Elżbieta Witek made the statement as she presented awards in a youth arts contest about the Katyn mass murders, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Entitled “The Polish Heart Broke: Katyn 1940,” the annual competition for high-school and university students is overseen by Witek.
'Crime of genocide that has never been punished'
Referring to the mass executions of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviet Army, which came to be known as the Katyn Massacre, Witek said: “It was a crime of genocide that has never been judged or punished.”
She added: “Now it's all happening again in Ukraine - it’s a warning that the regime in Moscow hasn’t changed and neither have its methods."
Remembering Katyn, looking after historical truth
She told the gathering: “The events in Ukraine, where children are being killed, women are being raped and ordinary passers-by are being shot in the back of their heads - should spur us to remember Katyn all the more and commit to looking after the historical truth.”
Witek thanked teachers for supporting their students and helping bring out their talents.
She handed out prizes for the best literary essays, visual-art projects, song lyrics and lesson plans about the 1940 massacre.
Guests at the gala included Education and Science Minister Przemysław Czarnek and Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński, as well as Agnieszka Kamińska, the CEO of public broadcaster Polish Radio, and Jacek Kurski, the head of the state-run TVP network, the PAP news agency reported.
Polish Radio and TVP were the contest’s media partners.
1940 Katyn Massacre
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.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, sejm.gov.pl