Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Katyn Massacre

“Kozielsk, 27 I 1940

Dear,

Until now I have not received a reply to my letters. I ask you to reply immediately. For the first time by telegraph.

I am healthy and all is well with me, but I am sad and miss you and the children.

Jozef Jelonek.”

These words were written in January 1940 to his wife Lucja by police officer Jozef Jelonek, who was imprisoned by the Soviets in Kozelsk. This showed that Jozef did not receive correspondence sent to him by his family. He never saw his wife and children again. Like other Polish prisoners of war from Kozelsk, Jozef Jelonek was murdered in Katyn in the spring of 1940, while his family was deported to the Kazakh SSR on April 13, 1940.

Today is the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre.

Let us therefore REMEMBER the 22,000 citizens, the elite of the Polish nation, murdered by the Soviets and buried in nameless mass graves.

Let us also REMEMBER the Polish families deported deep into the Soviet Union on April 13, 1940 and during other deportations.

The archival materials were donated to the Archives of the Documentation Center for Deportations, Expulsions and Resettlement of UKEN by Jerzy Jelonek, son of Jozef and Lucja (ACDZWiP, ref. 209).