The Katyn Monument in London, unveiled on 18 September 1976 in Gunnersbury Cemetery, was the world's first permanent commemoration of the victims of the Katyn massacre in public space. Its story is not only about the creation of the monument, but also about the many years of struggle of the Polish emigration for historical truth, against political pressure and the conspiracy of silence.

From the moment the mass graves were discovered in 1943, the Katyn issue was uncomfortable for the British authorities. During the war they refrained from criticising the USSR, an ally in the fight against the Third Reich, and after the war they maintained their silence for the sake of diplomatic relations. In this context, the initiative to build the monument was undesirable for politicians, which manifested itself in numerous administrative and diplomatic obstacles.

The choice of location for the monument became the subject of controversy. Initially the plan was to locate it at Brompton Oratory or St Luke's Church, but opposition from the Anglican Church and political pressure led to the choice of Gunnersbury Cemetery as a compromise location. As historians Boguslaw and Michal Polak note, this location, 'although remote from the centre, became a land of witness'.

The emigrant struggle for memory
Formally, efforts to build a monument commemorating the victims of the Katyn massacre in London were initiated in October 1971, when the Katyn Memorial Fund was established. However, the first idea to erect such a monument had already been put forward a few months earlier, in the spring of 1971, anonymously, by Major Roman Królikowski. It was a response to the growing number of initiatives commemorating the Katyn massacre, such as press publications, documentary films, international press conferences and parliamentary debates. In April of the same year, a press conference was held at the Polish Institute and the General Sikorski Museum in London, and in June, on the initiative of Lord Barnby, a debate was held in the House of Lords. BBC2 broadcast a documentary on Katyn and the British press began to publish texts revealing the truth about the crime.

The Committee, which took formal form on 18 October 1971, had strong political and public support. It was headed by Lord Barnby and its members included Airey Neave, Sir Frederic Bennett, Winston Churchill (grandson of the Prime Minister), Edward du Cann, Toby Jessel, Raymond Fletcher, General Roy Bucher, Sir Malby Crofton, Sir John Sinclair, James Spicer, Frank Tomney, Alan Williams and representatives of the Polish community, including General Stanisław Kopański, Dr Zdzisław Stahl and Zygmunt Szadkowski. Patronage of the initiative was extended to the Polish Presidents-in-Exile August Zaleski and Stanisław Ostrowski, as well as Ambassador Edward Raczyński, Generals Ludwik Ząbkowski and Karol Ziemski, President Alojzy Mazewski, Counselor Stefan Korboński and Stefan Kolańczyk.

Despite widespread support, the project faced serious obstacles from the start. One of the biggest challenges was the lack of a plot of land under the jurisdiction of the Polish government in exile, which meant that the permission of the local authorities had to be sought. Initially, the plan was to place the memorial at Brompton Oratory or St Luke's Church in the Kensington area. The City Council agreed, but the Anglican Church - citing the fact that the site was once a cemetery - refused to support it. The decision, as editor Katarzyna Bzowska pointed out, was the result of behind-the-scenes political games and pressure from Soviet diplomacy. The diocesan tribunal and then the diocesan chancellor upheld the decision, forcing the Committee to seek an alternative.

Eventually, after much effort, a site was identified at Gunnersbury Cemetery in south-west London - the resting place of many prominent Polish émigré figures such as General Józef Haller, General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski and President Tadeusz Bielecki. Although the location was peripheral and less representative, it was symbolic - intended to become a space of remembrance, testimony and silent protest against the silenced truth.

The collective effort of the émigré circles and the families of the murdered officers resulted in substantial funds being collected: over £10,000 in the UK and a further £11,000 raised by the Katyn Committee in Chicago. It was also supported by representatives of the American Consulate. Louis FitzGibbon - writer and former Royal Navy officer, author of the landmark publication Katyn: A Crime Without Parallel (1971) - played a key role in organising the fundraising, information and media campaign. FitzGibbon documented the Committee's activities, made public appearances, spoke, photographed, wrote articles and was a tireless advocate for the Katyn cause.

Opposition to the construction of the memorial was strong - not only from the Anglican Church and parts of the British elite, but above all from the Soviet Union. Soviet diplomacy acted several times to block the project. On 15 April 1971, 8 September 1972 and 2 March 1973, diplomatic notes (demarches) were addressed to the British authorities, describing the initiative as an 'anti-Soviet campaign' and a 'reactionary provocation'. The Soviet ambassador accused the British authorities of 'distorting historical facts' and condoning 'actions detrimental to mutual relations'. After 1974, when a Labour government came to power, the protests were joined by the communist ambassador to London, Artur Starewicz, who warned that the memorial was "intended to initiate anti-Soviet sentiment among the British public".

The British authorities, at the time conducting trade negotiations with the People's Republic of Poland and avoiding sensitive subjects that could disrupt relations with the Eastern Bloc, did not officially support the initiative. In the end, they only agreed to a compromise inscription - without naming the guilty parties, without the word 'Russia' and without mentioning the territory where the crime was committed. This lack of support was met with criticism from both the Polish community and British officers - some of whom, despite Prime Minister James Callaghan's ban, appeared at the ceremony in uniform with no repercussions.

The foundation stone for the memorial was laid on 1 July 1976. The unveiling ceremony took place on 18 September of the same year. Approximately 8,000 people attended the ceremony, including representatives of the Polish government-in-exile, Christian Churches, Jewish communities, Polish communities from all over the world, and diplomats from the USA, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Liberia and Bolivia, among others. Representatives from Western European countries and the British government were absent. Defence Minister Roy Mason approved the content of the inscription, from which all direct references to the USSR were eliminated.

It was clear from the outset that the initiative was not local. The effort of the Polish community in the UK was supported by compatriots from all over the world - families of the victims, veterans of the Anders Army, veteran circles, the Polish American Congress, the Katyn Committee in Chicago and many others. The memory of Katyn - suppressed from international consciousness, censored in the People's Republic of Poland and silenced in the West - required a joint act of resistance. The construction of the monument was therefore not only an act of remembrance, but also a moral manifesto: an expression of opposition to the historical lie and a symbol of the determination of the Polish émigré community.

A special role in documenting these events was played by the publication Katyn 1940: For Truth and Justice. Katyn Monument in London, containing a collection of sources, speeches, press materials, analyses and photographs. For researchers of the Katyn massacre and its reception in the West, it remains one of the most important testimonies of the era.

Change did not come until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. From then on, representatives of the British government began to attend the annual commemoration, and there was also an official military escort. For the first time, the Band of the Royal Irish Hussars then performed at the memorial. Moscow's reactions were - as expected - unequivocally negative.

The form of the monument
The Katyn Monument in London is 6.5 metres high and made of black granite. Its form is simple and monumental, consisting of three parts: the central part depicts a stylised white eagle, surrounded by a wreath of barbed wire.

Below it is placed an unambiguous inscription: KATYÑ / 1940. The emphasis on the year of the crime had a political and symbolic meaning - it was an open indication of the perpetrators. At the base of the monument are plaques with inscriptions in Polish and English. One of them proclaims:

"To the memory of the 14,500 Polish prisoners of war who disappeared from the camps at Kozelsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov in 1940, 4,500 of whom were later identified in mass graves at Katyn near Smolensk."

On 11 November 1976, by decree of the President of the Republic of Poland in exile Stanislaw Ostrowski, the Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari - the highest military decoration - was hung on the monument as a symbol of posthumous honouring of the murdered. The monument thus also became a symbolic site of national and military remembrance.

In April 1990, after the Soviet Union officially admitted responsibility for the Katyn massacre, an additional plaque in English was placed on the monument:

"As finally admitted in April 1990 by the U.S.S.R. after 50 years of shameful denial of the truth."

Sources, publications and films
Interest in the subject of Katyn and related forms of remembrance, including the London memorial, had its moments of intensification. One of these came as early as 1971, when British BBC television broadcast a documentary recalling the facts of the crime and the reactions of Western governments. It was an act of journalistic courage that sparked a lively debate in the UK and gained publicity in Polish communities. Later decades brought further attempts to confront the subject - especially after 1990, when the USSR officially admitted responsibility for the massacre.

The publication "Katyn 1940: For Truth and Justice. The Katyn Monument in London", edited by Stefan Sobolewski, remains one of the most important source materials devoted both to the history of the construction of the Katyn Monument at Gunnersbury Cemetery and to the wider context of the reception of the Katyn Massacre in the West. It contains a selection of documents, speeches, press texts, accounts from participants in the ceremony, as well as photographs documenting the successive stages of the efforts to commemorate the victims. This publication is not only documentary, but also symbolic - it was created in 1977, only a year after the unveiling of the monument, in political conditions that still did not allow for talking about Katyn openly in the official sphere.

A separate strand is made up of memoir and documentary publications related to people who were particularly involved in the process of building the monument. Of particular importance is Louis FitzGibbon's book The Katyn Memorial (London 1977), an expansion of his earlier work Katyn: A Crime Without Parallel. FitzGibbon, who was not only the author but also an active participant in the events and secretary of the Memorial Building Committee, provides a behind-the-scenes account of the information campaign, the reactions of the media and political circles, and his own experience of fighting for the truth. His publications have had a wide resonance not only in the UK, but also among the Polish community in the USA and Canada, becoming an important tool for spreading knowledge about the Katyn massacre and the need for its dignified commemoration.

In 2013, in the collective volume "Society - Army - Politics" published on the occasion of the jubilee of Prof. Adam Czesław Dobroński, a text by Bogusław and Michał Polak was published entitled "The fate of the Katyn memorial in London". "The London fate of the Katyn monument 1971-1976", which is a scientific preparatory sketch for their later research.

Also worth noting is Tomasz Korban's article 'The issue of the construction of the Katyn monument in London in 1971-1979 in the light of Polish and British diplomatic sources', published in Dziej Najnowszy (2019, no. 4), which analyses in detail the diplomatic correspondence and reactions of the governments in London, Warsaw and Moscow, showing the complexity of the mechanisms of influence and resistance to the idea of commemoration.

A significant contribution to research on this issue has also been made by Bogusław and Michał Polak, authors of the text 'In the shadow of great politics. The London history of the Katyn memorial 1971-1979' (2021), published in Saeculum Christianum. This article, based on an extensive archive search and analysis of British, Soviet and Polish documents, reconstructs in depth the circumstances of the memorial's creation, pointing to diplomatic tensions, behind-the-scenes activities of the PRL and USSR authorities and public reactions in Britain. Of particular importance is the depiction of the strategy of silencing the subject of Katyn by the British government, pursuing a policy of 'geopolitical realism' towards the Soviet Union at the time. The Poles' text also restores to memory the figures of forgotten activists and allies of the Katyn cause in exile, thus widening the panorama of the individuals and communities involved.

Today, the Katyn Memorial in London functions not only as a memorial to the victims, but also as a symbolic space around which reflection on the role of historical truth in international relations and collective memory is focused. Regular anniversary ceremonies, the presence of representatives of embassies, veterans and families of the victims testify to the permanence of its significance. The monument, although created in an atmosphere of political opposition and censorship, has today become one of the testimonies of the struggle for truth - a struggle that did not end with its unveiling, but which continues in the sphere of culture, education and social dialogue.