The video was recorded by the Pilecki Institute as part of the “Witnesses to the Age” project.
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Our today’s interviewee:
Henryk Troszczyński (born in 1923 in Warsaw), witness to the exhumation of the victims of the Katyn Massacre. In autumn 1942, the Germans sent him to the location near Katyn for forced labor. He learned from the local farmers that a major crime was committed in that area in 1940 and that graves of Polish officers were located nearby. One of the Russians gathered enough courage to lead Polish laborers to the site of the mass graves. The Poles quickly managed to unearth the bodies of the Polish officers who had been arrested by the Russians in 1939. Henryk Troszczyński reported this fact to a German laborer, then the information reached Lieutenant Slovenzik, and was eventually sent to Berlin. The Third Reich established a special committee tasked with the exhumation of the mass graves. Henryk Troszczyński witnessed their work. Next to the body of Janina Lewandowska (the only woman murdered in Katyn) he saw the body of a young boy - most likely a child who lived nearby and was murdered by the NKVD to cover up any evidence of the crime. Some time later Henryk’s father managed to pay to have his son released and Troszczyński returned to Warsaw. After the Russians entered the area of Katyn, all other laborers - witnesses of the exhumation - disappeared. Henryk Troszczyński was the only one to survive. Having returned to Warsaw, he joined the Home Army and fought in the Warsaw Uprising.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.
16 май 2019
