BALTIMORE (Map, News) - In a ceremony binding generation to generation, Polish Americans gathered at the Katyn Memorial on Sunday to remember thousands of lives lost in the World War II massacre of Polish army officers.

“We can never forget what happened to these people who were just murdered by communists,” said Richard Poremski, chairman of the National Katyn Memorial Foundation.

“Never again, nowhere in this world should this atrocity be committed again.”

Teary-eyed war veterans bowed their heads in prayer standing side by side with young Polish-American children dressed in the vibrant red of traditional Polish dance attire.

Teenage boys from a Polish-American Boy Scout troop in Brooklyn, N.Y., stood in silence, staring up at the 45-foot bronze sculpture brought to Baltimore City from Poland in November 2000 and carried through Fells Point in the middle of the night.

“This is a wonderful time for people to gather to remember their fight for freedom,” said Maryann Chorabik, of Baltimore City, who shares her Polish heritage with her 5-year-old son, Michael, who was among the Krakowiaki dancers, a local Polish-American group.

The eighth annual ceremony held at the National Katyn Memorial on President Street honors some 20,000 Poles who were secretly executed when the Red Army entered Poland in 1939. It wasn’t until half a century after a mass grave of Poland’s political and intellectual elite was found buried in Russia’s Katyn forest that the Soviets took responsibility for the massacre.

“In school they taught us the Germans did this, but that was not true,” said Lidia Myszkowski, 61, who traveled from Pennsylvania to be part of the ceremony.

“Now we know the Russian soldiers did this, and we are happy for all the world to know the true story,” she said.

Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon announced at the ceremony her commitment to teaching the city’s schoolchildren about the Katyn massacre and the significance of the memorial.

“I’m honored to be a part of what I believe is an opportunity to enhance our diversity but bring us together,” Dixon said.

“I never can imagine what was on one’s mind and one’s heart to destroy so many lives.”

Local leaders, including U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes and City Councilman Jim Kraft, joined Dixon in declaring that such an atrocity should never be forgotten nor repeated.

The ceremony was concluded as representatives from the Poland Legion of American Veterans, Catholic War Veterans and Polish Heritage Association laid wreaths on the memorial.

cpeirce@baltimoreexaminer.com