In the spring of 1940, the Soviets massacred thousands of Polish officers who were in Soviet camps, and buried them in mass graves in Katyn. In 1943 Nazi Germany officially informed the world about this massacre. The communists ruthlessly tried to blame the Germans. Polish representatives went to Katyn. They were eyewitnesses to the discovery of the truth about the mass murder. Each of the Polish delegates was then harassed by the security apparatus. The lie promoted by the communist regime for half a century was only revealed in 1989. Families of the murdered officers were also victims for decades. With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the wave of perestroika (restructuring) in 1990, on the next anniversary of the crime the Soviet press agency reported for the first time in history that the Soviet NKVD was responsible for the murder of these Polish officers. The Katyn massacre was, and is, intertwined with politics.

Forgotten Tarnów resident Dr. Marian Wodzinski (1911–1986) and his active participation in uncovering the truth about the Katyn massacre

The text attempts to present the wartime and post-war fate of the Polish intelligentsia who took a direct part in uncovering the Katyn massacre, using the example of Dr Marian Wodziński, a medical doctor. As a forensic doctor, he was appointed (against his will), to examine the exhumation of the victims buried in the Katyn forest. As a forensic expert, he believed that it was not up to him to determine the perpetrators, but to the court that would one day hear the murder case. He remained under pressure from the Germans, and after his return from Katyn to Poland, he was intensively searched by the NKVD and the UB, as an inconvenient, muchknowing witness. Arrested by the NKVD, he was freed thanks to influential people, and when he started to go into hiding, an APB was issued for him. In December 1945, he managed to escape from Poland under the name Marian Cich. He settled in the United Kingdom. The security apparatus recruited his brother Stanislaw to collaborate with him for many years. Despite many attempts, Dr M. Wodziński did not succumb to persuasion and pressure and did not return to Poland, although he missed his homeland very much. He returned to Tarnów after his death, in an urn which was buried in the family grave. Despite his many merits, as well as his patriotic attitude, until recently the figure of Dr M. Wodziński was forgotten. Also in his home town of Tarnów. The text about Dr Marian Wodziński should be – in the author’s assumption – a memento of this luminous figure for contemporary and future generations of Poles, especially the Polish intelligentsia, of which Dr Wodziński was a representative.