WI Book Festival 2011: The Katyn Order by Douglas Jacobson

I had a busy weekend and was able to attend only one event at the Wisconsin Book Festival - Douglas Jacobson and his latest novel The Katyn Order. Here's the synopsis from his website:

The German War Machine is in retreat as the Russians advance. In Warsaw, Resistance fighters rise up against their Nazi occupiers, but the Germans retaliate, ruthlessly leveling the city. American Adam Nowak has been dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin and Resistance fighter. During the Warsaw Rising he meets Natalia, a covert operative who has lost everything—just as he has. Amid the Allied power struggle left by Germany’s defeat, Adam and Natalia join in a desperate hunt for the 1940 Soviet order authorizing the murders of 20,000 Polish army officers and civilians. If they can find the Katyn Order before the Russians do, they just might change the fate of Poland.





Mr. Jacobson has some Polish blood from his mother and, although he's an engineer by trade, he likes to study overlooked episodes of World War II. He explained that his recent studies led him to the point where he had two major events that he wanted to write about. First was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and the other was the Katyń Massacre. He managed to delve into both in his latest book. The Polish Heritage Club of WI-Madison was a sponsor of the event on Saturday and there were more than a few people from Poland in attendance. Jacobson said that when he gives his presentation on The Katyn Order most audience members are unfamiliar with the Katyń Massacre. I think that most of us there on Saturday were familiar with it, one person too familiar, perhaps.

In a nutshell, the Katyń Massacre was carried out in the spring of 1940 by the Soviet Union's NKVD or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Some 20,000 Poles were slaughtered, most of them military officers but also members of the intelligentsia, i.e. – lawyers, doctors, and the like. Recall that the USSR invaded and captured eastern Poland in 1939. 200,000+ soldiers were captured and eventually freed with many conscripted to fight the Nazis. However, the officers remained detained and in 1940 Stalin signed the orders to have them killed. The victims were shot in the head and their bodies dumped into mass graves.

In 1943 as the Germans advanced through the USSR, they stumbled upon the graves in the Katyń forest and they attempted to use their discovery as a propaganda tool against the Soviets who denied everything. It wasn't until 1989 that the Soviets admitted what had been done and their government's role in it.

Mr. Jacobson gave a summary of the history and noted that, in general, Polish contributions during World War II tend to be ignored. Polish soldiers fought in every theater of the war. They fought in Poland but also in the deserts of Africa and in the skies with the RAF, for example. He read a couple passages from the book and it sounds like a very good read. Things got even better after his presentation. In the audience on Saturday was Dr. Waclaw Szybalski. A native of Poland, he immigrated to the United States in 1950. I attended a birthday celebration for him this past summer and learned about the many contributions he has made to the field of genetics. The list at the link above sounds impressive but when someone explained what all the meant to me in layman's terms at the party, it was even more so.

So, while I knew about Dr. Szybalski's contributions to science, I didn't know until Saturday that he was a Polish military officer and escaped being murdered in the Katyń Forest in 1940. He explained how the Soviet Army occupied his hometown of Lwów but that they were very disorganized and he basically slipped through the cracks after discarding his uniform. He also noted that he heard about the massacre a few weeks after it had happened and that the American and English governments knew all about it during the war but they didn't press the issue with the Soviets as they were allies and didn't want to upset Stalin. This attitude carried on after the war was over. It was fascinating to hear some of the history mentioned in Jacobson's book told by someone who witnessed it first-hand.

An audience member also from Poland noted that, prior to the Solidarity Movement, just mentioning the word "Katyń" would get one arrested and imprisoned.

As you can imagine, it was a very interesting Q&A session. Cheers to Mr. Jacobson who was generous enough to allow the focus to be moved from his book to the larger history behind it and to someone who was alive and there when it happened. I think he was as grateful to hear other people's stories as was the rest of the audience.