; Whereas between 700 and 900 Polish Jews were killed in the Katyn Massacre; Whereas the Soviet Union falsely blamed Nazi Germany for the massacre and broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile following a request by the government-in-exile that the International Committee of the Red Cross examine the Katyn mass graves; Whereas an international medical commission excavated the area in Spring 1943 and determined that the massacre occurred in 1940, when the area was under Soviet control; Whereas the Soviet Union continued to deny responsibility for the Katyn Massacre, blaming the Nazis and concealing evidence of its guilt, for nearly 50 years; Whereas, on September 18, 1951, the United States House of Representatives established the Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation and Study of the Facts, Evidence, and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre, which is referred to as the Madden Committee; Whereas, after reviewing witness testimony and relevant documents, the Madden Committee unanimously found that the NKVD, and thus the Soviet Union, was responsible for the executions and recommended a trial before the International World Court of Justice; Whereas scholars in the United States and United Kingdom published books and articles demonstrating the truth of the Katyn Massacre during the decades of Soviet denial; Whereas, in Poland in 1981, the Solidarity movement erected a memorial with the inscription Katyn, 1940 that the Communist government removed and replaced with a memorial falsely blaming the Nazis for the massacre; Whereas, in 1988, demonstrators marched in Warsaw to demand an official inquiry into the Katyn Massacre; Whereas, on April 13, 1990, 50 years after the executions of the Polish prisoners and 47 years since the day the discovery of the mass graves was announced, the Soviet government issued a statement accepting responsibility for the Katyn Massacre and calling it one of the most heinous crimes of Stalinism