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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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111389
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11138900.034
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1990-09-19
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WORLD, Page 57World NotesHISTORYJudgment On Katyn
The black marble monument stands in a grove in the Katyn Forest
outside Smolensk, a memorial to the more than 4,000 Polish officers
massacred at that spot during World War II. But the dedication
etched in the marble tells a lie that mocks the very lives it
memorializes: "To the victims of Fascism -- the Polish officers
shot by the Hitlerites."
For almost 50 years, the Soviets have blamed the Germans for
the Katyn massacre, despite evidence pointing unmistakably to
Stalin's secret police, the NKVD. Last week a prominent American
visitor rendered his own verdict. At the foot of the monument, he
placed a bouquet of red roses bearing a handwritten message penned
in both Polish and English: "For the victims of Stalin and the
NKVD. Zbigniew Brzezinski."
The visit by the Polish-born former U.S. National Security
Adviser was timely. Two years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev established
a joint Soviet-Polish commission whose mandate included the
reopening of the Katyn case. Since then, the Soviets have delayed
a formal verdict. But officials, eager to clear the air before
Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki's arrival in Moscow later
this month, want to hasten a judgment. Applauding Gorbachev for
making a "historic break with Stalinism," Brzezinski offered a
face-saving way out. "Many Soviet people were also victims of
Stalinism," he said. "So the acknowledgment of these crimes should
lead to reconciliation, not to hatred."