MARKOV: I can say only that in the Katyn wood there were some clearings with small trees and that, while driving back to Smolensk, we took a little tree with us in the bus, but I do not know whether there were any graves where these trees were standing. As I have already stated, no graves were laid open in our presence.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would request you to continue your reply, but very briefly and not to detain the attention of the Tribunal with unnecessary details.
MARKOV: Some editorial notes were made in connection with this protocol, but I do not remember what they were. Then Orsos and Butz were entrusted with the final drafting of the record. The signing of the record was intended to take place on the same night at a banquet which was organized in a German Army hospital. At this banquet Butz arrived with the minutes and he started reading them, but the actual signing did not take place for reasons which are still not clear to me. It was stated that this record would have to be rewritten, so the banquet lasted until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. Then Professor Palmieri told me that the Germans were not pleased with the contents of the protocol and that they were carrying on telephone conversations with Berlin and that perhaps there would not even be a protocol at all.
Indeed, having spent the night in Smolensk without having signed the record, we took off from Smolensk on the morning of 1 May. I personally had the impression that no protocol at all would be issued and I was very pleased about that. On the way to Smolensk, as well as on our way back, some of the delegates asked to stop in Warsaw in order to see the city, but we were told that it was impossible because of military reasons.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This has nothing to do with the subject. Please keep to the facts.
MARKOV: Around noon we arrived at the airport which was called Bela. The airport was apparently a military airfield because of the temporary military barracks I saw there. We had dinner there and immediately after dinner, notwithstanding the fact that we were not told that the signing of the minutes would take place on the way to Berlin, we were submitted copies of the protocol for signature. During the signing a number of military persons were present, as there were no other people except military personnel on this airfield. I was rather struck by the fact that on the one hand the records were already completed in Smolensk but were not submitted to us for signing there, and on the other hand that they did not wait till we arrived in Berlin a few hours later. They were submitted to us for signing at this isolated military airfield. This was the reason why I signed the report, in spite of the conviction I had acquired during the autopsy which I had performed at Smolensk.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is to say, the date and the locality which are shown in the protocol are incorrect?
MARKOV: Yes, that is so.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And you signed it because you felt yourself compelled to?
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, I don’t think it is proper for you to put leading questions to him. He has stated the fact. It is useless to go on stating conclusions about it.