

Since the Poles staunchly resisted the Nazi aggression and were themselves victims of Hitler's policy of genocide, many saw – and continue to see – themselves exclusively in the role of war victims. For that reason they consider any allegation that casts Poles in the role of perpetrators a brazen effrontery, if not a direct attack on the Polish people. Accordingly, even events that took place after World War II, in particular the pogrom in Kielce, are seen by many historians as a provocation by the (Polish or even Soviet) secret service, which sought to damage Poland's image in Western Europe and secure its adhesion to the Russian sphere of influence.

It's no wonder, then, that Jan Tomasz Gross is such a controversial figure in Polish public life, although he has never questioned the merits of the Poles, nor their bravery in the fight against fascism. Hence it was predictable that his new book would set off a new wave of outrage even before it came out in Polish. Already after the original version was published in the US, some Polish senators alerted the Polish public prosecutor's office that the book could insult the Polish people and incite hatred, charges which the office is currently reviewing.

The radical Catholic League of Polish Families has officially demanded that the Polish Foreign Ministry deny Gross entry into Poland. Many commentators believe Gross' book reveals no previously unknown facts, brings nothing new into the debate and is more an essay "with a presupposed thesis" than a genuine historical study. Janusz Kurtyka, director of the Institute of National Remembrance, has accused Gross of historical incompetence and highly one-sided use of his sources.

But critical voices are also being heard among moderates, for example Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the secretary to Pope John Paul II, as well as the legendary Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa, who maintained Gross' book would awaken dangerous demons and divide where it should reconcile. The Polish–Jewish dialogue must be carried out with a view to the future, not the past, Walesa argued. Very few people have come to the defence of this author, who has taken on the difficult task of making uncomfortable facts known to a wider audience and removing blind spots in Polish history. His supporters include Konstanty Gebert, chief editor of Midrasz a Jewish-interest magazine.

However the widespread Polish indignation is also explained by the fact that many feel the book paints an outdated portrait of Poland. Many believe the old mantra of Polish anti-Semitism is no longer rings true, because much has changed since the 1990s. The policy of reconciliation and dialogue between Poles and Jews begun by President Walesa and carried through by his successor Kwasniewski – as well as current President Lech Kaczynski – has been highly successful. Jewish life in Poland has reawakened, and interest in Jewish culture, history and religion has grown enormously, especially among young Poles. Many Jewish festivals have been established and exhibitions and theatre performances focussing on Jewish issues are on the rise. Just a few weeks ago, the postal workers' union spontaneously and successfully refused to distribute anti-Semitic brochures put out by an extreme right-wing politician.

Jan Tomasz Gross by no means denies these tremendous changes in Polish society. He simply believes that uncomfortable topics of the past must be discussed openly. Controversy over a book is always welcomed by it's author, people say. The only thing Gross would find scandalous would be if this debate had to be continued in the courtroom.

You only need to look at the development of the democratic public sphere in Poland since the 1990s, however, to see that this debate, emotional as it is, is far more likely to be carried out in a more appropriate forum. And in all probability it will lead Poles to regard their history with more critical distance. Regardless of people's fears, it is unlikely that the book and the discussion around it could harm Jewish–Polish dialogue.

Katyn en images

Au printemps 1940, les Soviétiques ont pratiqué une sorte de nettoyage ethnique de la population polonaise en la privant d'une partie de son élite sociale, jugée rétive au socialisme. Sur le seul site de Katyn, près de 4500 officiers polonais ont été assassinés, l'un après l'autre, par la police communiste.

Après un demi-siècle de silence honteux, le cinéaste polonais vient de réaliser le premier film de fiction consacré à ce drame.


Visiter le site du film

Légende du cinéma mondial, le Polonais Andrzej Wajda a présenté mercredi à Varsovie son nouveau film, dans lequel il raconte l'histoire tragique de son père, l'un des 22.500 officiers polonais massacrés par les Soviétiques en 1940 à Katyn et d'autres camps.

Le cinéaste, âgé de 81 ans, a choisi de placer au début du film, sous le titre de "Katyn", une dédicace: "A mes parents".

Son père, Jakub Wajda, était capitaine d'un régiment d'infanterie de l'armée polonaise. Il a été exécuté d'une balle dans la nuque par le NKVD, la police secrète de Staline.

Et comme des centaines d'autres femmes, sa mère a longtemps refusé d'accepter sa mort. "Ma mère s'est nourrie d'illusions jusqu'à la fin de sa vie, car le nom de mon père figurait avec un autre prénom sur la liste des officiers massacrés", a-t-il raconté à l'issue de la première projection du film pour la presse.

Symboliquement, la première du film aura lieu le 17 septembre, le jour même où en 1939, l'Armée rouge envahit l'Est de la Pologne pour se partager le pays à l'amiable avec l'Allemagne nazie qui avait commencé son invasion le 1er septembre.

Le film commence ce jour-là sur un pont où deux foules se pressent en sens inverse: l'une pour fuir l'Armée rouge, l'autre la Wehrmacht. Il se termine sur les images insoutenables des exécutions perpétrées une à une dans la forêt de Katyn.

Le massacre fut révélé pour la première fois par les nazis qui mirent au jour les charniers après la rupture du pacte germano-soviétique et leur invasion de l'URSS en juin 1941.

L'URSS rejeta immédiatement la responsabilité du massacre sur les nazis. L'Occident resta muet pour ne pas envenimer ses relations avec Moscou, devenu un allié indispensable dans la guerre contre Adolf Hitler.

Le film est une fiction, mais, a insisté Andrzej Wajda, il est basé sur des histoires et des épisodes authentiques. Une bonne partie du film se déroule à Cracovie et raconte l'attente des femmes entre 1939 et 1950. Le cinéaste a également utilisé des images d'archives tournées par les Allemands lors de l'exhumation des corps en 1941, puis celles tournées par la propagande soviétique.

"Ce film n'aurait pas pu voir le jour avant, ni dans la Pologne communiste, ni en exil, en dehors de la Pologne, où il n'y avait pas d'intérêt pour le sujet", a déclaré le cinéaste.

"Aucun cinéaste sain d'esprit n'aurait pu le tourner à l'époque communiste, sinon, il aurait dû présenter la version officielle", a-t-il dit. Car le film montre aussi le mensonge entretenu par le régime communiste polonais qui a persisté à attribuer le massacre aux Allemands.

Ce n'est qu'en avril 1990 que le président soviétique Mikhaïl Gorbatchev a fini par reconnaître la responsabilité de l'URSS. En Pologne, pratiquement jusqu'à la chute du communisme, il était interdit de parler de Katyn, dont la forêt est devenu le symbole du massacre des élites polonaises, même s'il s'est déroulé dans plusieurs lieux, à Kharkiv (Ukraine) et à Miednoïe (Russie).

"J'espère qu'il y aura d'autres films sur le même sujet. Mon, film n'est qu'un premier film", a déclaré le cinéaste, qui a reçu en 2000 un Oscar pour l'ensemble de sa carrière de plus de cinquante ans.

"Enfin il y a ce film", a déclaré l'acteur Andrzej Seweryn, présent lors de l'avant-première. "Toute la Pologne l'attendait. Wajda n'a pas pu échapper à ce film, il s'est longtemps préparé à le faire, il appréhendait le sujet, cherchait le bon scénario", a-t-il ajouté, "c'était pour lui tellement important".

Pour assurer la réussite du film, Wajda a confié les images à Pawel Edelman, chef-opérateur pour le Pianiste de Roman Polanski et la musique au compositeur polonais Krzysztof Penderecki.

Monument aux victimes de Katyn.

Pour en savoir plus sur le massacre, nous conseillons



Staline assassine la pologne 1939-47
Alexandra Viatteau
Seuil, 340 p., ISBN 2-020-23171-9.

A près le pacte germano-soviétique d'août 1939, Staline décide l'élimination systématique des élites polonaises. Crimes contre la paix, crimes de guerre, crimes contre l'humanité : telle fut pendant près de deux ans la pratique quotidienne des communistes soviétiques. Le méfait le plus connu fut l'assassinat de sang-froid de plus de 15000 officiers polonais dont les corps ont été trouvés dans le bois de Katyn et dans les charniers de Miednoyé et Dergatché. Parallèlement, Staline et sa police politique déportèrent au goulag, en Sibérie et au Kazakhstan, près de 1 800 000 Polonais, dont plus d'un million ne revinrent jamais; ils assassinèrent sans conteste plus de 25000 prisonniers de guerre et environ
124 000 autres disparurent, probablement également assassinés. La seconde occupation de la Pologne par l'Armée rouge, à partir de l'été 1943, vit se reproduire les mêmes tueries, les mêmes déportations de masse. Ce livre traite de cette immense tragédie, qui relève du génocide, et que l'Occident, pour des raisons diplomatiques, a voulu ignorer pendant un demi-siècle. L'effondrement du régime de Moscou et l'ouverture des archives soviétiques et communistes de Pologne permettent enfin d'établir l'histoire de cette persécution et ainsi d'honorer la mémoire des victimes innocentes.
On ne peut rester insensible à l’immense tragédie du peuple polonais entre les mains de deux bourreaux. C’est le mérite du livre d’Alexandra Viatteau que de nous rappeler les pages volontairement oubliées de ce drame sanglant.

Extraits

Voici le témoignage de Klimov Piotr Fiodorovitch : « J'ai travaillé au NKVD-GPU de Smolensk depuis 1933… Je lavais le sang des fusillés sur ordre de Grigoriev, chef du garage. Je lavais les voitures, un minibus et un camion trois tonnes. C'est comme ça qu'ils transportaient les cadavres en les chargeant à l'aide d'un transporteur pour ne pas utiliser les civières, comme avant qu'Alkhimovitch ne bricole le transporteur à moteur. Les caves où ils fusillaient se trouvent sous le bâtiment de l'actuel bureau des Affaires intérieures russes de Smolensk, rue Dzierzynski... « Ceux qui tiraient (ceux dont je me souviens), c'étaient: Gribov, Stelmakh et Gvozdovsky, Remson Karol, j'ai oublié les autres... Parmi ceux qui transportaient les cadavres, il y avait Levtchenko, mais il a été tué par un prisonnier, un Polonais à ce qu'il me semble. Celui-là avait réussi à rester en vie par hasard et il s'est frayé le chemin vers l'armurerie, puis il a ouvert le feu et il a blessé encore quelqu'un, je ne sais plus qui. Pendant trois jours, ils n'arrivaient pas à tuer ce prisonnier, qu'ils arrosaient avec des lances à eau de pompiers avant de l'asphyxier au gaz… Ils ont fusillé les militaires polonais à Kozie Gory en 1940. C'est la compagnie de Stelmakh Ivan Ivanovitch qui l'a fait, il était le commandant du NKVD de Smolensk. Je suis allé par hasard à Kozie Gory et j'ai vu une fosse: elle était immense et allait jusqu'au marais, avec des Polonais dedans en plusieurs couches recouvertes de terre. On les abattait directement au bord des fosses. Pour ça, je le sais, car j'ai vu les cadavres des Polonais et Oustinov m'a raconté comment ça se passait: il était chauffeur et amenait les Polonais et il a tout vu. On les sortait des camions au bord des fosses et on leur tirait une balle, les achevant parfois à coups de baïonnette… Il y avait beaucoup de Polonais dans cette fosse que j'ai vue, d'environ cent mètres de longueur et de deux à trois mètres de profondeur. Quand je les ai vus, on m'a ordonné de partir et de ne plus m'approcher. En ce temps-là, puis après la guerre, Stelmakh, Reinson, Gvozdovsky et Gribov m'ont prévenu plusieurs fois de me taire. Oustinov m'a dit que ce sont eux qui tuaient personnellement les Polonais. Ce sont eux qui commandaient toute l'opération, je ne me souviens pas des autres. Les Polonais étaient amenés en wagons sur une voie secondaire de la station de Gniezdovo. L'endroit de l'exécution était gardé par le NKVD. »

Alexandra Viatteau a également écrit : Katyn, l'armée polonaise assassinée (1989) et « Comment a été traitée la question de Katyn à Nuremberg », dans Annette Wieviorka, les Procès de Nuremberg et de Tokyo, Editions Complexe (1996).