Les Bourreaux de Staline - Katyn, 1940

In April 2020, it will be 80 years since the slaughter. The name Katyn has come to embody this large-scale massacre carried out in the greatest secrecy. In a clearing near the city of Smolensk, on the border with Belarus, many of these soldiers, mainly officers, were executed. First blamed on the Nazis, the cover-up endured for five years. It was only on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union that Mikhail Gorbachev was finally forced to acknowledge Stalin’s responsibility in the perpetration of the crime. His successor, Boris Yeltsin, opened the archives that provided the long-awaited evidence. Eighty years later, through archives and animation, Cédric Tourbe tells the story of the Katyn massacre from the side of the victims, and for the first time, from that of the executioners. This slaughter says much about the workings of the Soviet regime, based on a police force operating in unbelievable secrecy. (Arte)