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97-668: The first historical document mentioning Biała Podlaska dates to 1481. In the beginning, Biała Podlaska belonged to the Illnicz family. The founder of the city may have been Piotr Janowicz, nicknamed "Biały" (Polish for "white"), who was the hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . Biała Podlaska was administratively part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship , and then the Brest Litovsk Voivodeship in

194-667: A Jewish Ghetto Police was established. At the end of 1939, some 2,000 to 3,000 more Jews were brought there as a result of deportations from Suwałki and Serock . The overcrowding and poor sanitations resulted in a typhus epidemic in Biała Podlaska in early 1940, causing many deaths. The Germans imprisoned some Poles in the local prison and then deported them to concentration camps for helping and rescuing Jews . Several hundred more Jews were brought in from as far as Kraków and Mława during German "resettlement" actions conducted in 1940 and 1941. The men were sent to new labour camps in

291-453: A forced labour subcamp for some 200–300 Italian POWs in the city. In 1944 the town was recaptured by Polish and Soviet troops and restored to Poland, although with a Soviet -installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. In the postwar period and after the fall of communism, Biała Podlaska has developed as a more modern city. It retains many of

388-671: A colonel of the Polish army. The palace fell into ruin and was pulled down in 1883. After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Biała Podlaska temporarily came under the rule of Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian partition of Poland). Following the Austro-Polish War of 1809, temporarily recovered by Poles, Biała Podlaska was part of the Polish Duchy of Warsaw . In 1815, the town became part of Congress Poland within

485-631: A dozen mostly American and British journalists, accompanied by Kathleen Harriman , the daughter of the new American Ambassador W. Averell Harriman , and John F. Melby , third secretary at the American embassy in Moscow, to Katyn. Some regarded the inclusion of Melby and Harriman as a Soviet attempt to lend official weight to their propaganda. Melby's report noted the deficiencies in the Soviet case: problematic witnesses; attempts to discourage questioning of

582-723: A drastic news item to the German press. I gave instructions to make the widest possible use of the propaganda material. We shall be able to live on it for a couple of weeks." When Goebbels was informed in September 1943 that the German Army had to withdraw from the Katyn area, he wrote a prediction in his diary. His entry for 29 September 1943 reads: "Unfortunately, we have had to give up Katyn. The Bolsheviks undoubtedly will soon 'find' that we shot 12,000 Polish officers. That episode

679-475: A manner that would increase the likelihood of them surviving indefinitely, or placing selected documents in time capsules or other special storage environments. Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military and police officers , border guards , and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union , specifically

776-703: A military reserve officer, the NKVD was able to round up a significant portion of the Polish educated class as prisoners of war. According to estimates by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), roughly 320,000 Polish citizens were deported to the Soviet Union (this figure is questioned by other historians, who hold to older estimates of about 700,000–1,000,000). IPN estimates the number of Polish citizens who died under Soviet rule during World War II at 150,000 (a revision of older estimates of up to 500,000). Of

873-589: A place of federal to one of only regional importance. On 1 September 1939, the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany began. Consequently, Britain and France, fulfilling the Anglo-Polish and Franco-Polish treaties of alliance , declared war on Germany. Despite these declarations of war, the two nations undertook minimal military activity during what became known as the Phoney War . The Soviet invasion of Poland began on 17 September, in accordance with

970-500: A predestined conclusion. It was headed by Nikolai Burdenko , the president of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences , hence the commission is often known as the "Burdenko Commission", who was appointed by Moscow to investigate the incident. Its members included prominent Soviet figures such as the writer Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy , but no foreign personnel were allowed to join the commission. The Burdenko Commission exhumed

1067-488: A resolution of the Polish parliament or Sejm , it bears the hallmarks of a genocide . The order to execute captive members of the Polish officer corps was secretly issued by the Soviet Politburo led by Joseph Stalin . Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland , another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia

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1164-584: A time when the Poles' importance to the Allies, significant in the first years of the war, was beginning to fade. In retrospective review of records, both British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt were increasingly torn between their commitments to their Polish ally and the demands by Stalin and his diplomats. On 24 April 1943, the British government successfully pressured

1261-563: A wedge between Poland, the Western Allies, and the Soviet Union, and reinforcement for the Nazi propaganda line about the horrors of Bolshevism, and American and British subservience to it. After extensive preparation, on 13 April, Reichssender Berlin broadcast to the world that German military forces in the Katyn forest near Smolensk had uncovered "a ditch…28 metres long and 16 metres wide [92 ft by 52 ft], in which

1358-503: Is twinned with: Former twin towns: In March 2022, Biała Podlaska suspended its partnership with the Belarusian city of Brest as a reaction to the Belarusian involvement in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . Historical document Historical documents are original documents that contain important historical information about a person, place, or event and can thus serve as primary sources as important ingredients of

1455-546: Is estimated at 22,000, with a lower limit of confirmed dead of 21,768. According to Soviet documents declassified in 1990, 21,857 Polish internees and prisoners were executed after 3 April 1940: 14,552 prisoners of war (most or all of them from the three camps) and 7,305 prisoners in western parts of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. Of them 4,421 were from Kozelsk, 3,820 from Starobelsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov, and 7,305 from Byelorussian and Ukrainian prisons. The head of

1552-536: Is one that is going to cause us quite a little trouble in the future. The Soviets are undoubtedly going to make it their business to discover as many mass-graves as possible and then blame it on us." The Polish government-in-exile led by Sikorski insisted on bringing the matter to the negotiation table with the Soviets and on opening an investigation by the International Red Cross . On 17 April 1943

1649-474: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (then in union with Poland ). In 1569, Biała Podlaska changed ownership; the new owners were the Radziwiłł family . Under their rule, Biała Podlaska had been growing for two and a half centuries. In 1622, Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł built the fortress and the castle. In 1628, Krzysztof Ciborowicz Wilski established Bialska Academy as a regional center of education (since 1633 it

1746-567: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . The Red Army advanced quickly and met little resistance, as Polish forces facing them were under orders not to engage the Soviets. About 250,000 to 454,700 Polish soldiers and policemen were captured and interned by the Soviet authorities. Most were freed or escaped quickly, but 125,000 were imprisoned in camps run by the NKVD . Of these, 42,400 soldiers, mostly of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity serving in

1843-603: The NKVD (the Soviet secret police), at Stalin 's order in April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv NKVD prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest , where some of the mass graves were first discovered by German Nazi forces in 1943. The massacre is qualified as a crime against humanity , crime against peace , war crime and Communist crime and according to

1940-619: The Russian Partition of Poland. At the end of the 19th century, Biała Podlaska was a large garrison town of the Imperial Russian Army . Near the intersection of Brzeska Street and Aleje Tysiclecia Avenue is a cemetery for soldiers killed during World War I . In 1918, following World War I, Poland regained independence and the town was reunited with Poland. During the Second Polish Republic in

2037-587: The day-to-day lives of ordinary people, indicating what they ate, their interaction with other members of their households and social groups, and their states of mind. It is this information that allows them to try to understand and describe the way society was functioning at any particular time in history . Greek ostraka provide good examples of historical documents from "among the common people ". Many documents that are produced today, such as personal letters, pictures, contracts, newspapers, and medical records, would be considered valuable historical documents in

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2134-416: The future . However most of these will be lost in the future since they are either printed on ordinary paper which has a limited lifespan, or even stored in digital formats, then lost track over time. Some companies and government entities are attempting to increase the number of documents that will survive the passage of time, by taking into account the preservation issues, and either printing documents in

2231-450: The historical methodology . Significant historical documents can be deeds , laws, accounts of battles (often given by the victors or persons sharing their viewpoint), or the exploits of the powerful. Though these documents are of historical interest, they do not detail the daily lives of ordinary people, or the way society functioned. Anthropologists , historians and archeologists generally are more interested in documents that describe

2328-583: The Czech František Hájek , with their countries becoming satellite states of the Soviet Union, were forced to recant their evidence, defending the Soviets and blaming the Germans. The Croatian pathologist Eduard Miloslavić managed to escape to the US. The only civilian invited as a witness was Frank Stroobant, a British citizen deported from Guernsey and camp senior of Ilag VII. The Katyn massacre

2425-574: The German charges. They claimed the Polish prisoners of war had been engaged in construction work west of Smolensk, and consequently were captured and executed by invading German units in August 1941. The Soviet response on 15 April to the initial German broadcast of 13 April, prepared by the Soviet Information Bureau , stated "Polish prisoners-of-war who in 1941 were engaged in construction work west of Smolensk and who...fell into

2522-682: The German-Fascist invaders set up another commission, the Special Commission for Determination and Investigation of the Shooting of Polish Prisoners of War by German-Fascist Invaders in Katyn Forest  [ pl ] (Специальная комиссия по установлению и расследованию обстоятельств расстрела немецко-фашистскими захватчиками в Катынском лесу (близ Смоленска) военнопленных польских офицеров). The commission's name implied

2619-573: The Germans throughout the war. Despite such circumstances, the Polish resistance movement was active in the city. After Germany attacked their Soviet ally in Operation Barbarossa , a German prisoner-of-war camp was set up near Biała Podlaska for Soviet and Polish POWs. In 1942, they were replaced by some 600 French POWs brought from Rawa Ruska , who were soon relocated to a camp in nearby Hola . In 1943, Italian POWs were brought to

2716-612: The Germans. By that time, the Soviets had already completely plundered the PWS aircraft factory, so that nothing but empty buildings remained. Poles expelled by the Germans in 1939–1940 from various places in German-annexed western Poland were deported to the area, while their previous homes were handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy. In March and July 1940, the Germans imprisoned dozens of Poles in

2813-639: The High School No. 2 named after Emilia Plater, the Adam Mickiewicz High School No. 3, High School No. 4 named after Stanisław Staszic, and the Catholic High School named after Cyprian Norwid. News websites hailing from the city include biala24.pl, bialanonstop.pl, bialasiedzieje.pl, slowopodlasia.pl, tygodnikpodlaski.pl, Bialczanin.eu, Radiobiper.info, and Interwizja.edu.pl. Local TV stations include: Among

2910-476: The Jews constituted 64.7% of the total population, or 6,923 out of 10,697 citizens. Four Yiddish newspapers were published locally between the two world wars. The Germans captured Biała Podlaska on 13 September 1939 during the invasion of Poland but withdrew on 26 September. On 10 October 1939, the Soviets handed the town back to the Germans when the line of demarcation was finally set up. Around 600 Jews escaped

3007-581: The Jews who had lived in Biała Podlaska are known to have survived the Holocaust. Most of them left Poland after the war. The parts of the city which were originally the Jewish "quarter" still exist. The Jewish community is commemorated by a memorial erected at the site of the Jewish cemetery, which was destroyed by the Nazis. Another memorial was recently erected by Jewish survivors from the town who now live in

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3104-532: The Katyn affair gives little further insight. In his memoirs, he refers to the 1944 Soviet inquiry into the massacre, which found the Germans responsible, and adds, "belief seems an act of faith." At the beginning of 1944, Ron Jeffery , an agent of British and Polish intelligence in occupied Poland, eluded the Abwehr and travelled to London with a report from Poland to the British government. His efforts were at first highly regarded, but subsequently ignored, which

3201-663: The London-based Polish government-in-exile when it asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross . After the Vistula–Oder offensive where the mass graves fell into Soviet control, the Soviet Union claimed the Nazis had killed the victims, and it continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the killings by

3298-473: The Merkulov-Kruglov report, and Burdenko was likely aware of the cover-up. He reportedly admitted something like that to friends and family shortly before his death in 1946. The Burdenko Commission's conclusions would be consistently cited by Soviet sources until the official admission of guilt by the Soviet government on 13 April 1990. In January 1944, the Soviets also invited a group of more than

3395-659: The NKVD Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees , Pyotr Soprunenko  [ ru ] , a Major-General born near Kiev in the Ukrainian SSR was involved in "selections" of Polish officers to be executed at Katyn and elsewhere. Soprunenko was an NKVD captain in early 1940 and headed the organization, also called the Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs & Internees, from September 1939 to February 1943. In this capacity, he

3492-624: The NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps. Altogether, during the massacre, the NKVD executed 14 Polish generals: Leon Billewicz (ret.), Bronisław Bohatyrewicz (ret.), Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller (ret.), Aleksander Kowalewski  [ pl ] , Henryk Minkiewicz (ret.), Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski , Konstanty Plisowski (ret.), Rudolf Prich (killed in Lviv ), Franciszek Sikorski (ret.), Leonard Skierski (ret.), Piotr Skuratowicz , Mieczysław Smorawiński , and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). Not all of

3589-615: The NKVD had about 40,000 Polish POWs: 8,000–8,500 officers and warrant officers, 6,000–6,500 officers of police, and 25,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were still being held as POWs. In December, a wave of arrests resulted in the imprisonment of additional Polish officers. Ivan Serov reported to Lavrentiy Beria on 3 December that "in all, 1,057 former officers of the Polish Army had been arrested". The 25,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers were assigned to forced labor (road construction, heavy metallurgy). Once at

3686-554: The NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government . An investigation conducted by the office of the prosecutors general of the Soviet Union (1990–1991) and the Russian Federation (1991–2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres, but refused to classify this action as a war crime or as an act of mass murder. The investigation was closed on the grounds that the perpetrators were dead, and since

3783-675: The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary built in 1759, and the historic building Academy of Biała from 1628. Popular museums include the most important Muzeum Południowego Podlasia (Museum of Southern Podlasie, founded in 1924), as well as the Oddział Martyrologiczno-Historyczny (Martyrology and Historic Division, since 1973, in the World War II Gestapo jail at Łomaska 21 Street). Among

3880-685: The Nazi German Reserve Police Battalion 101 , augmented by the Ukrainian Trawnikis , lasted throughout October and November 1942. In total, some 10,800 Jews from around Biała Podlaska and its county were murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp , 125 kilometres (78 mi) away, or massacred on the spot during roundups. Chil Rajchman , a Sonderkommando who survived the Treblinka revolt and

3977-477: The Poles had proof the Soviets were responsible for the massacre. Churchill reportedly stated "The Bolsheviks can be very cruel." According to Raczyński "[Churchill... without committing himself, showed by his manner that he had no doubt of it." In 1947, the Polish Government in exile 1944–1946 report on Katyn was transmitted to Telford Taylor . The Soviet government immediately denied

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4074-498: The Poles to withdraw the request for a Red Cross investigation, and Churchill assured Stalin: "We shall certainly oppose vigorously any 'investigation' by the International Red Cross or any other body in any territory under German authority. Such an investigation would be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism." Unofficial or classified UK documents concluded Soviet guilt was a "near certainty", but

4171-515: The Polish Army, who lived in the territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union , were released in October. The 43,000 soldiers born in western Poland, then under Nazi control, were transferred to the Germans; in turn, the Soviets received 13,575 Polish prisoners from the Germans. Soviet repressions of Polish citizens occurred as well over this period. Since Poland's conscription system required every nonexempt university graduate to become

4268-475: The Polish government issued a statement on this issue, asking for a Red Cross investigation, which was rejected by Stalin, who used the fact that Germans also requested such an investigation as a "proof" of Polish-German conspiracy, and which led to a deterioration of Polish-Soviet relations. According to the Polish diplomat Edward Bernard Raczyński , Raczyński and General Sikorski met privately with Churchill and Alexander Cadogan on 15 April 1943, and told them

4365-529: The Polish–Soviet War, on 1 August 1920, Russians invaded the city, but were quickly repelled by the Poles, and later on they invaded again, before the town was eventually liberated by the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division on 17 August 1920. The last commander of the regiment, lieutenant colonel Wacław Budrewicz, was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets and murdered by them in the 1940 Katyn massacre , in which also multiple Polish teachers and policemen from

4462-527: The Red Army had recaptured Smolensk , around September–October 1943, NKVD forces began a cover-up operation. They destroyed a cemetery the Germans had permitted the Polish Red Cross to build and removed other evidence. Witnesses were "interviewed" and threatened with arrest for collaborating with the Nazis if their testimonies disagreed with the official line. As none of the documents found on

4559-706: The Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of the Great Purge , formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable. In November 2010, hoping to improve relations with Poland, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration condemning Stalin and other Soviet officials for ordering the massacre. In 2021, the Russian Ministry of Culture downgraded the memorial complex at Katyn on its Register of Sites of Cultural Heritage from

4656-402: The Soviet version. Later, Churchill sent a copy of the report to Roosevelt on 13 August 1943. The report deconstructed the Soviet account of the massacre and alluded to the political consequences within a strongly moral framework but recognized there was no viable alternative to the existing policy. No comment by Roosevelt on the O'Malley report has been found. Churchill's own post-war account of

4753-463: The Soviets deemed to be " intelligence agents and gendarmes , spies and saboteurs, former landowners, factory owners and officials". The Polish Army officer class was representative of the multi-ethnic Polish state; the murdered included ethnic Poles, Ukrainians , Belarusians , and 700–900 Polish Jews . The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in April 1943. Stalin severed diplomatic relations with

4850-489: The Soviets were behind the massacre they even included some Allied prisoners of war, among them writer Ferdynand Goetel , a Polish Home Army prisoner from Pawiak . After the war, Goetel escaped with a fake passport due to an arrest warrant issued against him. Jan Emil Skiwski was a collaborator. Józef Mackiewicz has published several texts about the crime. Two of the 12, the Bulgarian Marko Markov and

4947-670: The USA. Two former private prayer houses of the Jewish community are still in existence. The cemetery otherwise stands as a reminder of the hole that was ripped out of Biała Podlaska life by the Holocaust and loss of so many Jews. Apart from Israel , Melbourne in Australia has the largest number of Jewish survivors from Biała Podlaska - all now very aged. Popular points of interest include the Old Town, as well as St. Anne's Church built in 1572, St. Anthony's Church from 1672 to 1684, Church of

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5044-558: The Wola district at an airfield, the train station, and elsewhere. Hundreds were forced to pave roads, drain ditches, construct sewage lines and build barracks. Many Jewish women worked in the Nazi farms. In March 1942 the ghetto had 8,400 inmates. After the launch of Operation Reinhard on 6 June 1942– the code name for the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in occupied Poland – the Jews were told to prepare for "resettlement". Only workers from

5141-466: The alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than moral issues; thus the official version supported the Soviets, up to censoring any contradictory accounts. Churchill asked Owen O'Malley to investigate the issue, but in a note to the Foreign Secretary he noted: "All this is merely to ascertain the facts, because we should none of us ever speak a word about it." O'Malley pointed out several inconsistencies and near impossibilities in

5238-423: The auditorium of the Pope John II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska and in amphitheater in Radziwiłł park. There are also several cultural centers in the city including Bialskie Centrum Kultury, Scena , Piast , and Eureka . The city is a major transport hub: national road 2 , which is also the european route E30 , two voivodeship roads (DW811, DW812) and national railway line 2, pass through

5335-523: The bodies of 3,000 Polish officers were piled up in 12 layers". The broadcast went on to charge the Soviets with carrying out the massacre in 1940. The Germans brought in a European Red Cross committee called the Katyn Commission , comprising 12 forensic experts and their staff, from occupied Belgium , Bulgaria , Croatia , Denmark , Finland , Vichy France , Hungary , Italy , the occupied Netherlands , Romania , Switzerland , and occupied Bohemia and Moravia . The Germans were so intent on proving

5432-441: The bodies, rejected the 1943 German findings the Poles were shot by the Soviet army, assigned the guilt to the Nazis, and concluded all the shootings were done by German occupation forces in late 1941. It is uncertain how many members of the commission were misled by the falsified reports and evidence, and how many actually suspected the truth. Cienciala and Materski note the commission had no choice but to issue findings in line with

5529-424: The camps, from October 1939 to February 1940, the Poles were subjected to lengthy interrogations and constant political pressure by NKVD officers, such as Vasily Zarubin . The prisoners assumed they would be released soon, but the interviews were in effect a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. According to NKVD reports, if a prisoner could not be induced to adopt a pro-Soviet attitude, he

5626-402: The city and placed in a local subcamp of the Stalag 366 POW camp. The Germans subjected the Italians to mass starvation, epidemics, harassment and beatings, and over 400 Italians died in the camp. Poles provided food to starving Italians, despite the threat of being shot on sight by German guards, for both Italians and Poles for such attempts, with confirmed cases of such killings. There was also

5723-414: The city, and alumni of local schools were murdered. World War II halted the town's development because of Nazi and Soviet repression . The Germans captured Biała Podlaska on 13 September 1939, but withdrew on 26 September to allow the Soviets to a station in the town. But, on 10 October 1939, in accordance with the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , the Soviets departed and the town was reoccupied by

5820-493: The dead had dates later than April 1940, the Soviet secret police planted false evidence to place the apparent time of the massacre in mid-1941, when the German military had controlled the area. NKVD operatives Vsevolod Merkulov and Sergei Kruglov issued a preliminary report, dated 10–11 January 1944, that concluded the Polish officers were shot by German soldiers. In January 1944, the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by

5917-432: The executed were ethnic Poles, because the Second Polish Republic was a multiethnic state, and its officer corps included Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Jews. It is estimated about 8% of the Katyn massacre victims were Polish Jews . 395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter, among them Stanisław Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski . They were taken to the Yukhnov camp or Pavlishtchev Bor and then to Gryazovets. Up to 99% of

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6014-470: The executioners had difficulty killing so many people in one night. The following transports held no more than 250 people. The executions were usually performed with German-made .25 ACP Walther Model 2 pistols supplied by Moscow, but Soviet-made 7.62×38mmR Nagant M1895 revolvers were also used. The executioners used German weapons rather than the standard Soviet revolvers, as the latter were said to offer too much recoil, which made shooting painful after

6111-437: The fate of the Polish prisoners was raised soon after Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. The Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet government signed the Sikorski–Mayski agreement , which announced the willingness of both to fight together against Nazi Germany and for a Polish army to be formed on Soviet territory. The Polish general Władysław Anders began organizing this army, and soon he requested information about

6208-416: The first dozen executions. Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin , chief executioner for the NKVD, is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, some as young as 18, from the Ostashkov camp at Kalinin prison, over 28 days in April 1940. After the condemned individual's personal information was checked and approved, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with stacks of sandbags along

6305-465: The forced labour camps possessing labour permits were to be exempt from the deportation. On 10 June 1942, some 3,000 Jews, including women with children, were assembled in the synagogue courtyard. Many Jews fled to the forests. The assembled Jews were led by the German police to the train station. The next day the prisoners were packed into deportation trains and sent to Sobibór extermination camp . All were gassed. In September 1942, some 3,000 Jews from

6402-411: The graves were in the forest of Goat Hill near Katyn. He passed the reports to his superiors (sources vary on when exactly the Germans became aware of the graves – from "late 1942" to January–February 1943, and when the German top decision makers in Berlin received those reports [as early as 1 March or as late as 4 April]). Joseph Goebbels saw this discovery as an excellent tool to drive

6499-424: The group of 12,000 Poles sent to Dalstroy camp (near Kolyma ) in 1940–1941, mostly POWs, only 583 men survived; they were released in 1942 to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East . According to Tadeusz Piotrowski , "during the war and after 1944, 570,387 Polish citizens had been subjected to some form of Soviet political repression ". As early as 19 September, the head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria , ordered

6596-425: The hands of the German-Fascist hangmen". In response to Polish demands, Stalin accused the Polish government of collaborating with Nazi Germany and broke off diplomatic relations with it. The Soviet Union also started a campaign to get the Western Allies to recognize the pro-Soviet government-in-exile of the Union of Polish Patriots led by Wanda Wasilewska . Having retaken the Katyn area almost immediately after

6693-409: The historic features in the central Polish old town of the city. From 1975 to 1999 Biała Podlaska was a capital of the voivodeship, later it again became a city county, as before 1975. The first mention of Jewish settlement in Biała Podlaska dates from 1621, when 30 Jewish families were granted rights of residence there. By 1841, there were 2,200 Jews of a total population of 3,588 in the town. In 1897,

6790-437: The interwar period, Biała Podlaska was growing fast. The town was the seat of the Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów (PWS), an important aircraft factory. There was also a garrison of the 34th infantry regiment of the Polish Armed Forces . The regiment, formed in 1919, fought successfully in the Polish–Soviet War , and also fought against Germans and Soviets during the invasion of Poland , which started World War II in 1939. During

6887-491: The local art galleries are the Galeria Podlaska , Galeria Ulica Krzywa (Crooked Street Gallery), Bialskie Centrum Kultury (the Biała Podlaska Cultural Center), and Galeria Autorska Jakusza Maksymiuka (Janusz Maksymiuk's Gallery). There are two popular cinemas in Biała Podlaska including Novekino Merkury - 1 hall, 282 seats, digital cinema 3D, as well as Cinema 3D - multiplex situated in Rywal Shopping Center; 4 halls; digital cinema 3D, 4K (Ultra HD). Plays are staged in

6984-568: The local prison, and then massacred them in the nearby Grabarka forest. Over 40 Polish teachers were arrested in the town on 24 June 1940, imprisoned in Lublin and then deported to concentration camps , as part of the AB-Aktion . On 5 July 1940 the Germans carried out another massacre of Poles in Grabarka, whom they previously imprisoned in the town. Further massacres of Poles were carried out by

7081-527: The local radio stations are: National radio transmissions are broadcast through the Łosice transmitter . They include: Broadcast directly from Biała Podlaska include: Among the newspapers published locally are: Sport facilities in Biała Podlaska include 4 stadiums, 3 swimming pools, and a popular tennis court. Recreation facilities include also public spaces such as Radziwiłł Park and promenade at Plac Wolności (the Freedom Square). Biała Podlaska

7178-653: The locals about a mass grave of Polish soldiers at Kozelsk near Katyn; finding one of the graves, they reported it to the Polish Underground State . The discovery was not seen as important, as nobody thought the discovered grave could contain so many victims. In early 1943, Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff , a German officer serving as the intelligence liaison between the Wehrmacht 's Army Group Centre and Abwehr , received reports about mass graves of Polish military officers. These reports stated

7275-502: The longest runways in Poland. The airport was used for military purposes, however since 2020 the airport is closed. As of 2022, the city mayor of Biała Podlaska is Michał Litwiniuk. There are about a dozen primary schools in the city. The secondary schools include six public schools and one Catholic Secondary School named after Cyprian Norwid. Among the local secondary schools are the High School No. 1 named after Józef Ignacy Kraszewski,

7372-449: The massacre, according to the historian Gerhard Weinberg , was that Stalin wanted to deprive a potential future Polish military of a large portion of its talent. The Soviet leadership, and Stalin in particular, viewed the Polish prisoners as a "problem" as they might resist being under Soviet rule. Therefore, they decided the prisoners inside the "special camps" were to be shot as "avowed enemies of Soviet authority". The number of victims

7469-564: The missing Polish officers. During a personal meeting, Stalin assured him and Władysław Sikorski , the Polish Prime Minister, all the Poles were freed, and not all could be accounted because the Soviets "lost track" of them in Manchuria . Józef Czapski investigated the fate of Polish officers between 1941 and 1942. In 1942, with the territory around Smolensk under German occupation, captive Polish railroad workers heard from

7566-433: The neighbouring towns of Janów and Konstantynów were brought into Biała Podlaska Ghetto. The overcrowding became desperate. The Jews sensed that the ghetto was slated for liquidation. Many escaped to the forests; others prepared hiding places in the basements. On 6 October 1942, the Germans deported about 1,200 Jews from the local labour camps to Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto . The subsequent "deportation actions" conducted by

7663-694: The number was 6,549 out of 13,090 inhabitants. In the 19th century, the chasidic movement established strong roots in Biała Podlaska. A descendant of the Yid Hakodosh of Przysucha formed the Biala chasidic court , which survives to this day with communities in London , and cities in the United States and Israel. The chasidim of Kotsk also had a large presence in Biała Podlaska, some of whom later became Gerrer chasidim . In sovereign Poland by 1931,

7760-551: The public May Day holiday. Some 3,000 to 4,000 Polish inmates of Ukrainian prisons and those from Belarus prisons were probably buried in Bykivnia and in Kurapaty respectively, about 50 women including two sisters, Klara Auerbach-Margules and Stella Menkes, among them. Lieutenant Janina Lewandowska , daughter of Gen. Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki , was the only woman POW executed during the massacre at Katyn. The question about

7857-654: The remaining prisoners were killed. People from the Kozelsk camp were executed in Katyn Forest; people from the Starobelsk camp were killed in the inner NKVD prison of Kharkiv and the bodies were buried near the village of Piatykhatky ; and police officers from the Ostashkov camp were killed in the internal NKVD prison of Kalinin ( Tver ) and buried in Mednoye . All three burial sites had already been secret cemeteries of

7954-504: The rough insulation in the execution cell, the pistol gunshots were masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night. Some post-1991 revelations suggest prisoners were also executed in the same manner at the NKVD headquarters in Smolensk , though judging by the way the corpses were stacked, some captives may have been shot while standing on the edge of the mass graves. This procedure went on every night, except for

8051-854: The secret police to create the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees to manage Polish prisoners. The NKVD took custody of Polish prisoners from the Red Army, and proceeded to organise a network of reception centres and transit camps, and to arrange rail transport to prisoner-of-war camps in the western USSR. The largest camps were at Kozelsk ( Optina Monastery ), Ostashkov ( Stolobny Island on Lake Seliger near Ostashkov), and Starobilsk . Other camps were at Jukhnovo (rail station Babynino ), Yuzhe (Talitsy), rail station Tyotkino (90 kilometres (56 mi) from Putyvl ), Kozelshchyna , Oranki, Vologda (rail station Zaonikeevo ), and Gryazovets . Kozelsk and Starobelsk were used mainly for military officers, while Ostashkov

8148-633: The suspicion the conclusions were what the State Department wanted to hear. The journalists were less impressed and not convinced by the staged Soviet demonstration. An example of Soviet propaganda spread by some Western Communists is Alter Brody's monograph Behind the Polish-Soviet Break (with an introduction by Corliss Lamont ). The growing Polish-Soviet tension was beginning to strain Western-Soviet relations at

8245-549: The town during the Soviet departure. The Germans formed a Judenrat in November 1939, which set up a public kitchen and a Jewish infirmary. By the end of the year, the Nazis began to impose discriminatory restrictions against the Jews. On 1 December 1939, they decreed that all Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David . Jews were ordered to move into an open-type ghetto along the Grabanów, Janowa, Prosta and Przechodnia streets, and

8342-488: The town. Biała Podlaska has its own bus lines. The organizer of the communication is the Management of Urban Transport (Polish: ZKM - Zarząd Komunikacji Miejskiej). Buses operate 8 lines marked with letters from "A" to "H" (frequency approx. 30 min). On the basis of an agreement between the neighboring villages, buses carry courses outside the administrative boundaries of the city. The Biała Podlaska Airport has one of

8439-461: The transit ghetto in Międzyrzec was liquidated. All its inmates were deported to Majdanek and Treblinka , where they were murdered in the gas chambers . The Nazis left a small group of 300 Jewish slave labourers in Biała Podlaska to clean up the decaying ghetto area. In May 1944, the surviving workers were murdered at Majdanek. Biała Podlaska was captured by the Red Army on 26 July 1944. Only 300 of

8536-712: The victims of the Great Purge of 1937–1938. Later, recreational areas of NKVD/KGB were established there. Detailed information on the executions in the Kalinin NKVD prison was provided during a hearing by Dmitry Tokarev, former head of the Board of the District NKVD in Kalinin. According to Tokarev, the shooting started in the evening and ended at dawn. The first transport, on 4 April 1940, carried 390 people, and

8633-417: The walls, and a heavy, felt-lined door. The victim was told to kneel in the middle of the cell and was then approached from behind by the executioner and immediately shot in the back of the head or neck. The body was carried out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside and subjected to the same treatment. In addition to muffling by

8730-541: The war, later testified that he witnessed a transport of 6,000 Jews from Biała Podlaska arrive at Treblinka. When the sealed doors were opened, 90 percent of prisoners – men, women, and children – were already dead inside. Their bodies were thrown into smouldering mass grave at the "Lazaret". The remaining Jews of Biała Podlaska were sent to a transit point at the Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto for deportations to death camps. In July 1943

8827-411: The witnesses; statements of the witnesses obviously being given as a result of rote memorization; and that "the show was put on for the benefit of the correspondents." Nevertheless, Melby, at the time, felt on balance the Soviet case was convincing. Harriman's report reached the same conclusion and after the war both were asked to explain why their conclusions seemed to be at odds with their findings, with

8924-602: Was a branch of the Jagiellonian University , then called Kraków Academy). It was one of the best schools in Poland in that time (about 1650–1700). During this time, many churches were erected, as was a hospital. The prosperity period ended with the Swedish invasion in 1655. Then Biała Podlaska was attacked by Cossacks and Rákóczi armies. The town was significantly destroyed; however, thanks to Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł and his wife Katarzyna Sobieska , it

9021-505: Was beneficial to Nazi Germany, which used it to discredit the Soviet Union. On 14 April 1943, Goebbels wrote in his diary : "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, killed by the GPU , for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand style. We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot where they were found. Their reports now reaching us from ahead are gruesome. The Führer has also given permission for us to hand out

9118-453: Was declared a "hardened and uncompromising enemy of Soviet authority". On 5 March 1940, pursuant to a note to Stalin from Beria, six members of the Soviet Politburo – Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov , Lazar Kaganovich , Kliment Voroshilov , Anastas Mikoyan , and Mikhail Kalinin – signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus. The reason for

9215-577: Was rebuilt. In 1670, Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł gives Biała Podlaska town rights and the coat of arms, which depicts archangel Michael standing on a dragon. In 1720, Anna Katarzyna Radziwiłłowa began building the tower and the gate - both buildings exist to this day and are the most interesting remains of the castle and palace. In the 18th century, the city and the fortress were times destroyed many times in warfare and rebuilt. The last heir, Dominik Hieronim Radziwiłł , died on 11 November 1813 in France , as

9312-624: Was reportedly involved in the planning and operational control of the executions, in following with Beria's and Merkulov's orders. Those who died at Katyn included soldiers (an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 85 privates, 3,420 non-commissioned officers , and seven chaplains), 200 pilots, government representatives and royalty (a prince, 43 officials), and civilians (three landowners, 131 refugees, 20 university professors, 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists). In all,

9409-410: Was used mainly for Polish Scouting , gendarmes , police officers, and prison officers. Some prisoners were members of other groups of Polish intelligentsia, such as priests, landowners, and law personnel. The approximate distribution of men throughout the camps was as follows: Kozelsk, 5000; Ostashkov, 6570; and Starobelsk, 4000. They totalled 15,570 men. According to a report from 19 November 1939,

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