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The meeting, which was previously scheduled for 17 September - with the anniversary of the Soviet Union invasion of the Second Polish Republic in mind - finally took place on 4 November 2024. The atmosphere of All Souls' Day, observed at the time, was no less conducive to reflection on the fate of Polish officers - prisoners of war murdered by the NKVD in the spring of 1940.

The guests of the meeting were Ewa Kowalska and Katarzyna Ziębik - researchers from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), who, as a part of their teamwork, undertook the laborious task of systematising and processing materials from the Archive of Dr. Jan Zygmunt Robel. The aim of the team, as part of which they were members, was not only to transcribe and edit the copies stored in Kraków and Warsaw, but above all - as the authors themselves explained - to personalise the documents.

The researchers from the IPN analysed more than 280 envelopes with materials found in the Katyń pits (each such envelope is attached to a specific person). Let us remind you that there were about three thousand such envelopes in the boxes entrusted by the Germans to Dr. Robel's team for several months. However, it has not yet been established whether and, if, where the remaining materials, prepared by the Kraków scientists as copies of artefacts found with the remains of the Polish officers in 1943, have survived.

However, even this small bit, edited by the IPN, constitutes a valuable biographical contribution to the collective portrait of the victims of the Katyń massacre. This is because an interesting picture emerges from the five-volume publication When Silent Graves Speak Up... The Archive of Dr. Jan Zygmunt Robel – a picture composed of both elements of the professional and family life of the Polish POWs, as well as fragments of their everyday life in the camp.

The meeting concluded with questions from the audience about, among other things, the post-war fate of Dr. Robel, and a nice gesture on the part of the guests – a set of the above-mentioned publications was handed over to Dr. Marek Białokur, a tutor of students from Public High School No. 3 in Opole, with the intention of enriching the book collection of the school library. The heroines of the meeting, in turn, were presented with copies of one of our latest publications - the catalogue of the exhibition I Love You, See You...