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The Katyń Crime before the European Court of Human Rights
i.e. Włodzimierz Czapliński, son of Kazimierz, born 1898 or 1895 in the Courland Province, who was arrested on 16 December 1937 and sentenced to death on 15 January 1938 by the Soviet NKVD (the Russian acronym “WMN” signifies “maximum penalty”). The man listed on the UKL named Władysław Czapliński, son of Kazimierz, born 1895 in Kraków, was also a prisoner of the NKVD in 1940. This is proven by the information included in item 2114 in attachment no. 3 of the Russian side – it explicitly points to the fact that said Władysław Czapliński was first imprisoned in Stanyslaviv, wherefrom the was transported to the prison in Kiev on 28 July 1940. The fact that said Władysław Czapliński was transported from the prison in Stanyslaviv to the prison in Kiev on 28 July 1940 is also confirmed by the annotation included in the files for case 159, item 126 of list no. 3 of Polish citizens arrested in 1939-1940 by the NKVD in Stanyslaviv Oblast and transported to the prisons in Kiev (f. 26-27, vol. 168 – Attachment no. 2 attached to the present submission) and the inscription in item 76 of the list of those arrested and transported to Kiev prison, included on folios 267-269 in vol. 163 of case file 159 – see Attachment no. 3 attached to the present submission. Another unsubstantiated claim by the Russian side is that documents other than the Ukrainian Katyń List provided from Ukraine are not significant for the investigation. This is yet another groundless statement which stems most probably from the fact that said documents have not been subject to an in-depth analysis. Indeed, it would suffice to browse through the questioned list of 2,439 Polish citizens arrested in the years 1939-1940 in Stanyslaviv Oblast (attachment no. 3 of the Russian side) to find out that they contain significant information about the persons listed on the so-called Ukrainian Katyń List, e.g. about the above-mentioned Franko Sliwa, son of Iwan (item 1793), the above-mentioned Władysław Czapliński, son of Kazimierz, born 1895 (item 2114), as well as about other people on the UKL – Kazimierz Abczyński – item 2, Józef Ahn – item 6, Tadeusz Karpiński – item 685, Anna Mucha – item 1374, Jan Ryś – item 1652, Franciszek Rogalski – item 1656). The same is true about attachment no. 4, i.e. the list of 839 people arrested in 1939-1941 in the Rivne Oblast. It includes detailed information on the fate of selected persons from the so-called Ukrainian List, e.g. Józef Chytry (item 28), Bronisław Bober (item 50), Stanisław Liniewicz (item 136), Michał Pawluk (item 246), Karol Taube (item 272), Franciszek Paszkiel (item 788) and others. Connections with the subject matter of the investigation are also visible in attachment no. 5 – the list of 428 inhabitants of Rivne Oblast of Polish nationality who were victims of repression in 1939-1941. The list includes the personal data of persons who are also present on the Ukrainian Katyń List: Włodzimierz Kaltenberg, Stanisław Wójcik, Władysław Dąbrowski, Jan Kupiński. The questioned comprehensive expert opinion by court-appointed medical experts (attachment no. 6 of the Russian side) provides – contrary to what the Russian side maintains – information important for establishing the fate of Polish citizens whose names are on the so-called Ukrainian Katyń List, namely, finding their burial place. Indeed, the expert opinion irrefutably points to the fact that Polish-made objects were unearthed during the exhumation of the victims of Stalinist oppression in Bykivnia (outside Kiev). Since, as it transpires from separate documents – Polish citizens from the so-called Ukrainian Katyń List were murdered inter alia in the prison in Kiev, this gave reason to believe that they were interred in Bykivnia, as it was there that prisoners murdered in the Kiev prison were buried from 1937 onwards.