Katyn Forest is a small wooded area near the Polish/Russian border. In 1940, 4000 Polish servicemen and women were shot and burned there. In 1943, Germans excavated the graves and blamed the deaths on the Soviets, who in turn blamed the Germans. In 1989, under the spirit of glasnost, Gorbachev released papers, written by Stalin, that ordered the deaths of 27,500 Poles, of which the Katyn Massacre was a small part.