Katyn Memorial

The Katyn Massacre Memorial will no doubt have a ceremony at it today, today being Remembrance Sunday.
The memorial is hidden in a small copse on Cannock Chase, and - though there is a sizeable Polish community the county - it’s a bit of a puzzle why it’s placed there, but it is, so that’s that.

If anyone needs to understand the horror of brutal & totalitarian ‘politics’, I do recommend they see the film ‘Katyn’.  It tells the story of the Second World War massacre in which the Soviets shipped thousands of Polish officers and professional people (who had already surrendered) to a forest – and simply shot them all.
It was politics in the raw – Stalin had decided that Poland would be easier to manage with the middle-classes out of the way. The logic is impeccable, the results horrifying.
The Russians only admitted that Stalin had done it in 1990.  No wonder many Poles still fear Russia, and are happy to be in the European Union.

The film of Katyn is not gory incidentally. Instead it quietly but effectively blisters one’s spirit to its core. One is shaking afterwards.