Show off your Polish Pride with this ready to wear graphic tee printed with environment friendly, water based ink.

When you place an order, your T-shirt is custom printed in house using Direct To Garment (DTG) "green ink" technology. This technology lowers environmental carbon impact while printing on 96-100% cotton fabric.

Copyrighted design is available only from POLANDBYMAIL web sites.

The 1940 Katyń Forest Massacre was a mass murder of thousands Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals, and civilian Prisoners of War by Soviet NKVD. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000. The victims were murdered in the Katyń forest in Russia, Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkiv prisons; Kozelsk, Starobelsk, and Ostashkov POW camps; in Smolensk, Kharkiv, Moscow, and other Soviet cities. In 1943, Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves within the Katyń Forest, and it was not until 1990 that the Soviet Union acknowledged the massacres by the NKVD.

According to historian Gerhard Weinberg, the reason for the massacre is that Stalin wanted to deprive a potential revived Poland of a large proportion of its military and technical elite to make it weaker as to keep the eastern portion of Poland within the Soviet's border. The Nazi Germans used the Katyń massacre discovery to drive a wedge between the then growing Soviet-Polish/Western Allies forces against the invading armies of Nazi Germany. However, when the Katyń area was again under the Soviet control, they did all they could to cover their actions up and turn the blame to Nazi Germany under false pretences.

With the news of the massacre the Western Allies were torn between their commitments to their Polish ally and demands their then-ally, the Soviet Union. Thus no investigations of the massacres were carried out and a front of Soviet conviction prevailed instead of the human moral issues of truth and accountability. On April 13th, 1990 the 47th anniversary of the discovery of the mass graves, the USSR formally expressed "profound regret" and admitted Soviet secret police responsibility. Opposite of Poland's request, Russian has classified the action not as a war crime or act of genocide, but as a military crime for which the 50-year term of limitation has expired with no basis to discuss the acts in judicial terms.

In June 2008, the Russian courts consented to hear cases requesting the declassification of documents about the Katyń massacre and the judicial rehabilitation of the victims. In an interview with a Polish newspaper, Vladimir Putin called Katyń a "political crime". The Russian government has until 19 March 2010 to clarify to the judges of the European Court of Human Rights its judicial proceedings on the 1940 Katyń massacre. Several memorial sites worldwide have been erected in memory of the massacre. April 13th is now observed as the International Day of Katyń Victims Memorial.

Made with 100% pre-shrunk Cotton
Available in Adult's sizing.