On Monday, April 7, 2025, a conference titled “Victims of the Katyn massacre from the Oświęcim region” was held at the seat of The Remembrance Museum of the Land of Oświęcim Residents (MPMZO). The event, organized to mark the 85th anniversary of the tragic events of spring of 1940, was dedicated to the memory of Polish officers, policemen, and members of the intelligentsia murdered by the NKVD by orders of the highest authorities of the Soviet Union. Among the victims there were also residents and individuals associated with the Oświęcim region.
The conference gathered a great number of guests — representatives of local council authorities, the District Police Headquarters, cultural institutions, the local community, school youth and the family of Michał Ptaszkowski – a policeman from Oświęcim, murdered in Miednoje. Four lectures were heard, highlighting the Katyn massacre both in a broad historical context and through a prism of the fates of individuals associated with the Oświęcim region.
The first speaker was dr hab. Andrzej Synowiec, Professor at Jagiellonian University. In his lecture titled “”Katyn Massacre – The destruction of Polish elites” he recalled the background to the decision of March 5, 1940, and its tragic consequences. He presented the profiles of selected victims, showing how broad segments of society were affected by this crime. The speech also touched upon the conditions in Soviet camps, efforts to uncover the fate of the missing officers, the years of covering up the crime, and finally the breakthrough in the late 1990s, when Mikhail Gorbachev, the first president of the Soviet Union, officially acknowledged the USSR’s responsibility.
Next, PhD Dominik Abłamowicz from Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Katowice delivered a presentation titled “Polish Exhumation Works in Katyn.” He shared his personal memories from participating in research conducted at the crime site during the 1990s. His narrative highlighted both difficulties of preliminary excavation and exhumation work and its profound significance for documenting historical truth.
The third speaker was PhD. Marcin Krzek-Lubowiecki from the Institute of National Remembrance in Kraków, author of the lecture “Elites of the Oświęcim Region – Victims of the Katyn Massacre”. He presented the profiles of selected representatives of local elites – people from the Oświęcim region or associated with it – whose lives were cut short by the Katyn massacre. The local dimension of this tragedy deeply moved the conference participants.
Finally, PhD. Jarosław Ptaszkowski – representative of the Katyn Families Association spoke. His personal recollection of the fate of his relative- Michał Ptaszkowski, an Oświęcim policeman murdered in Miednoje, became a symbolic and moving conclusion to the conference.
The event was accompanied by reflections on the importance of memory and the need to preserve it. In this context, the participants were reminded of the Oak of Remembrance initiative, in which school students from the Oświęcim region planted trees dedicated to individual victims of the Katyn crime.
We would like to thank all speakers and participants for their presence and joint commemoration of the victims of the Katyn massacre. We believe that through initiatives like this, we help to restore the rightful place of those who, for many years, were deliberately erased from history.
