The Katyn Order

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  At six o’clock, just as the workers were about to leave, Herr Kruger summoned me to his office. We spoke for a few moments about the progress of the library, then he asked me what Frank and I had talked about. I repeated what Frank had told me about my work in the library. He asked if Frank had mentioned his future plans for the ghetto. I said that he had not, and as I said this I noticed that Kruger’s face was pale and his hand trembled. He stared at me for several moments, then stood up and bid me good night.

  19 October 1941

  As I was about to leave my apartment this morning, I noticed an envelope which had apparently been slid under the door sometime during the night. Inside was a key with the marking “L-3” embossed on the head. I was dumbfounded. Who could have left it? What could it possibly mean? L-3 is a designation for a room on the lower level of the library. I hesitated for a long time, wondering what to do, my mind conjuring up all manner of possibilities, none of which made any sense. Finally, I removed one of my shoes, slipped the key inside and left for work.

  Just as he had last night, Herr Kruger summoned me to his office at six o’clock, as everyone was leaving. He said that he had advised the night shift guards that I would be working a few hours later this evening. He looked at me for a moment as though trying to decide what to say next. Then he told me that the guards take a forty-five minute dinner break at seven o’clock, up on the third floor.

  A few minutes after seven, I sat at my table in the Reading Room thinking about the inexplicable conversation with Kruger. I hesitated for several more minutes, then got up, walked across the large room to the door at the far end of the counter and descended the service stairs to the lower level. I located room L-3, unlocked it and stepped inside.

  The room was filled with shelves containing dozens of cardboard file boxes. In the center of the room, a small table held one box marked with the word “Podgorze,” which is the section of the city where the ghetto has been constructed.

  I opened the box. As I went through the documents inside I was astounded. They included detailed plans for the construction of the ghetto, calculations of the number of people that could be crammed into various types of houses and apartments, and predictions of death rates due to starvation and disease. My hands were shaking as I removed document after document, each filled with gruesome details of the carefully planned imprisonment and extermination of Krakow’s Jews. And everywhere I found the signature of Hans Frank.

  I glanced at my watch. It was seven thirty. I went through the documents a second time, removing several I judged to be most important and replaced the lid on the box. Scarcely able to breathe, I left the room, locked it and went home. In my apartment, I hid the documents beneath the floorboards of the closet where I keep this journal.

  12 January 1942

  I have been assigned “night duty” every other week since last October. There is always a single cardboard file box on the table in room L-3. The boxes include drawings, specifications and detailed work plans for concentration camps all over Poland. There are memos from Frank to various officials in Berlin, with attached reports written by Frank’s subordinates, describing in academic detail the gradual starvation of the Polish population. There are reports itemizing the thousands of tons of agricultural production diverted to Germany each month and others documenting the tens of thousands of Jews arriving in Poland, transported from Western Europe in trucks and railroad box cars. It is so incomprehensible that I sometimes wonder if this is really happening or if we are all caught in some cruel, demented dream.

  Shortly after my “night duties” began I realized what had to be done with documents I’d smuggled out of the library. The channel has been resumed. Many are taking risks to preserve what little is left of our humanity. May God grant that our efforts are not in vain.

  18 January 1942

  Frank summoned me to his office in Wawel Castle today. This was the first time I have been there since I was assigned to work in the library seventeen months ago. I was terrified. Had he found out about the documents I’d been smuggling? Had he discovered the channel?

  When I was shown into the office, Frank ordered me to sit and stood over me waving a sheaf of papers. “This is proof of their madness!” he shouted, dropping the papers on a table in front of me. I did not reach for them. I have learned not to anticipate anything where Frank is concerned.

  He paced around the office, clearly agitated, explaining that a conference had been held at a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. General Heydrich had presided. Finally realizing this had nothing to do with me, my fear subsided a bit and I was able to concentrate on what he was saying.

  Frank’s voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned close to me. He said they had discussed a “final solution” at the conference and intended to gas all of the Jews. He asked if I could imagine it—gassing all of them. He wondered out loud how it could be possible, how it would be organized. His eyes were wide, and he stared at me for a long time, as though he were trying to envision the event. Then he abruptly snatched up the papers and waved his hand, indicating that I was dismissed.

  As I stood to leave he said a remarkable thing: “I did not attend. I sent Colonel Buhler instead. Remember that, Dr. Banach.”

  1 June 1942

  The last five months at the library have been uneventful. Our work has progressed steadily, and Herr Kruger seems pleased. I had not seen Frank since January, then today I was summoned to his office. After inquiring about the state of the library, he informed me that he will soon be leaving for a visit to Germany to deliver a message directly to the people. He will be giving a series of public lectures, he said, emphasizing the importance of an independent judiciary within a totalitarian system and promoting the idea that a “police state” can never be tolerated. He leaned across the desk, looked me directly in the eye, and said, “This is what you and I have always believed, Dr. Banach,” as though we were still colleagues.

  I was frightened by the intensity of his gaze, and all I could do was nod in agreement. He waited, as though expecting me to say something that would validate his intentions. Over the many months since my return to Krakow I have realized that Frank seems to be concerned about what I think of him. It is as though he needs someone to talk to, someone who reminds him of his former life before the madness consumed him. His comments about fighting for the “right of reprieve” for those he had arrested in the AB Aktion, about protecting the Jews from Himmler, about not attending the Wannsee conference, all of it is some attempt to make me think he is above all the brutality and murder. Yet, the hundreds of documents in room L-3 tell a very different story.

  As he continued to stare at me, I finally mustered the courage to ask if he thought it wise to lecture on that subject at this time in Germany.

  On his desk, Frank keeps a framed photograph of himself standing next to Adolf Hitler. He picked up the photo and looked at it closely, as though trying to make out some small detail. Then he set it down and, with a wave of his hand, dismissed me.

  21 August 1942

  Late this evening Frank called me to his office unexpectedly. He was sitting at his desk in his shirtsleeves, his tie undone. There was a bottle of schnapps on the desk. He poured himself a drink, swallowed it in one gulp and leaned forward. His eyes wandered about the room. He mumbled about the Fuhrer stripping him of his party offices as he rolled the empty glass between his thumb and forefinger.

  “The lectures in Germany . . .” he started to say; then his voice trailed off. He slumped in the chair and was silent for a long time.

  Then he abruptly shoved the chair back and stood up, ramrod straight. He jabbed a finger in the air and screamed, “That fucking Himmler!” He paced around the room, whispering something to himself, then stopped next to my chair, looked down at me and said that he was to remain as Governor of Poland. He asked what I thought of that but continued on without waiting for an answer. He said that he will have no power in the party but will remain as governor of Germany’s largest occ
upied territory. “Who has ever heard of such madness?” he said.

  I believe Frank is losing his mind.

  28 November 1942

  It has been three months since my last entry. On most days I am too tired to write. Life has dragged on, one dreary day after another. “Night duty” continues, and the channel remains intact. I have been assured that the documents I am risking my life (such as it is) to smuggle from the library are being passed on, but the brutal oppression of the citizens of Poland continues. Deportations from the Krakow ghetto have begun, and I have heard rumors that as many as fifteen thousand Jews have already been sent “to the east.” No one knows where they are really going, but my heart sinks when I remember Frank telling me about the “final solution.” How can this madness continue? Is it possible that the rest of the world doesn’t know? Or don’t they care?

  Frank came into the library early this morning. I had not seen him since that day in August when he had been stripped of his party offices. But today he was in a jovial and expansive mood, talking rapidly about how well the war effort is going, how the Russians will soon be defeated. We sat at a table in the Reading Room, and he pulled his chair close. He whispered that he had a visitor recently, a Russian visitor.

  I didn’t know what to say so I remained silent, knowing this was generally the best course of action when Frank was in a talkative mood. He continued whispering even though there was no one else nearby. He said that his Russian visitor had brought him a gift as a token of his friendship. The Russian had asked for his protection when the Bolshevik empire collapses under the might of the Wehrmacht.

  14 April 1943

  Another five months have passed since my last writing. I fear that this journal has lapsed into tedium, but such is my life. I continue to work in the library six days a week, with “night duty” as usual. The rest of the time, I sleep. My friend Jerzy Jastremski and his wife continue to invite me to supper at their apartment, but I usually decline. I am too tired to be a good conversationalist. And I have developed a hacking cough. Jerzy wants me to see a doctor (it is allowed for workers in the library), but I fear being sent to the hospital. I remember the “hospital” at Sachsenhausen, from which no one ever returned.

  Frank visited the library this evening. I was gathering up my things to leave when he motioned for me to accompany him as he walked down one of the corridors. I followed him, waiting as always for him to initiate the conversation. After several minutes he stopped and said that the German Wehrmacht made a discovery in Russia a few days ago. It was a mass grave in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. He said the Russians had murdered more than four thousand Polish army officers back in 1940. They were shot in the head and dumped in a ditch. Frank said that Stalin is blaming Germany, but it was the Russians who committed the murders.

  The news was like a blow to the stomach. I could barely breathe as I thought of the many Polish officers I knew, some of them sons of my closest friends, fine young men in the prime of their lives and professional careers. Is this what happened to them? Were they put down like dogs and left to rot in a ditch? I looked away and blinked several times, trying to clear the tears from my eyes.

  Frank, of course, was oblivious to my discomfort. He said that he had known about the murders for some time. He asked if I recalled his visitor last November. Thanks to this visitor and the gift he brought, Frank said, he has proof that it was the Russians who committed this despicable act. He said that proof—solid evidence—was always useful.

  15 January 1945

  I return to the journal now after almost two years because something happened today that may actually provide meaning for my continued existence. For the last two years I have slogged through life, merely staying alive on the slim hope that Beata and Adam have managed to survive. And so I have kept on, one day after another.

  Today I discovered the “solid evidence” Hans Frank boasted about back in April of 1943. It is a carbon copy of a single document authorizing the massacre in the Katyn Forest! I found it neatly folded in a non-descript envelope intermixed with dozens of other envelopes and file folders in the final box of documents left on the table in room L-3.

  I was just in time. The Nazi occupiers are cleaning out everything: their headquarters at Wawel Castle, their personal homes and apartments, even the storage rooms at the library. The streets of Krakow are clogged with all manner of German vehicles piled high with furniture, silverware, paintings and rolls of carpets—rats hoarding their booty before jumping ship as the Red Army closes in. But what is to become of us?

  16 January 1945

  The Nazis are gone—just like that, Hans Frank among them—in a frenzied exodus from the city. After more than five years, the streets of Krakow are now devoid of the black uniforms of the SS and the green uniforms of the Feldgendarmes. It will be several days, I’m told, before the khaki uniforms of the Red Army and NKVD fill these same streets. I will not be here to see it.

  When I removed that document from that final box in room L-3, I instantly knew that this was what Frank had alluded to—the proof he had received from his Russian visitor.

  And I knew why I had survived. I must make sure this piece of evidence is shown to the people of the world, that they may see the true nature of Stalin and his henchmen—barbarians every bit as evil as the Nazis they have just defeated. Perhaps this damning evidence, exposed in the court of world opinion, will convince the Americans and British to stand up to Stalin and deny his ruthless ambitions for Poland.

  I have translated the document. It took more than two hours, and when I finished I was shaking so badly I dropped the thin piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up and read it a second time, scarcely able to believe that such a thing would ever be put on paper.

  The translation of the entire document is too long to include in this journal, but this is the essence of its contents:

  On 5 March, 1940, at the request of NKVD Commissar Lavrenty Beria, an order was signed by Joseph Stalin and every other member of the Soviet Politburo, authorizing the execution of twenty-seven thousand Polish “nationalists and counterrevolutionaries.” The various groups of Poles and their places of execution were itemized—including the four thousand officers of the Polish army whose graves were discovered by the Germans in the Katyn Forest.

  17 January 1945

  I need worry no longer about the safety of my beloved Beata. Before departing yesterday, Herr Kruger did me one last service and told me the truth. Beata died more than two years ago at the concentration camp at Dachau. Though hearing of her death ripped my soul apart, I was not surprised. I realize that all of Frank’s comments about Beata returning were designed to keep me in a state of perpetual fear and to prevent me from communicating with anyone. I only thank the Lord that she is at peace. I asked Herr Kruger about the whereabouts of my nephew, Adam, but he was not able to furnish any information.

  Now, I have but one last thing for which to live. This will be my final entry of the journal. I have been up all night, and I know what I must do. The copy of Stalin’s order authorizing the massacre in the Katyn Forest must not fall into Russian hands.

  To whoever reads this journal: find Adam Nowak and tell him that we shall never be pathetic pawns on the perilous chessboard of the NKVD.

  Ludwik Banach

  Professor of Law, Jagiellonian University

  Member, Polish Bar Association

  Author’s Note

  The incident that has become known as the Katyn Massacre was, without a doubt, one of the most heinous war crimes ever committed. More than twenty thousand Polish Army officers and civilians were secretly murdered by the Soviet NKVD during April and May of 1940. The murders were actually carried out at several different sites in Russia.

  In addition to the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, where the graves of more than four thousand Polish officers were discovered, at least three thousand persons were murdered at a secret camp near Starobelsk, six thousand at a camp near Ostashkov, and as many as fourteen thous
and at other places of detention. In addition to army officers, the victims included chaplains, university professors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, teachers, writers and journalists.

  This unprecedented crime was initially discovered by the German Wehrmacht as they advanced through Russia in April 1943. The Soviet Government denied any knowledge of the incident and claimed that the murders had been committed by the Germans.

  The Polish Government-in-Exile, and in particular Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski, had been pressing the Soviet Government for years about the apparent disappearance of Poland’s army officers. The discovery of the graves in 1943 heightened the controversy and eventually led to Joseph Stalin’s decision to break off diplomatic relations with Poland. On 4 July 1943, Prime Minister Sikorski was killed in an airplane crash seconds after takeoff from an airfield in Gibraltar. The incident has never been completely explained.

  The controversy over the Katyn Massacre continued until 13 April 1990, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev publicly acknowledged the Soviet Union’s responsibility for the murders. On 14 October 1992, fifty-two years after the secret murders were committed, the Soviet Government finally produced the order of 5 March 1940, which authorized the execution of more than twenty-seven thousand Polish “nationalists and counterrevolutionaries,” including the Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. The order was drafted by the Commissar of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, and was signed by Joseph Stalin, along with every member of the Soviet Politburo.