"Denied by the Soviets, and hushed up by Poland's allies. The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia that was carried out by the Soviet Union's secret police - the NKVD - in April and May 1940. Mass graves were discovered in 1942, and with the bodies there were numerous Polish artefacts such as letters, diaries, photographs and identification tags. There were packed into crates and evacuated westward in 1944. There was a small crate, into which were placed twenty-two diaries and personal notes. Four copies of these items were made soon afterwards in Krakow, and the Polish Home Army then delivered its transcripts to the Polish government in exile, in London. Presented for you here are English translations of twelve of those diaries, which open a window into the individual and personal tragedies of these very different individuals. They give us an insight into their everyday lives in captivity, and the very real and very human emotions and hardships they experienced during what was undoubtedly a difficult and testing time." --Page 4 of cover.