In the spring of 1940, in the shadow of the Second World War, nearly 22,000 citizens of the Second Polish Republic were murdered by order of the highest authorities of the Soviet Union. Among the victims were officers of the Polish Army, policemen, civil servants, clergy and members of the intellectual elite. Executed with a shot to the back of the head and buried in anonymous pits in Katyn, Kharkiv, Mednoye and Bykivnia, they fell victim to an atrocity concealed for decades behind a curtain of lies. In the Polish People’s Republic, speaking the truth about Katyn was punishable by repression: this is why the first memorials and commemorative plaques were erected not in Poland, but abroad.

Not Only Memorials: A Spectrum of Remembrance

Worldwide, the Katyn massacre has been commemorated in more than 130 locations. Most memorials are rooted in historical forms; many, such as Andrzej Pityński’s monument in Jersey City or the “eternal flame” in Baltimore, stand out for their scale and artistic ambition. Yet the memory of Katyn is preserved not only through monuments, which number just thirteen. More common are plaques: around forty. Other forms of remembrance include boulders, crosses, Katyn crosses, plantings of Oaks of Remembrance, and even stained glass, paintings, reliefs and urns containing soil from the killing sites. What unites these varied forms is not their shape, but their purpose: defiance of forgetting and falsehood, and remembrance of the victims who, for decades, could not be honoured publicly in their own homeland.

Historically, the greatest number of Katyn memorials were erected in the United Kingdom and the United States, though after 1990 the most appeared in Lithuania, and after 2010 in Hungary. Individual sites can also be found in Argentina, Australia, France, Canada, New Zealand, Ukraine, Russia, Austria, the Czech Republic and South Africa. Statues and other forms of commemoration were erected despite political pressure. Some are monumental in scale, others more symbolic, including a plaque in a park, an Oak of Remembrance or a cross. All, however, carry the same message: “If I forget them, may God forget me,” a quotation from Mickiewicz inscribed on the monument in Baltimore. In recent years, few new memorials have been created.

The history of Katyn commemorations beyond Poland’s borders reveals a dynamic and complex process of shaping transnational collective memory. Over the course of some twenty-five years, these forms emerged in evolving historical, political and cultural contexts; they served a compensatory role in the absence of opportunities for remembrance in Poland. Their location, chronology and form show that the memory of Katyn was not merely an act of mourning, but also a form of social resistance to censorship, a tool memory politics and a space for identity expression within émigré communities.

London and Stockholm: A Rivalry for the First Voice of Truth

By the mid-1970s, a kind of quiet rivalry had emerged over which city would be the first to erect a Katyn memorial. The earliest memorials were those in Stockholm and London, and they came about through the dedication of émigré communities who took the difficult decision to preserve memory in the face of lacking institutional support and, at times, open resistance from diplomatic, social and ecclesiastical circles.

In Sweden, a neutral and independent country, the main obstacle was political caution and a reluctance to engage. The Church also refused to participate, citing internal regulations and a commitment to apoliticism. In the United Kingdom, a historic ally of Poland, there was greater freedom to act, though the initiative faced considerable diplomatic pressure from the Soviet Union, reinforced by representatives of the Polish People’s Republic. Nevertheless, efforts to build a memorial in London began in 1971. The initiative followed a long and difficult course: from Major Roman Królikowski’s initial proposal, through the establishment of the Katyn Memorial Committee under Lord Barnby, to the eventual overcoming of numerous legal and political obstacles. Permission to build in the vicinity of St Luke’s Church was denied, ostensibly out of “concern for the peace of the departed,” though in reality this decision was a form of obstruction encouraged by the Soviet authorities.

The site ultimately chosen was Gunnersbury Cemetery, where other prominent Polish émigrés are buried, including General Józef Haller. The memorial was erected thanks to the determination of the Polish émigré community, with funds raised in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, and with the support of British figures such as the writer Louis FitzGibbon and Members of Parliament Winston S. Churchill (grandson of the wartime Prime Minister) and Airey Neave. Despite strong diplomatic pressure and formal protests from the embassies of the Polish People’s Republic and the Soviet Union, the memorial was unveiled on 18 September 1976. The ceremony drew thousands, with numerous delegations and colour parties in attendance. The memorial – an obelisk bearing the inscription Katyń 1940 underneath a Polish eagle encircled by a wreath of barbed wire ‒ was blessed by Bishop Władysław Rubin, chaplain to the Polish diaspora, in the presence of émigré leaders of the Orthodox and Evangelical-Augsburg churches and the president of the Association of Jewish War Veterans. It was also adorned with the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari.

With the resolve and resourcefulness of its organisers, the Stockholm memorial was unveiled swiftly and quietly on 16 November 1975, thereby beating the planned inauguration of its London counterpart. In this way, Stockholm claimed the symbolic first, though the monument stood on private ground rather than in a public space. Despite this symbolic “victory,” both monuments were pioneering acts of social resistance to Soviet historical falsification, and marked the beginning of Europe’s struggle for truth about Katyn.

The first Katyn memorial to be erected in fully public space was unveiled in Johannesburg, South Africa. Built in 1981, it consists of two red granite slabs which, in their negative space, form a symbolic cross. In line with local regulations prohibiting overt religious symbols, the cross was not placed directly on the monument. Soil from Katyn, Warsaw and Józefów was also interred at the site. Additional plaques commemorate South African airmen who supported the Warsaw Rising of 1944.

It must also me noted that earlier memorial plaques had been installed in France, at the cemetery in Montmorency near Paris (1965), and in Leicester, England (1966). A commemorative boulder was placed in Scotland in 1978, although a small plaque inscribed KATYŃ 1940 had already been installed two years earlier, in 1976, at a local cemetery in Perth where Polish soldiers are buried. However, it was swiftly removed by local authorities concerned about the risk of a political scandal.

 memorials in London are discussed elsewhere in this article.

Between Memory and Silence: The Artistic Form of the Polish War Cemetery in Bykivnia

On the outskirts of Kyiv, among the quiet trees of the Bykivnia Forest, lies a place that for decades concealed an unspeakable truth: one chapter among many in the history of Stalinist crimes. Although the mass graves were discovered by Nazi German forces as early as 1941, Bykivnia never attained the symbolic status of Katyn. For years, the communist authorities of the USSR meticulously obscured the scale of the atrocity, promoting a false narrative about victims of “fascist occupiers.” It was only in the twenty-first century that a dignified commemoration of the victims, among them 3,435 Poles murdered by the NKVD in 1940, became possible. A key role in creating this space of remembrance was played by the artistic vision of Marek Moderau and Robert Głowacki.

In contrast to the more dramatic memorials at Katyn and Kharkiv, the design of the Polish War Cemetery in Bykivnia avoids pathos. As Marek Moderau has noted, the aim was not to intensify emotion, but to quieten it:

“Just as those earlier memorials were steeped in tragedy, ours […] is more calming.”

In this sense, the cemetery’s artistic form becomes a meditative landscape, not a traumatising space. It is a memorial that does not cry out; it invites reflection and insight.

The central feature of the site is the Altar Wall, carved from pale stone. Its minimalist form and the austerity of the material contrast with the natural surroundings, yet do not dominate them. The wall does not serve a sacred function in the literal sense, but symbolically encloses the cemetery; it creates a focal point for contemplation, marking, as it were, the boundary between the world of the living and the memory of the dead. There is no pathos, no grand statues. Instead, it is the purity of form, the light reflected on the stone surface and the rustling of leaves in the nearby forest that leave a lasting impression. This space does not demand a response: it invites individual reflection.

Moderau’s design may be interpreted as a protest against the brutalisation of memory. The memorial in Bykivnia does not represent death through expressive figuration, but through the deliberate renunciation of imagery. In doing so, it rejects the conventions of traditional martyrological iconography: there are no bound bodies, no eagle poised to take flight, no dramatic inscriptions. Instead, there is space, rhythm and harmony. The design evokes more a garden courtyard or park, a resemblance remarked upon by some visitors:

“[…] I even heard someone say it’s almost like a park.”

This is an informed aesthetic choice: an architecture of memory that enters into dialogue with the landscape rather than imposing upon it. Unlike monumental sculptures, the cemetery in Bykivnia functions as a space of inner calm, reconciliation with grief, and quiet reflection on history.

What lends this project an added dimension is the timing of its realisation and its political context. In 1988, a memorial was erected on the site with an inscription that the victims had died “at the hands of fascist occupiers”. Only the political transitions that followed, along with further archaeological research, made it possible to create a space of remembrance in which artistic form could speak the truth: without raising its voice. Moderau and Głowacki did not seek spectacle, but symbolic closure: a place where the victims could finally “rest” not only physically, but symbolically, and where visitors might encounter an aesthetics of mourning without the display of suffering.

The monument in Bykivnia is a striking example of contemporary memorial art which, by forgoing literal representation, draws its power from silence. In an age saturated with visual and emotional stimuli, this project offers a radically different approach: empathy through simplicity.
It is not a monument to death, but to endurance and presence: subtle, reflective and dignified. Perhaps it is precisely in this quiet restraint that its greatest power lies.

Further information about sites of remembrance linked to the Katyn massacre, including a list of victims, can be found in the article in the Polonica catalogue:

The Polish War Cemetery for the Victims of the Katyn Massacre in Bykivnia

The Expression of Pain: Jersey City and the Monument to Martyrdom

In 1988, on the grounds of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Częstochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Andrzej Pityński unveiled The Avenger: a statue of a kneeling winged hussar with a sword. The site, combining the sacred with the national, has become a sanctuary of remembrance for the Polish American diaspora. While the monument primarily honours Polish soldiers, the central plaque, bearing a quotation from the Madden Report (the US congressional investigation into the Katyn massacre), also gives it the weight of a Katyn memorial.

On the banks of the River Hudson, facing Manhattan, stands a monument that is impossible to overlook. Also created by Andrzej Pityński, it is perhaps his most controversial and recognisable work. Cast in bronze, it depicts a Polish officer with gagged mouth, bound hands, and a body pierced through by the bayonet of a Soviet rifle. More than ten metres tall, the figure rises from a granite plinth containing soil from the Katyn Forest. This is an aesthetics of shock in action: a figure caught in the agony of death, frozen in a gesture both dramatic and almost theatrical.

“I believe my composition has something of the Crucifixion of Christ,” Pityński remarked. “It is not only a symbol of the Katyn massacre, but of a reborn Poland […], the consequence of a shameful pact between two criminals: Hitler and Stalin […].”

The initiative to erect the memorial was largely grassroots. It emerged from a desire to honour loved ones and fallen comrades, and from a need to restore the truth about the atrocity. In 1986, the Polish American community in New Jersey began formal efforts to create a monument dedicated to the Katyn massacre. Thousands of Polish refugees had settled in Jersey City and across the state after the Second World War. In 1991, following several years of planning and fundraising, the memorial was unveiled at Exchange Place: a key transport hub and a square of symbolic import. Depicting one of the most horrific crimes of the twentieth century, the work was never intended as a conventional war memorial. Katyn, as a symbol of betrayal and a silenced atrocity, came to represent the twentieth-century history of Poland: betrayed, humiliated and wounded. As a visual representation of death, the memorial addresses not only the individual victims but the entire nation, and invokes collective memory, trauma and the identity of Poles in exile. It has become the most recognisable Katyn memorial in the world.

Pityński’s sculpture was quickly embraced by the local community and by visitors from Poland. Presidents, diplomats and participants in commemorative ceremonies have all visited the site. Over time, the monument acquired an additional dimension: a plaque was added to the pedestal in memory of the victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks, whose tragedy unfolded against the backdrop of the burning Twin Towers seen from Jersey City. The monument in Jersey City does more than commemorate: it accuses, cries out and recalls through pain and terror. It is political and public: placed at the heart of the metropolis, visible, confrontational, impossible to ignore.

From the outset, the memorial provoked strong reactions. For some, it was an example of “macabre realism”; for others, a courageous portrayal of trauma. Some argued that its graphic, brutal form was ill-suited to the public space of a major city, frequented by families with children. Others contended that its starkness served precisely to remind viewers of the horror of war and atrocity: that its aim was not to console or embellish, but to bear witness.

Aesthetically, the sculpture represents monumental hyperrealism with elements of expressionism. In an age when art often leans towards minimalism, subtlety and abstraction, Pityński embraced pathos, drama and directness. His approach may be described as an “anti-modern” aesthetic: a homage to a form meant to shock, awaken the conscience and compel reflection.

Contemporary critics have labelled his style “macabre realism”: raw, uncompromising and leaving little space for interpretation. Its form is consciously anachronistic; the sculpture does not engage with the visual language of the present, but returns instead to the monumental idiom of the nineteenth century. Yet it is precisely this form that gives the work its power: recognisable, forceful, unmistakable. Viewed through the lens of memory studies and commemorative politics, the Katyn Memorial in Jersey City becomes more than a work of art: it is a textual sign of collective identity. It commemorates not only the victims, but also the Polish diaspora, exile and a nation speaking to the world of its suffering. As the artist put it:

“It is a symbol not only of the death of a young officer, but of the destruction of a generation of young Poles. The result of the shameful pact between two criminals: Hitler and Stalin, the alliance of two ideologies: fascism and communism.”

This ideologically charged language may be viewed by some as overly one-sided, weighed down by national pathos. The monument allows no space for ambiguity: it speaks plainly and forcefully. For some, that is its power. For others, its limitation.

The discussion surrounding the monument has also moved online. On Reddit, in a local thread dedicated to Jersey City, user comments reveal that the monument resonates strongly in the public sphere: not only as a work of art, but as a bearer of historical memory and a symbol of civic values. Many express respect for the sculpture’s striking form and the clarity of its message. As one user noted:

“A moving, raw piece of art that gives the Jersey City waterfront a unique character.”

Others highlighted its educational value:

“Many people don’t realise that the USSR committed crimes against Poland during the Second World War: it wasn’t just the Nazis.”

There were also voices extolling its bold symbolism:

“The graphic and brutal form reminds us that war is not just about great battles, but about human suffering.”

For some, the monument also enriches the aesthetic and symbolic dimension of the urban landscape:

“The area would be duller without this monument. I’m glad it stayed where it belongs.”

Several users pointed out that art need not always relate directly to the place in which it stands:

“People say the memorial doesn’t belong in Jersey City; but art doesn’t have to relate to the location. That makes no sense.”

Regarding the controversy surrounding plans to relocate the memorial, some responses were openly emotional:

“I was furious when Fulop wanted to remove it: probably at the request of real estate developers. It was shameful.”

Others took a more reflective tone:

“As a descendant of Polish immigrants, I believe this monument is a reminder of how terrible war is; and that we must not forget.”

Among those of Polish heritage, pride and attachment were especially prominent:

“I’m a Pole born in Jersey City. I love this memorial. It’s beautiful, though tragic. If it ever has to be moved, it must be to a respectful and visible location.”

In 2018, the debate escalated into an international diplomatic dispute. The Mayor of Jersey City, Steven Fulop, announced plans to redevelop Exchange Place into a modern waterfront park, which would involve the temporary removal of the memorial and its relocation. The decision was met with strong opposition from the Polish American community, who viewed it as an attempt to erase memory and disregard cultural heritage.

The protests quickly escalated. The Polish ambassador intervened, and Polish politicians accused the authorities in Jersey City of showing disrespect to the victims of communist crimes. Fulop responded in kind, accusing a Polish senator of antisemitism: an allegation that further inflamed the situation. The protests led by the Polish American community, along with diplomatic interventions, redefined the monument as a symbol of the struggle for the right to historical memory.

The memorials in New Jersey, Detroit and the American Częstochowa are not the only commemorative sites in the United States. In 2000, the tallest Katyn monument in the country, also created by Pityński, was unveiled in Baltimore. Towering at twenty metres, it is a sculptural vision of fire and suffering that places the victims of Katyn in a broader, universal narrative of a nation’s fight for freedom and truth.

Other, smaller yet enduring memorials have also played a role in preserving memory: the monument in Seattle, Washington, by Wiktor Szostalo, which includes soil from Katyn; the obelisk at Sacred Heart Cemetery in New Britain, Connecticut; and the sculpture by Marian Owczarski in Orchard Lake, Michigan, at the Polish seminary.

The Katyn Memorial in Jersey City is listed in our Polonica catalogue.

Remembrance versus Progress: A Local and Symbolic Conflict

The conflict that erupted in Jersey City was never solely about the memorial. It also expressed opposition to the broader process of gentrification: the displacement of long-standing working-class and immigrant communities by property developers and new residents. The Katyn Memorial rose as a symbol not only of Polish historical memory, but of local identity and belonging.

In 2022, tensions resurfaced when new redevelopment plans for the square were announced. According to the Katyn Memorial Protection Committee, the proposals would restrict access to the monument and compromise its integrity. Legal action followed, and the Polish American community became divided: between those advocating for a dispute and others in favour of negotiating with city authorities. Eventually, after many months of discussion, a compromise was reached: the monument remained in place, and the surrounding area was redeveloped in line with the concerns of the Polish community.

Although the Katyn Memorial in Jersey City commemorates a Polish tragedy, its meaning extends beyond Polish history. It stands as a monument of the Polish diaspora in the United States: those who found refuge there after the war and sought to preserve the memory of what had been silenced. The dispute over its location and setting thus raised more than questions of aesthetics or urban planning. It touched on deeper issues: What is collective memory? Who has the right to shape it? Can urban development be pursued at the expense of history?

In the twenty-first century, amidst renewed debates about the past, memory politics and national identity, the Katyn Memorial in Jersey City has become a point of reference: a place that unites and divides, that recalls and challenges, and that provokes difficult questions.

Two Contexts, Two Needs: Bykivnia and Jersey City

The forms of the memorials in Bykivnia and Jersey City are closely tied to the contexts of their creation. In Jersey City, a city of immigrants where the Polish community played a significant social and political role, the memorial needed to speak loudly, to demand truth in the public space, not only Polish but American. It was a gesture of defiance against the West’s silence on Katyn, and its expressive form reflects the logic of a traumatic identity carried by Poles in exile. In Bykivnia, a site long suppressed and falsified, the need was different: not a cry, but closure. The cemetery designed by Moderau and Głowacki was intended to give the victims a peaceful resting place, and to offer families a space for dignified remembrance. It is an aesthetics of absence, one that speaks more powerfully than any symbolic gesture.

Contemporary reflection on collective memory often shifts between iconographic literalism and abstract minimalism. The memorial in Jersey City and the cemetery in Bykivnia represent these two poles. One is shaped by narrative sculpture, which expresses suffering through the body. The other, by spatial architecture, where suffering is implied, suggested, almost silent. Both works reflect different stages of grief and remembrance: the cry of pain, and the gesture of accusation and reconciliation. Though they stand in different places, they speak of the same tragedy: not only the Katyn massacre, but the ongoing struggle for the right to truth and memory.

Pityński’s monument and the cemetery designed by Moderau and Głowacki are not only sites of historical memory but also aesthetic testaments. They raise questions about how we can ‒ and should ‒ represent violence and suffering. One speaks through drama and monumentality, the other through stillness and restraint. Their coexistence suggests that truth about the past requires many voices, and that remembrance belongs both to those who cry out and to those who remain silent. In an age of contested historical narratives, the form memory takes is as significant as its content. For how we speak of the victims reveals who we are as a community.

Hungarian Kopjafák

Commemorations beyond Poland’s borders often take diverse ‒ and at times unexpected ‒ forms. A notable example comes from Hungary, where in the early 2010s two memorials to the victims of Katyn were established through the efforts of both local and international political circles. In 2010, in Tatabánya, a town in northern Hungary, a monument was unveiled in the form of a wooden kopjafa: a sculpture inspired by traditional Slavic and Hungarian memorial poles. While the form clearly signified remembrance, its symbolic generality weakened the clarity of its message. Rather than referring directly to the 1940 Katyn massacre, it offered a generic gesture of mourning: one that could equally have commemorated any number of tragedies.

Much greater artistic and symbolic ambition accompanied the unveiling of the Katyn memorial in Budapest in 2011. Erected in the City Park (Városliget), the sculpture takes a modern, abstract form. Inspired by the so-called “forest crime”, it presents a clash of geometry and expression: black, jagged slabs rise in a formation intended to evoke a fissure, a wound or a rupture in the landscape. It is a form that suggests rather than describes: one that grants the viewer space for interpretation.

In its modern form, the Budapest monument contrasts with other Katyn memorials and their classical figurative characteristics. Yet it, too, carries a strong political message. The accompanying plaques and speeches at its unveiling were not restricted to honouring the victims of 1940. Equal emphasis was placed on the 2010 Smolensk air disaster and the commemoration of President Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria. In this way, Katyn was recast as a symbol of the repeated “suffering of the nation’s elite,” and the monument became not only a site of historical remembrance, but also one of contemporary mythology, closely linked with current politics.

The association of Katyn with Smolensk is not accidental: it adds to a broader political and historical narrative. In Hungary, where sections of the political elite have cultivated close ties with Polish conservatives, this narrative is readily adopted. As a result, some Hungarian commemorations ‒ beyond their formal dimension ‒ have acted as amplifiers of Polish memory politics in that they transferred internal disputes and national narratives into the international sphere.

In several other Hungarian towns, including Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Nyíregyháza, smaller commemorations have appeared in the form of plaques, crosses or memorial stones. Here, too, Katyn is often linked with the Smolensk air disaster. In some cases, the memorials were erected at the initiative of local authorities or Hungarian political groups. Katyn commemorations in Hungary are thus marked by a certain ambiguity. On the one hand, they reflect solidarity and sensitivity to the suffering of another nation: there is no doubt that some local organisers acted out of genuine compassion and a desire to preserve memory. On the other, many of these commemorative forms bear the imprint of political appropriation, incorporating gestures and symbols that draw Katyn into the arena of contemporary ideological disputes and identity-based declarations. This raises a pressing question about the boundaries of commemoration and its potential instrumentalisation. Can a monument remain a true site of memory if it also serves as a vehicle for political messaging? Does a historical crime not merit an autonomous space for reflection, regardless of present-day ideological agendas? The Hungarian case illustrates just how delicate the balance is between tribute and narrative; and how, even beyond Poland’s borders, Katyn continues to symbolise not only a historical event, but the ways in which we choose to remember and speak of it today.

Australian Sites of Remembrance: Between Tradition and Modernity

In Australia, the memory of Katyn has taken both traditional and innovative forms. In Melbourne, a monumental bronze cross designed by Tadeusz Tomaszewski was erected in 1980 at the initiative of the local Polish community. It features a triptych depicting Our Lady of Kozielsk. Meanwhile, in Adelaide, Józef Stanisław Ostoja-Kotkowski created one of the most original Katyn memorials in the world: a modern composition of steel masts and hussar wings that combines national symbolism with a universal artistic language close to abstraction.

Since 1976, Katyn commemorations have appeared across the world with remarkable regularity. A new memorial has been unveiled nearly every year. Until 1990, such initiatives were confined to countries outside the communist bloc with strong Polish communities: the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa. After 1990, memorials began to appear in former Soviet republics, first in Lithuania, then in Ukraine, and later even in Russia. In the following years, numerous commemorations were created in Hungary, where, despite the relatively small Polish diaspora, an unusually high number of Katyn memorials can be found.

At the same time, distinct waves of interest in the erection of Katyn memorials can be observed. The first occurred in 1976–77, when approximately seven plaques and monuments were unveiled. This was directly influenced by the London memorial, a breakthrough which resonated widely among Polish diaspora communities. Yet the broader context raises a deeper question: Why did interest in Katyn commemoration intensify in the 1970s? The 1970s saw a marked revival of initiatives to commemorate the Katyn massacre. Although it had taken place three decades earlier, it was during this period that political émigré circles increasingly felt the need to give enduring, symbolic form to the memory of one of the twentieth century’s greatest atrocities. The growth in both the number of Katyn memorials and their increasingly prominent placement in the public spaces of Western countries was not accidental. It reflected significant political, social and emotional shifts.

Most notably, a generation of witnesses had come of age ‒ military officers, relatives of the victims, former prisoners of Soviet labour camps ‒ who were determined to prevent the truth about Katyn from being fully obliterated by Soviet propaganda. After two decades of postwar silence, during which the dominant narrative was one of distortion and denial, these groups recognised that the time had come to restore memory to its rightful place in public life. It was both a communal and a personal act: a final chance to leave behind a permanent testimony.

Secondly, growing international interest in the Katyn cause played a significant role. The widely discussed book Katyn: A Crime Without Parallel by Louis FitzGibbon (1971), documentary broadcasts on BBC2, and debates in the House of Lords helped bring the subject back into the Western public consciousness. Politicians, intellectuals and journalists began to treat Katyn not only as a historical matter but also as a point of reference in their assessment of the Soviet regime.

Thirdly, the political climate was beginning to change. Although Western governments were still formally reluctant to strain relations with the USSR, anti-communist sentiment was gaining strength. Societies, particularly in Britain and the United States, were increasingly sympathetic towards the plight of Central and Eastern European nations. The Katyn massacre came to symbolise betrayal, suppression and suffering; it was also a means of highlighting the realities of Soviet rule.

The approach of major anniversaries was also not without significance. In 1970, thirty years had passed since the atrocity. Among émigré elites, there was a growing sense that time was working against remembrance, and that something had to be done before the last direct witnesses and defenders of the truth were gone. Hence the initiatives to erect memorials in London, Stockholm and Johannesburg, and the unveiling of numerous plaques in France, Canada and the United States.

Finally – and paradoxically – Soviet actions also had an influence. Attempts by the embassies of the USSR and the Polish People’s Republic to obstruct memorial initiatives, for example in London, only strengthened the determination of émigré communities. Every refusal, every act of pressure, every attempt to ridicule the initiative, as in the case of the British episcopate’s appeal to “concern for the peace of the dead,” was received as further proof of the strength of the lie, and as a renewed incentive to act.

The 1970s thus became a time of symbolic breakthrough: a period when the Polish émigré voice asserted itself more confidently on the international stage, demanding truth, memory and justice. In this context, Katyn monuments were not merely expressions of grief. They were political statements and moral indictments: a cry for truth that anticipated the USSR’s official admission of guilt by a full decade.

In 1980, a notable number of monuments, plaques and crosses dedicated to the memory of Polish officers murdered by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 were unveiled around the world: from North America and Western Europe to Australia and South America. This surge of interest in Katyn was no accident. It was the result of accumulated historical, social and political pressures.

Firstly, the year 1980 marked the symbolic fortieth anniversary of the atrocity. Within émigré circles, particularly among the wartime generation, there was a growing sense that this was likely the last moment to leave a lasting trace of memory as direct witnesses. A natural response was the need to establish tangible forms of commemoration: monuments, plaques, crosses and memorial stones. These were intended not only to recall thousands of victims, but also to speak to future generations, in a world increasingly inclined to forget the history of Central and Eastern Europe.

Secondly, the increase in memorials was a reaction to the intensifying propaganda offensive of the Soviet Union. The USSR, supported by the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic, persistently maintained a false narrative in which they placed responsibility for the Katyn massacre on the Germans. Soviet institutions continued to deploy diplomatic and informational strategies to counter international initiatives aimed at revealing the truth. In response, émigré communities in London, Chicago, Montreal, Johannesburg, Brisbane and Buenos Aires mobilised to express their resistance to this campaign of distortion. The memorials became not only acts of remembrance but also gestures of protest and testimony: expressions of freedom set against the backdrop of enforced silence.

Thirdly, 1980 was also a time of social awakening in Poland. The strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard, the birth of Solidarność, and the first victories of the independent workers’ movement resonated deeply with the Polish diaspora. A sense of shared struggle began to take shape: those who had spent decades abroad fighting to uncover the truth about Katyn now saw a new generation in Poland ready to take up that same cause. The construction of memorials became a gesture of solidarity with the nation at home, but also a reminder that the Katyn massacre laid the foundation for the postwar communist lie. To recall it was therefore not only an act of historical remembrance, but a profoundly political statement.

The year 1990 marked a historic turning point: political, but also symbolic. In both Poland and abroad, there was a noticeable rise in the number of monuments, plaques, crosses and other forms of commemoration dedicated to the victims of Katyn. This renewed momentum was no accident. It was driven not only by the symbolic weight of the fiftieth anniversary, but by the transformation of the international order, the collapse of communism, and ‒ most significantly ‒ the Soviet Union’s official admission of responsibility for the atrocity.

The material gathered shows that Katyn memorials outside Poland serve a dual function: they are both a record of the past and a tool of contemporary memory culture. Their continued presence in the public spaces of various countries is proof that the Katyn massacre, despite attempts to suppress or distort it, has become permanently inscribed in the global memory of the twentieth century. This phenomenon should be understood as an example of diasporic, transnational and multi-dimensional memory, where individual recollection, political expression, the pursuit of truth and artistic visions of mourning intersect.

On 13 April 1990, exactly fifty years after the atrocity, the Soviet press agency TASS released a statement in which, for the first time, the USSR acknowledged that NKVD officers were responsible for the murder of thousands of Polish officers in Katyn, Kharkiv and Mednoye. A few weeks earlier, on 7 March, President Mikhail Gorbachev had handed over to the Polish authorities the first documents confirming Soviet culpability. These developments brought to an end decades of denial and enforced silence, not only in the USSR but also in the Polish People’s Republic, which had remained subordinate to Soviet authority.

The disclosure of the truth had an immediate effect. In Poland, where the Katyn massacre had been censored, omitted from education, silenced in the media and erased from the public sphere, there was a sudden and widespread need to commemorate the victims. Dozens, and later hundreds, of monuments, crosses, plaques and lapidaria were erected in cities, towns and parishes across the country.

The new political context also opened access to the sites of the atrocities, which had previously remained beyond the reach of the public and the victims’ families. For the first time, the Soviet authorities permitted delegations of Katyn families, as well as representatives of the Church and Polish state, to visit the forests of Katyn, Kharkiv and Mednoye. They were allowed to pray, lay flowers and erect crosses at the execution sites. It was during these visits that the first, still provisional, markers of remembrance began to appear: wooden crosses, plaques and photographs. In time, these evolved into more permanent memorials and culminated in the establishment of official war cemeteries, opened in the twenty-first century.

The year 1990 also marked a period of renewed connection between Poland and its diaspora. Among émigré communities, who for decades had borne the responsibility of preserving the truth about Katyn, Gorbachev’s declaration was welcomed with relief, but also met with renewed resolve to bring the long struggle for remembrance to a dignified conclusion. In places such as Vancouver, Doylestown, New York and London, earlier unofficial plaques and crosses were restored, relocated to more prominent settings, and supplemented with new inscriptions: no longer constrained by the need for euphemism or concealment.

The years 2010–2011 saw a renewed wave of Katyn commemorations, particularly in Hungary, but also in Austria and among Polish diaspora communities in the United States. These initiatives were prompted above all by the Smolensk air disaster of 10 April 2010, which sent shockwaves through Polish society and once again drew public attention to the history of Katyn. The crash of the plane carrying President Lech Kaczyński and members of Poland’s political and cultural elite, on their way to a Katyn memorial ceremony, symbolically bound the present to a tragic past.

The most visible response occurred in Hungary, where several Katyn-related plaques and monuments were unveiled between 2010 and 2011, including in Szeged, Székesfehérvár, and most notably in Budapest, where a symbolic Katyn Martyrs’ Park was established. These acts of remembrance were not only moral and historical in character, but also reflected the close political alignment between the Polish and Hungarian right. At a time when Poland’s Law and Justice party was returning to power and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party held office in Hungary, the remembrance of Katyn was drawn into a wider political narrative.

At the same time, new plaques and sites of remembrance began to appear in the United States: notably at the Church of Our Lady of Consolation in Brooklyn (2011), in South River, New Jersey, and in Providence, Rhode Island. The Polish American community, who responded strongly to the Smolensk disaster, intensified their efforts to preserve the memory of Katyn, and they often combined historical reflection with references to contemporary events. In many places, plaques bearing the inscription “Katyn 1940” were installed alongside references to Smolensk, which highlighted the tragic continuity in the fate of Poland’s interwar elite.

In Vienna, a Katyn obelisk was unveiled in 2011 next to the Church of the Holy Cross. This was the culmination of years of advocacy by the local Polish community, which, following the Smolensk disaster, gained broader support and recognition for the idea of commemorating the Katyn massacre. A growing level of public engagement, including from Austrians, enabled the execution of a project with strong national and religious symbolism. By contrast, between 2021 and 2024, no new Katyn monuments or memorial plaques were reported outside Poland.

Commemoration as a Cultural Practice

A chronological analysis reveals several distinct waves of intensified commemoration: the first, driven by émigré communities in the 1970s; the second, linked to the fortieth anniversary in 1980; the third, emerging from the political watershed of 1990; and finally a fourth, triggered by the Smolensk air disaster of 2010 and its symbolic entanglement with the history of Katyn. Each of these waves responded not only to the past, but also to contemporary political tensions and the identity needs of particular communities. As such, Katyn memorials should be understood not only as material markers of remembrance for the victims of the 1940 massacre, but also as elements within a broader political and cultural discourse shaped by the evolving context of the post-Yalta and post-Cold War world.

The forms of these commemorations are highly diverse, ranging from realist sculptural figures and abstract spatial structures to modest plaques and Oaks of Remembrance. This formal and aesthetic variety reflects not only local circumstances and cultural traditions, but also ongoing debates about how trauma should be represented. The contrast between the expressive drama of the Jersey City memorial and the minimalist restraint of the Bykivnia cemetery demonstrates that radically different strategies of representation can coexist within a single commemorative narrative, none of which claims a monopoly on the “correct” way to remember.

It is also worth noting that many of these memorials, particularly those erected in the twenty-first century, have emerged against a backdrop of political tension and competing interpretations. Any analysis must take into account the risk of instrumentalising history, and acknowledge that the boundary between commemoration and political messaging can often be fluid. In this sense, Katyn becomes not only a site of historical remembrance, but also a contested space of meaning, symbolism and narrative authority.

Katyn memorials outside Poland fulfil a dual role: they are both records of the past and instruments of contemporary memory culture. Their enduring presence in the public spaces of various countries attests to the fact that the Katyn massacre, despite repeated efforts to obscure or distort it, has been permanently inscribed onto the global map of twentieth-century remembrance. This phenomenon should be understood as an example of diasporic, transnational and multidimensional memory, in which personal recollections, political statements, the search for truth and artistic expressions of mourning are interwoven.

Key Sites of Remembrance

Detroit – USA – 1955 – plaque
Montmorency – France – 1965 – plaque
Leicester – United Kingdom – 1966 – plaque
Stockholm – Sweden – 1976 – monument
London – United Kingdom – 1976 – monument (in cemetery)
Adelaide – Australia – 1977 – monument
Hindmarsh Island – Australia – 1977 –
Roubaix – France – 1977 – plaque
Wellington – New Zealand – 1977 – plaque
Kirkcaldy – United Kingdom – 1978 – boulder
Cannock Chase – United Kingdom – 1979 – boulder
Melbourne – Australia – 1980 – cross
Brisbane – Australia – 1980 – plaque
Lens – France – 1980 – plaque
Toronto – Canada – 1980 – monument
New Britain – Canada – 1980 – monument
Buffalo – USA – 1980 – plaque
London – United Kingdom – 1980 – plaque
Birmingham – United Kingdom – 1980 – plaque
Johannesburg – South Africa – 1981 – monument
Northampton – United Kingdom – 1982 – plaque
Glasgow – United Kingdom – 1983 – plaque
Mansfield – United Kingdom – 1983 – plaque
Bristol – United Kingdom – 1985 – boulder (with relief)
Southwell – United Kingdom – 1987 – epitaph
Doylestown – USA – 1988 – monument
Amersham – United Kingdom – 1988 – plaque
Hrodna (Polish: Grodno) – Belarus – 1990 – cross
Curitiba – Brazil – 1990 – plaque
Vancouver – Canada – 1990 – plaque
Medininkai (Polish: Miedniki Królewskie) – Lithuania – 1990 – cross (in cemetery)
Rudninkai (Polish: Rudniki) – Lithuania – 1990 – cross (in cemetery)
Vilnius (Polish: Wilno) – Lithuania – 1990 – symbolic grave
Auckland – New Zealand – 1990 – plaque
Lviv – Ukraine – 1990 – plaque
Manchester – United Kingdom – 1990 – monument (in cemetery)
Starobilsk – Russia – 1991 – plaque
Jersey City – USA – 1991 – monument
Ostashkov – Russia – 1994 – plaques
Doylestown – USA – 1994 – plaques
Baltimore – USA – 2000 – monument
Buenos Aires – Argentina – 2003 – plaque
Paris – France – 2005 – plaque
Meškuičiai (Polish: Meszkucie) – Lithuania – 2005 – cross
Huddersfield – United Kingdom – 2006 – plaque
Vilnius (Polish: Wilno) – Lithuania – 2008 – plaque
Seattle – USA – 2008 – monument
Niles – USA – 2009 – monument
Budapest – Hungary – 2009 – plaque
Providence – USA – 2010 – plaques
Tatabánya – Hungary – 2010 – kopjafa (memorial pole)
Szeged – Hungary – 2010 – cross
Tata – Hungary – 2010 – plaque
Vienna – Austria – 2011 – boulder
Český Těšín – Czech Republic – 2011 – plaques
New York (Brooklyn) – USA – 2011 – plaque
Budapest – Hungary – 2011 – monument
Székesfehérvár – Hungary – 2012 – cross
Miskolc – Hungary – 2014 – plaque
Egliškės (Polish: Jałówka) – Lithuania – 2015 – plaque
Keszthely – Hungary – 2020 – relief
Buenos Aires – Argentina – plaque
Rosario – Argentina – plaque
Lentvaris (Polish: Landwarów) – Lithuania – monument
Bagušiai (Polish: Bogusze) – Lithuania – boulder (and plaque)
South River – USA – plaque
Kharkiv – Ukraine – plaque
Orchard Lake – USA – monument
Luton – United Kingdom – plaque