Para­do­xi­cal­ly, the deci­sion to build the forth Katyn ceme­te­ry in Byki­vnia was the har­dest one to nego­tia­te. As in Katyn, during the time when Ukra­ine was a part of the Soviet Union, the offi­cials cla­imed that the people buried in the forest near Kyiv were kil­led by Nazis during the occu­pa­tion. Star­ting from the 1970s, the mass gra­ves were dug up, destroy­ing the rema­ins and cove­ring the evi­den­ce with lay­ers of soil. During the period of gla­snost’, pro­vi­sio­nal works were car­ried out the­re and it was final­ly admit­ted, that the rema­ins buried in Byki­vnia belong to the vic­tims of the Gre­at Pur­ge of 1937.

When the ‘Ukra­inian tra­ce of Katyn’ appe­ared in 1994 and the so-cal­led ‘Ukra­inian Katyn List’ was reve­aled, the search began for the pla­ces of death and burial of 3,435 pri­so­ners, citi­zens of the Second Polish Repu­blic, held in pri­sons in Western Ukra­ine. Once aga­in, the team of Polish archa­eolo­gi­sts was led by Pro­fes­sor Andrzej Kola (who had pre­vio­usly con­duc­ted work in Khar­kiv), but even when the evi­den­ce of the burial of Polish citi­zens was found, the Ukra­inian side firm­ly denied that they were vic­tims of the Katyn mas­sa­cre, argu­ing that many inha­bi­tants of the Kyiv region had Polish roots and that the rema­ins found belong to the vic­tims from the 1930s.

In 2007, a bre­ak­th­ro­ugh was made when the mili­ta­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tag of Senior Ser­ge­ant Józef Naglik, com­man­der of the Bor­der Pro­tec­tion Corps, was found (infor­ma­tion abo­ut him was pre­vio­usly recor­ded in the Ukra­inian Katyn List). That same year the first gra­ve was cre­ated in Byki­vnia, and the rema­ins reco­ve­red by the Polish teams in 2001, 2006 and 2007 were laid to rest the­re. During the cere­mo­ny com­me­mo­ra­ting the 70^th anni­ver­sa­ry of the Katyn mas­sa­cre in Khar­kiv, Ukra­inian pri­me mini­ster Myko­la Aza­rov une­xpec­te­dly anno­un­ced the appro­val for the con­struc­tion of the ceme­te­ry in Byki­vnia. Rada Ochro­ny Pamię­ci Walk i Męczeń­stwa (Coun­cil for the Pro­tec­tion of Strug­gle and Mar­tyr­dom Sites) has anno­un­ced the com­pe­ti­tion for an archi­tec­tu­ral pro­ject in line with the con­cep­tu­al guide­li­nes of the pre­vio­usly built Katyn ceme­te­ries. The design by Marek Moderau’s stu­dio was selec­ted. The domi­nant mate­rial in this ceme­te­ry is gra­ni­te.

The foun­da­tion act was laid on 28 Novem­ber 2011, and urns con­ta­ining soil from Katyn, Kozelsk, Osta­sh­kov, Med­noye, Khar­kiv, and War­saw, served as the cor­ner­sto­ne. The Polish War Ceme­te­ry in Byki­vnia was ope­ned on 21 Sep­tem­ber 2012.

The com­me­mo­ra­tion is par­tly sym­bo­lic, as it is known that not all of the vic­tims from the so-cal­led Ukra­inian Katyn List are buried here. An entran­ce is guar­ded by the pylons bearing Polish mili­ta­ry eagles. The ceme­te­ry area is mar­ked by a cob­bled path, lined with gra­ni­te epi­taph pla­qu­es, bearing the vic­tims’ names and sur­na­mes, dates and pla­ces of birth, mili­ta­ry ranks, pro­fes­sions or offi­cial posi­tions. In the cen­tre, the­re is a com­mon gra­ve to which the reco­ve­red rema­ins were trans­fer­red, and at the oppo­si­te end of the squ­are stands the Gate of Remem­bran­ce, cut by a cross, as if struck by light­ning. The­re one can find names and sur­na­mes of all the vic­tims. The site is com­ple­men­ted by the bell tower, bearing the sym­bols of reli­gions: the cros­ses of Eastern and Western Chur­ches, the Star of David, and the Isla­mic Cre­scent and Star. The bell is inscri­bed with the frag­ment of the poem by Feliks Konar­ski (pen name ‘Ref-Ren’).

In the Ukra­inian sec­tion of the memo­rial site the­re is a monu­ment, a burial mound and col­lec­ti­ve epi­taph pla­qu­es.

More infor­ma­tion abo­ut the esta­bli­sh­ment of the ceme­te­ry in Byki­vnia can be found in the sec­tions TIMELINE and RECOLLECTIONS.

For fur­ther deta­ils, see GUIDE.

Text pre­pa­red by Iza­bel­la Sariusz-Skąp­ska
Trans­la­ted by Ilias Sta­nek­zai