Czech media mark 80th anniversary of Katyn Forest Massacre

The Czech media have been marking the 80th anniversary of the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre of around 22,000 Polish army officers, policemen and members of the intelligentsia by the Soviet security agency NKVD. Most of the executions took place in the Katyn Forest in west Russia.

The news site Aktualne.cz notes that the tragedy had a link to the Czech Republic since among those killed were some 350 people with Czech roots who lived in the Tešín area on the Czech side of the border.

The late professor Mečislav Borák, an expert on the Katyn Massacre spent years tracing their remains.

It was not until 1990 that then president Michail Gorbachov admitted the Soviets responsibility for the massacre.