The opening of the exhibition "Operation AB – Katyń. The Destruction of the Polish Elite at the Beginning of World War II" prepared by the Public Education Office of the Institute of National Remembrance  took place on October 1, 2013 in the Duderstadt Center Hall (Duderstadt Center, University of Michigan. The event was co-organized by the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland and the University of Michigan, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Polski Klub and Polish Cultural Fund – Ann Arbor.

The event was preceded by "The Archives of Dictatorship – between Politics and Justice", lecture by Dr. Łukasz Kamiński, the President of the Institute of National Remembrance. 

The exhibition will be on display from 1 to 15 October, 2013 at the Duderstadt Center Hall.

For more information, please contact Ewa Pasek at ewamm@umich.edu (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan) or Dr. Andrzej Myc – 734-368-2604 (Polish Cultural Fund – Ann Arbor).

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Operation AB – Katyń. The Destruction of the Polish Elite at the Beginning of World War II

The exhibit is divided into several thematic blocks. The first depicts the Soviet-German political and military alliance in the years 1939–1941, as well as the joint invasion of Poland, its partition and occupation, during which the cooperative powers introduced their destructive policy towards the citizens of the conquered country. The next sections present the two notorious criminal operations of 1940, first the Katyń Massacre, and then the AB Operation. Exhibit panels reconstruct preparations for the crimes, their course and the major culprits. The exhibit also presents profiles of several victims, including families that fell victim to both aggressors. Finally, the exhibit looks at the big picture of these operations, depicting their geographical range and documenting the lack of punishment for the vast majority of the Third Reich and the USSR officers responsible for these crimes.