Surviving Katyn

Committed in utmost secrecy in April–May 1940 by the NKVD under Joseph Stalin’s direct orders, the Katyn massacre was for nearly fifty years falsely portrayed by the Soviet regime as a Nazi atrocity, a narrative unchallenged by Western governments wary of angering a powerful wartime ally and Cold War adversary. Surviving Katyn examines the decades-long pursuit of truth, focusing on those most affected—the few survivors of the massacre and the Polish wartime forensic investigators—whose relentless quest to uncover the facts, in the face of an inscrutable, ruthless enemy, came at immense personal cost.