[In February 1944] the First Army Brigade of general Berling's corps, in which I served as a battery commander, was deployed near Smolensk. [...]. The front in this area came to a standstill, with the troops on both sides holding expanded defence positions. It was then that the Soviet authorities decided to organize mourning ceremonies in the Katyn forest where Polish officers murdered - according to official statements, by the Germans in the autumn of 1941, were buried in a mass grave. [...]
We arrived on foot at a small clearing where we saw a freshly made mound over a huge mass grave that was covered with snow in which cones were placed to form an eagle and an inscription: "Peace to their memory! 1941". In the middle there stood a large wooden cross. [...]
During the mass I started walking through the forest surrounding the grave. Here and there I could see scattered and pressed into the moss partly covered with snow pieces of officers' belts, rust-eaten eagles, rotting remnants of caps with brownish, rugged stains in the back part of the rim [...] and some pieces of ropes and wires. I thought of going to the nearest village to learn something more from its inhabitants about the events that had taken place in Kosogory. However, this proved impossible: NKVD guards stood at every exit leading out of the forest. The only road left open was that along which we had arrived from Smolensk.
Katyn forest, February 1944
"Polityka" No. 7, 1989