Bykivnia
About ten kilometres northeast of Kiev lies a wooded area called Bykivnia. There thousands of people murdered by the Soviet security police NKVD are buried, including a large number of Polish officers. By March 1940, Stalin and the politburo approved NKVD’s plan to murder about 22,000 Polish officers, officials and police officers captured by the Soviet Union in connection with the Red Army’s occupation of eastern Poland in 1939. When the Germans occupied Kiev, the graves were discovered and used in German propaganda. When Kiev was liberated (reoccupied) by the Soviet Union, the Soviets in turn accused the Germans of the murders. How many were buried in Bykivnia is difficult to estimate but figures between 30,000 to 200,000 occur.
Current status: Monument (2011).
Location: 50°28'18.2"N 30°41'49.1"E
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Urban, Thomas: The Katyn Massacre 1940: History of a Crime (2022).
Bykivnia has not been given the same attention and recognition as Katyn, despite the fact that the Polish officers, non-commissioned officers, police officers and officials were murdered out of the same order of those killed in Katyn. The mass graves are scattered over a large area and there are hundreds of crosses placed as symbolic graves.