KATYN MEMORIAL WALL

Copy of the Soviet Note of April 25, 1943, severing unilaterally Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations. Note served verbally to the Polish Ambassador in Moscow, Tadeusz Romer in response to the Polish Government's request of April 17, 1943 that the pits, filled with corpses of murdered Polish officers, discovered by the Germans in Katyn, be examined by an independent and impartial body - the International Red Cross.
On behalf of the Polish Government, the Ambassador refused to accept the Note

Note signed by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich MOLOTOV - on March 5, 1940, as a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee, Molotov voted for the NKVD's recommendation that those officers be murdered.
The executions commenced on April 5, 1940

Moscow, April 25, 1943

Mister Ambassador!

On instruction of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I have the honour to inform the Polish Government of the following:

The Soviet Government consider the recent behaviour of the Polish Government with regard to the U.S.S.R. as entirely abnormal, infringing all the rules and norms of mutual relations between two allied states.

Hostile to the Soviet Union, calumnious campaign launched by the German fascists in connection with the murder of the Polish officers, committed by themselves on the territory occupied by German armies in the Smolensk area, was taken up instantly by the Polish Government and is being fanned by every possible means by the Polish official press. The Polish Government not only failed to offer a rebuff to the vile fascist calumny, it did not even find it necessary to address an inquiry to the Soviet Government, or request for an explanation on this subject.

The Hitlerite authorities, having committed a monstrous crime on Polish officers, are now staging a farcical investigation, in which they use Polish pro-fascist elements, whom they themselves selected in occupied Poland, where everybody is under Hitler's heel and where an honest Pole can not openly have his say.

Both, the Polish Government and the Hitlerite government drew into the "investigation" the International Red Cross, compelled to participate in this farce of investigation in which Hitler appears to be the stage manager, in conditions of a terroristic regime with its gallows and mass extermination of the peaceful population. Understandably, such an "investigation", conducted behind the back of the Soviet Government, can not command confidence of people, possessing any degree of honesty.

The fact that the hostile campaign against the Soviet Union commenced simultaneously in the German and Polish press and is conducted along the same lines - this fact leaves no doubt that between the Allies' enemies, Hitler and the Polish Government, contact and collusion exist in the conducting of this hostile campaign.

At a time, when the nations of the Soviet Union bleed profusely in a hard struggle against Hitlerite Germany straining every effort for the defeat of the common enemy of the Russian and Polish nations, and of all freedom-loving, democratic countries, the Polish Government, to please Hitler's tyranny, have dealt a treacherous blow to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Government are aware that this hostile campaign against the Soviet Union have been undertaken by the Polish Government in order to exert pressure upon the Soviet Government by making use of the calumnious Hitlerite fakes for the purpose of wresting from them territorial concessions at the expence of the interests of the Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Byelorussia and Soviet Lithuania.

All these circumstances compel the Soviet Government to recognize that the present Polish Government, having slid on the path of collusion with the Hitlerite government, have actively severed allied relations with the U.S.S.R., and have stood in a position hostile to the Soviet Union.

On these grounds, the Soviet Government have decided to sever relations with the Polish Government.

Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the expression of my highest respect.

/-/ V. MOLOTOV

To
Mr. T. ROMER
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of the Republic of Poland
Moscow

(Soviet official English language version)

Polish Ambassador in Moscow, Tadeusz Romer's Response to the Soviet Note of April 25, 1943, severing unilaterally Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations

Moscow, April 26, 1943

Mister People's Commissar,

Today at 0:15 in the morning upon your invitation you kindly received me for the purpose of reading to me a Note addressed to my name and with your signature, dated the 25th of this month, informing me of the Soviet Government's decision to sever relations with the Polish Government. Having heard the text of the Note I declared that I can do nothing, but take with regret cognizance of this decision of the Soviet Government, which shall bear full and sole responsibility for this step. However, at the same time I stipulate most emphatically against the motives and conclusions referred to in the Note read to me, which in an unacceptable manner impute to the Polish Government conduct and intentions utterly contradictory to the facts, therefore I render acceptance of this Note impossible. Furthermore, I have mentioned that contrary to the statement in the Note, the Polish Government for nearly two years have sought to obtain explanations on the matter of the missing Polish officers from the Soviet Government, and recently addressed this matter again in the note to Mr. Bogomolov from the 20th of this month.

Since, despite my refusal to accept the Note, I have received it later in my hotel in a sealed envelope of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, I have the honour to send it back herewith in accordance with my stated above position.

Please accept, Mister People's Commissar, my highest regards,

/-/ Tadeusz Romer

To
Mr. V.M. Molotov
People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs
in Moscow

(translation by Electronic Museum Canada from the Polish official Polish language version)