Remembering the victims of the Katyn Massacre

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PAWTUCKET—One went east, one west. One lived, and one died.

Fr. Lucjan Krolikowski, OFM, survived deportation from Poland when he was sent to a Soviet concentration camp in 1940, while his colleague for the previous three years, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, died in a German concentration camp.

Fr. Krolikowski, who at 91 still energetically tells his tale of resilience and forgiveness despite the horrors of war, was the homilist and featured speaker at the June 13 dedication of a plaque at St. Joseph Church commemorating the suffering of Polish citizens under the Nazi and Soviet regimes during and after World War II.

The dedication coincided with the observance of the 70th anniversary of what is known broadly as the Katyn Massacre, the systematic execution of Polish military officers and other members of the country’s intelligentsia during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland.

Some 22,000 Polish nationals are estimated to have been murdered by members of Joseph Stalin’s secret police, with many executed in Russia’s Katyn Forest. Some 1.6 million Poles were displaced from their homes and deported during the war.

Fr. Krolikowski, who lives in Chicopee, Mass., says he harbors no animosity toward his captors for the punishment they inflicted upon him.

“They forgot they were humans and they acted like beasts,” Fr. Krolikowski said. “We tried to tell them that we are children of God.”

He says that rather than being demoralized by his experiences, he was enriched by them.

“They made me a more brave man,” he said. “I can help people more than many people my age today.”

The unveiling of the plaque, which is named “Golgotha of the East,” which was a term coined by Pope John Paul II in describing the tragedy, took place following a Mass presided over by Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, and concelebrated by St. Joseph Pastor Fr. Dariusz Jonczyk, Fr. Leon Kachel, Fr. Lucjan Krolikowski, Rev. Canon Frederick Slota and Rev. Deacon Marek Dadlez, himself a survivor of the deportation.

“We want to commemorate [the tragedy] but we also want to open the way for forgiveness,” Fr. Jonczyk said. “We want to look to the future where we say “no” to ethnic cleansing and hatred.”

Other dignitaries in attendance included Malogrzata Kozik, consul, of the Office of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, New York; Marek Lesniewski-Lass, honorary consul of the Republic of Poland, Boston; and Pawtucket Mayor James E. Doyle.

Parishioner Maria Lomzynska de Ris coordinated the event, and said the white granite plaque, which features an etching of a dove flying above a pair of bound hands representing imprisonment, is an important testimony for current and future generations of Poles and Americans as to what happened during the deportation, but that it also should serve as a reminder of the ethnic conflicts occurring after WWII and make us more resolute to protect the victims.

“We wished the symbols on the plaque to evoke the faith in the indestructible spirit of the human being, a spirit given us by God whose immeasurable goodness we proclaim,” said Lomzynska de Ris.

“We did not want to pass any judgments on the perpetrators,” she added. “Rather, we wanted the viewers of the plaque to imagine and live through the suffering which any evil inflicts.”