00:0022,000 men vanished in the spring of 1940, not in battle, not from disease.
00:04They were taken into the forests of Katyn, shot once in the back of the head, and buried
00:09in mass graves.
00:10These were not soldiers caught in combat.
00:12They were Poland's doctors, professors, lawyers, and military officers.
00:16The entire educated class of a nation erased in weeks.
00:20The Soviets did it.
00:21They knew it.
00:22And when Nazi Germany discovered the graves in 1943 and told the world, both Britain and
00:27the United States already had investigators who confirmed the truth.
00:31They buried that truth anyway.
00:33The USSR was too valuable an ally to lose over 22,000 Polish dead.
00:38So the cover-up held.
00:39For 50 years, the official story blamed Nazi Germany.
00:43Polish survivors who spoke out were quietly silenced by the very democracies that claimed
00:47to stand for justice.
00:49The Soviet Union finally admitted the truth in 1990.
00:52Two of the most powerful nations on earth looked at a genocide and decided it was worth protecting.
00:57And for half a century, they were right.
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