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Speaking in Kraków on the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of the Katyn Massacre, Duda laid a wreath at the Katyn Cross and paid tribute to over 22,000 Polish officers executed by the Soviet NKVD in 1940.
"It was genocide – a premeditated extermination of a vital part of Poland’s elite," Duda said.
"They [Soviet Russia ed.] managed to kill them, but never managed to erase the memory of their heroic stance from our nation’s consciousness."
The president condemned both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for attempting to destroy the Polish state, quoting Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov’s reference to Poland as a "bastard of the Treaty of Versailles."
Duda also recalled the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk that killed President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others en route to a Katyn commemoration, calling it a further sacrifice that reinforced Poland’s duty to remember.
"Glory to the heroes, eternal memory to the fallen, and eternal shame to the perpetrators," he concluded.
Ceremonies were held across the country, with central events in Warsaw attended by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Officials from the Institute of National Remembrance emphasised that the victims included teachers, doctors and scholars – the backbone of the Second Polish Republic.
Dr Filip Musiał of the Kraków branch of the institute noted that the massacre deprived Poland of a generation of leaders, calling the victims "representatives of a lost Republic."
The Katyn massacre was ordered on 5 March 1940 by the Soviet Politburo, resulting in the execution of thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals by the NKVD secret police.
Officials have said that the root cause of that decision was a secret agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
According to historians, that agreement opened the door to those two countries invading Poland in 1939 and paved the way to the horrors of World War II.
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, thousands of Polish officers were deported to camps in the Soviet Union.
Some 22,000 Polish prisoners of war and intellectuals were killed in the spring of 1940 on orders from top Soviet authorities in what is known as the Katyn Massacre.
The Polish parliament has declared 2025 the Year of Polish Heroes from Katyn, Kharkiv, Mednoye, Bykivnia, and other sites.
(ał)
Source: IAR, PAP