Nearly four years have passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and eight since the annexation of Crimea. Every war is inseparably linked to unimaginable suffering, death and wounds that reach far beyond the battlefield and mark entire societies for generations. It is also painful that, after conflicts end, blank spots remain in history, or that the accounts presented by historians fail to reflect reality.
One of the consequences of Original Sin (peccatum oroginale) is that man has ceased to perceive the surrounding reality as it truly is. As John Paul II observed, “From that time onwards the human capacity to know the truth was impaired by an aversion to the One who is the source and origin of truth. The eyes of the mind were no longer able to see clearly: reason became more and more a prisoner to itself.”
Consequently, Truth has become a scarce commodity—not only among politicians but within contemporary school textbooks that portray even a distant past. This problem concerns not only Poland’s western neighbour – Germany but, shamefully, the East as well, where two crucial aspects of historical memory are systematically suppressed.
According to Polish priests who have ministered in Ukraine for years, the number of graves is increasing at an alarming rate, most of which hold the remains of incredibly young men killed at the front. Beside each of these graves stands the Ukrainian national flag and — in a move that outrages Poles both in their Homeland and across the global diaspora — the Banderite flag.
In Russia, however, public awareness of the Katyn Massacre (1940) is residual and ambiguous, and there is virtually no public knowledge of the events that in Poland are often referred to as the so-called “Little Katyn”.
Two months after the end of World War II in Europe, in July 1945, Soviet forces, acting on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, conducted a massive military–security operation in the Augustów Forest region, covering the Augustów and Sejny counties. The operation — a large-scale roundup conducted in close cooperation with the military counterintelligence service SMERSH and with the aid of a limited number of Polish collaborators — aimed at neutralizing the Polish Independence Underground. Its main objectives were to destroy remaining partisan units and to identify and apprehend individuals connected with the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) or the Citizens’ Home Army (Armia Krajowa Obywatelska, AKO).
In a detailed operational order a Soviet officer wrote that the purpose was “to flush out the bandits and finally eliminate their bases in the division’s area of operations.”
Between 12 and 20 July, fifty-thousand of Soviet troops swept the region. They systematically combed an extensive forested and border area of approximately 5,000 km² adjacent to Lithuania. Troops advanced in dense skirmish lines — reportedly spaced only six to eight paces apart — and swept through villages and settlements in tightly coordinated columns, so closely knit, contemporaries recalled, that “not even a mouse could slip through.” Their tasks included detaining suspects, guarding, and escorting prisoners to interrogation and filtration centres, searching for and seizing weapons, ammunition and communications material used by partisan units, and destroying shelters and hideouts. In many cases, however, Soviet units encountered no organized armed resistance: the mortars, artillery, and even tanks that took part in the operation did not fire a single shot. Many Polish fighters slipped away under cover of night — some sheltered underground, others forewarned by informants — although tragically not all survived.
A cipher telegram from the head of the Main Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, General Viktor Abakumov, to NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria reports that 7,049 people were detained (including a substantial number of local Lithuanians). Of those, roughly 5,000–5,200 were later released as lacking links to the independence underground; the remainder were subjected to further vetting and many were subsequently killed extrajudicially. The Soviet plan of 21 July 1945 explicitly listed at least 592 persons for liquidation.
According to material assembled by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), among those killed were 13 persons under the age of 18 (the youngest 15), while the oldest victim was 69; women made up about 6% of those killed. It is highly likely that the victims included some people who were not connected to the resistance at all.
At the Augustów County Public Security Office (Powiatowy Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego — PUBP), beatings, confessions coerced under torture, and brutal treatment of detainees were routine. Some interrogations ended in death, and bodies were sometimes abandoned in nearby woods. Numerous cases officially recorded as “shot while attempting to escape” were in fact extrajudicial executions. Among those murdered was Wacław Sobolewski, nom de guerre “Sęk” (also “Skała”), a soldier of AK and AKO from the Augustów district; his body was reportedly thrown into an artillery-shell crater. His remains were exhumed by IPN investigators and he was buried with honours at the Augustów cemetery in July 2022.
The most probable burial sites for many of the victims now lie several hundred metres across the Polish–Belarusian border. Because of that, a thorough forensic investigation and full clarification of the sites will likely remain impossible until bilateral relations and archival access allow cross-border fieldwork and document exchange.
Although suppressed during the communist era in order to preserve cordial Polish–Soviet relations, the Augustów Massacre of 1945, has, since the re-establishment of democratic governance in 1989–91, become the subject of scholarly inquiry and continuing public reflection.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (J 8:32), and “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (J 14:6).
Saint John Paul II is widely regarded as an apostle of Truth in the contemporary world—not only because he discerned its fundamental significance for human life, but also because truth today finds itself under particular threat.
“There is no doubt that to have a ‘good conscience‘ (1 Tim 1:5), man must seek the truth and must make judgments in accordance with that same truth.” This obligation is, in a sense, binding upon everyone involved in the dissemination of information—both the professional journalist and the amateur who authors occasional articles without seeking financial gain.
Man does not possess the Truth exclusively for himself. Truth possesses a communal and, simultaneously, a community-forming character, as stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2469). An expression of social life grounded in Truth is reliable information, which serves as a mode of human communication. If communication is not based on objective Truth, it becomes a means of human manipulation. Furthermore, the right to information is, as we know, strictly linked to the entirety of human rights. Moral responsibility for the Truth rests upon all those who gather and transmit it, as well as upon the recipients of that information.
At the same time, the Pontiff warns in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus that “if there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people.” Consequently, totalitarianism arises from the denial of objective Truth. This principle was absent in both Nazi and Communist totalitarianism, the latter of which resulted in the immense human tragedy known as “Little Katyń.”
In the Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, we read that Truth in a person’s relationship with others consists not only in speaking the Truth and avoiding lies, but manifests, above all, in an “inner openness to the other person and his needs, as well as in faithfulness toward him.” There is a Polish proverb which states, “Truth can kill if it is conveyed without love.” Hence, only Truth proclaimed and accepted in the spirit of love for man can guarantee genuine dialogue and lead to complete forgiveness. This dialogue may occur not only between feuding individuals or groups but also between hostile nations.
“Only in this mutual connection can man truly live as a man and develop as a man” (Homily in Wrocław, 1983). In conclusion, it must be emphasized that man is obligated not only to seek the Truth about himself and the world, but also to adhere to it once it has been discovered.
The purpose of this reflection is to fill in the ‘blank spots of history’ — to illuminate obscure and at times deliberately overlooked events, and to offer a warning to the present generation. The truth of the Augustów roundup must not be consigned to silence. The victims — together with the surviving relatives of those stealthily killed and denied any trial — deserve remembrance and their remains a decent burial; history itself lays this obligation upon us. It is regrettable, however, that not a single online platform in the Antipodes has made even the slightest mention of those events.
My fellow countryman, Martyr for the Truth, Blessed Father Jerzy Popieluszko, once said: “Truth bears the mark of endurance and of ultimately coming into the light, even when one attempts to conceal it with the utmost diligence and deliberation.”
On September 10, 1986, a contemporary Polish mystic, Alicja Lenczewska, recorded:
“I am sorry for those little lies in the taxi.
+ Watch yourself. If you do not want to give truthful answers to questions that are sometimes inquisitive, direct the conversation so that they are not asked, or do not answer. Try to exclude telling untruths completely, even in small and indifferent matters. You know who the father of lies is. Do not help him.”
Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians belonging to a large group of Slavic nations, share the same Christian roots. This common heritage binds them together, yet it also imposes an obligation. As the Slavic Pope stated, “You must demand of yourselves even if others do not demand of you.” Therefore, the essential conditions for mutual forgiveness are truth and an unflinching approach to the past—one that conceals nothing, avoids embellishment, and acknowledges the suffering of the victims.
Saint John Paul II, ora pro nobis!
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Paul Suski, based in Poland, has a BA in English Language Teaching, an MA in Political Science, three adolescent children, and wears a Carmelite scapular.