April 13 is a national day of remembrance for the victims of the World War II mass murders.
Commemorations are scheduled to be held throughout the nation to observe the memorial day, which was established by the country’s parliament in 2007.
Due to safety precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s memorial events are expected to be less high-profile than in most previous years.
Physical attendance during the day's ceremonies will be limited due to social distancing precautions prompted by the COVID-19 health crisis.
President Andrzej Duda is due to pay tribute to the victims of the Soviet crime at a monument in Warsaw’s Old Town district before noon.
The Polish head of state is also expected to deliver a special message focusing on the wartime massacre.
In the evening, the façade of his presidential palace will be illuminated to honour those murdered in the Katyn Forest in western Russia more than eight decades ago, one of Duda's aides, Wojciech Kolarski, told state news agency PAP.
Ahead of the 81st anniversary of the mass murders, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau honoured the victims at a Polish war cemetery in Bykivnia near Kiev, Ukraine last week.
Almost 22,000 Polish prisoners of war were killed in the spring of 1940 on orders from top Soviet authorities, according to estimates cited by Polish Radio’s IAR news agency.
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, thousands of Polish officers were deported to camps in the Soviet Union.
POWs from camps in Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov as well as Poles held in prisons run by the Soviet Union's NKVD secret police were among those murdered in April 1940.
Moscow for decades denied responsibility for the Katyn Massacre, while the topic was taboo when Poland after the war remained under Soviet control until 1989.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP