Uroczysko Baran killing fields

The Uroczysko Baran killing fields (Polish: miejsce zbrodni Uroczysko Baran), often referred to in Poland as the "Little Katyn" or the "Second Katyn", was the location for secret executions of soldiers and officers of the Polish Underground State carried out by Communist forces on behalf of the NKVD, SMERSH, PUBP, and (the Soviet-formed) Second Army of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie in the later stages of World War II.

The killing fields at the Uroczysko Baran – also known as the Baran Forest (baran means "ram" in Polish) - are located on the outskirts of Kąkolewnica village in eastern Poland, near Radzyń Podlaski. It is estimated that up to 1,200 or 1,800 wartime members of the Home Army (AK), Freedom and Independence (WiN), the Agrarian Battalions of BCh, as well as Polish defectors drafted to the Communist armies, and alleged enemies of the people, were murdered there, with hands tied behind their backs, over execution pits, from late autumn 1944 until February 1945, . The forensic examination of twelve exhumed bodies revealed multiple bone fractures: broken hands, limbs, hips, and cracked skulls indicating extreme beatings in detention, before execution. The President of Poland Bronisław Komorowski came to Uroczysko Baran on June 20, 2013, for a solemn ceremony of laying flowers and wreaths at the monument. The killings are the subject of a scholarly monograph published in 2007 by Jan Kołkowicz in the Polish language.

The killing fields were known to the local people in Kąkolewnica from the beginning. In July 1944, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front under Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky was stationed in Kąkolewnica, removing cattle and plundering food supplies, throwing people out of their homes to make way for military lodgings, and setting up SMERSH and NKVD interrogation dungeons in the basements. Soon, General Świerczewski with his LWP soldiers joined the fray. The Polish partisans from AK, WiN and BCh, captured in the vicinity – but also transported there from afar – like the soldiers of the 27th Home Army Infantry Division, were executed across the vast area of the forest spanning well over a dozen hectares. Mass graves were planted over with small pine trees by the killers. A symbolic cross was erected on site by some people in the summer of 1945. Removed by the Communist officials, it was often replaced by the locals under the cover of night.

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