Knowing (or Not) about Katyń: The Silencing and Surfacing of Public Memory

For Poles, the Katyń Forest, in Russia, is a place immediately associated with national suffering. Katyń is one of three sites where approximately 20 000 Poles were executed during World War II, by the Soviet secret service. To shore up wartime political dependencies, knowledge of Katyń was silenced by the dominant hegemony. The public absence of Katyń narratives compelled their safeguarding and presence (where possible) in private spheres of the home. In 2010, the death of 96 people at Katyń—en route to commemorate the massacre—etched a new scar on an existing wound. The shifting of Katyń narratives between public absence and private presence exemplifies the importance of power in silencing public memory narratives.