The Polish American Veterans of Chelsea held their annual mass on Sunday April 20th honoring the barbaric massacre of over 15 thousand Polish army officers and intellectuals in the Katyn forest and other unknown areas. The mass was held at St. Stanislaus Polish Church in Chelsea. The first news of the mass grave of Polish officers in the Katyn forest came from the German army in April 1943. They uncovered the massive grave while still occupying Soviet land in the east, in particular near the city of Smolensk. Once news broke, the Polish government in exile based in London was shocked. Although they were weary about the source that this news was coming from, Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski and others knew that about 15 thousand officers in the Soviet Union were considered missing when the Polish Army under Gen. Wladyslaw Anders was being formed there.     The London Poles demanded the International Red Cross to investigate. Before this could happen, Stalin’s Soviet government broke off diplomatic relations with the London Poles. This would form a rift in the allied camp, one from which Poland would not come out the same after the war. From the time of the discovery of the graves, the Soviet government openly stated that this crime was the work of the German army. This “belief” was exploited in particular when the communist backed Polish army was formed in the USSR under the command of Gen. Zygmunt Berling. Prior to their attachment to the Soviet army and their first use in battle, Berling and his men went to the Katyn sight to pay tribute and vow retribution to the men that were executed at the hands of the Nazis.    After the failure of the Allies to help Poland during its uprising of 1944, the official London-based Polish government was quickly forgotten and a new Soviet backed Polish government was implemented in Poland. The Lublin Poles (called this because Lublin was the first major city freed by the Soviet Army and this government set up its base there), were Polish men and women that spent most of their lives in the Soviet Union studying the communist system. With this new communist government in place, repressions and erasing history soon began.     Until Stalin’s death in 1953, Polish men and women associated with the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and the democratic Polish government in London were harassed, arrested, sentenced to Siberia or simply executed as being “traitors to the People’s Republic of Poland”. The Katyn massacre was also forgotten about or if mentioned at all was still considered an act committed by the German army. It was not until the fall of the communist system in 1989 that what happened at Katyn was admitted to by the Soviet Union through its president Mikhail Gorbachev.     At this annual mass were various veterans’ organizations from the Boston and north shore area along with various other representatives of Polonia. During the mass, an appeal was made to never forget the memory of these men who were tortured and executed and who’s memory for over fifty plus years was tarnished and fabricated. Following mass, a luncheon was held at the veterans post quarters with foods donated by Chelsea based Kayem Foods. A film about the Katyn massacre was also shown to the guests. The massacre of Polish men in the Katyn forest can not be forgotten for the simple fact that for so many years it was purposely forgotten and lied about. These men simply wanted to defend Poland from any aggressor. We as Poles must remember and forgive. Pawel Markiewicz