The truth and memory of the Katyn massacre on the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust.
On Saturday, February 21, 2015, students of grade 8a and high school classes of the Polish School of Fine Arts. General Casimir Pulaski took part in a school trip to the Polish Museum and the Church of St. Paul. Jan Kante in Chicago.
The purpose of the trip was to see an exhibition made by the “Katyn Family” association and the Museum of Independence from Łódź at the request of the Uzarowicz family. The exhibition “Truth and Memory of the Katyn Massacre” consists of 32 boards presenting archival documents, photographs and press reports from life in Poland before the war, from the outbreak of World War II and the Soviet aggression against Poland. The exhibition also showed POW camps in Russia, mass executions of Polish prisoners of war and exhumations of Katyn graves conducted by the Germans in 1943. The last part of the exhibition presented the study of mass graves, arranging cemeteries and official ceremonies that took place in the years 1991-1996.
The exhibition prepared by the “Katyn Family” association also presented selected events from the post-war PRL, in which Katyn was a taboo subject. The photos and documents were accompanied by extensive comments in English. After seeing the exhibition, the students were guided by museum guides around the picture gallery, Ignacy Paderewski’s room and the library. The visit to the museum was a great history lesson, thanks to which the youth could pay tribute to those murdered in Katyn.
An additional attraction of the trip to Chicago was a visit to the church of St. John.S. Jan Kante, which was built on the initiative of Polish emigrants at the end of the nineteenth century. The biggest attraction of the church is a replica of the Altar of Veit Stoss from St. Mary’s Church in Krakow, which was made for the church in Chicago by Michał Batkiewicz.
Text: Elżbieta Lech