Coming Clean on Katyn?

Is settlement on Katyn coming anytime soon? Nothing symbolizes the Soviet attitude to truth more than the World War II Katyn massacre: having shot 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in cold blood, the Kremlin then blamed it on the Nazis.

Recently a Russian court declined to hear a case on two issues: the declassification of documents about Katyn and the judicial rehabilitation of the victims. That would be like having a German court telling Holocaust survivors that Auschwitz files were top secret.

Relatives are pressing to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but must exhaust other legal avenues first.

Russian higher courts might see the case differently. Sensitive to world public opinion Vladimir Putin is currently calling Katyn a "political crime" in interviews, and suggests that the Russians are changing their attitude.

One risk for Russia is a defeat at Strasbourg. Another is the effect on public opinion of a new film, "Katyn", by Andrzej Wajda, Poland's best-known director, that is filling cinemas in the West and in Russia.

If Russia's new leadership wants to distance itself from the revisionist Soviet nostalgia of recent times, coming clean about Katyn would be a good start.

Gleaned from: The Economist