2010: Russian site of 1940 Katyn massacre of 20000 Poles witnesses deaths of Polish President, top political & military leaders

'A black day for Poland': The death toll included the country's President and wife, its central bank head and the country's military chief along with other senior government and military figures.

A Polish man mourns at the site where Polish government Tupolev Tu-154 plane crashed near Smolensk airport.

Respects: Polish Army soldiers salute the coffin carrying the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski in Warsaw, Poland.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and wife, Maria both died in Saturday's crash near the site of the 1940 Katyn massacre of 20,000 Poles.

Daughter of the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski, Marta, and his twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski at the coffin containing the body of late Polish president Lech Kaczynski at the Military Airport in Warsaw, Poland, 11 April 2010.

Grief: A huge crowd of mourners gather in front of the Presidential Palace to pay tribute to late Polish President Lech Kaczynski, in Warsaw, Poland.

The Polish Army chief of staff, Gen. Franciszek Gagor, died on board the plane.

A black day for Poland: National Bank President Slawomir Skrzypek, left, and the Army chief of staff, Gen. Franciszek Gagor both died on board the plane.

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The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre, was a mass murder of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war (primarily military officers), intellectuals, police officers, and other public servants by the Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps. Dated 5 March 1940, this official document was then approved (signed) by the entire Soviet Politburo including Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, the most commonly cited number being 21,768. The victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkov prisons and elsewhere. About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest being Poles arrested for allegedly being "intelligence agents, gendarmes, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, priests, and officials." Since Poland's conscription system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer, the Soviets were able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian, Protestant, Muslim Tatar, Georgian, and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship.

Plane crash: Polish President, top political & military leaders died near site of 1940 massacre of 20000 Poles in Russia. The plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Saturday gutted a nation's leadership and silenced some of the most potent human symbols of Poland's tragic and tumultuous history. The plane ran aground on a patch of earth near the remote Russian forest glade called Katyn, where more than 20,000 members of Poland's elite officer corps were executed and placed in unmarked graves by Soviet secret police in 1940.

Flying on a 26-year-old, Soviet-designed plane, the iconic Polish figures were headed to a Roman Catholic Mass to honor the 70th anniversary of the deaths at Katyn. It was to be a tribute to long-smothered truth.

The massacre was denied for decades by the Soviet Union, and even today, Russian reluctance to open the investigation files on the Polish prisoners remains a sensitive topic between the two countries.

In a bizarre twist, the crash happened at the moment Russia and Poland were beginning to come to terms with the Katyn massacre.

The tragic irony of the crash was so complete that it seemed destined for conspiracy theory. Russian officials were careful to vow in the earliest hours to closely involve Poland in the investigation. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, rushing to the scene of the crash, said he would personally head the probe.

Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union during World War II and lived for decades under Moscow's domination. Long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ties with Russia remain strained.

Along with the president and his wife, the 97 dead included the army chief of staff, the head of the National Security Office, the national bank president, the deputy foreign minister, the deputy parliament speaker, the civil-rights commissioner and members of parliament.

Also aboard the plane were war veterans and surviving relatives of Poles killed by the Soviets. There was Ryszard Kaczorowski, 90, Poland's last "president-in-exile" during the Soviet years.

The Queen has expressed her "deepest sympathy" to the Polish government and people after the death of President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash. Gordon Brown said the whole world would be "saddened" and Tory leader David Cameron called it a "black day".

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Photos courtesy of novinite.com, EPA, Reuters, ESRI / AP, Alik Keplicz / AP, and Times Online