On 12 April, a delegation from the Institute of National Remembrance took part in a ceremonial gathering marking the 86th anniversary of the Katyń Massacre. The event was organized by RAF Ingham – the Polish Bomber Squadrons Centre, a civic organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of Polish Bomber Squadrons 300 and 305 at their former wartime bases, RAF Ingham (Cammeringham) and Faldingworth in eastern England.

Dr Michał Zarychta of the IPN Historical Research Office delivered a lecture on the Katyn Massacre. Members of the Polish diaspora, alongside their British counterparts, had the opportunity to see the film Katyń, directed by Andrzej Wajda, and to familiarize themselves with the IPN’s exhibition The Katyn Massacre 1940. The Extermination of the Polish Elite. The exhibition was also later presented in one of the parishes in Sheffield.

Prior to the event, representatives of the Institute paid tribute to Polish heroes at the memorial cross located at the Polish Air Force Cemetery in Newark-on-Trent - one of the largest Polish necropolises in the United Kingdom and the world’s largest Polish military aviation cemetery. Nearly 400 Polish servicemen are interred there. The cemetery is also the place where the original resting places of General Władysław Sikorski and the first three Presidents of the Republic of Poland in exile are located.

The IPN representatives also laid a wreath at the site of the crash of the Polish Wellington bomber W5557 near the former RAF Lindholme base, close to Doncaster. The aircraft crashed there in September 1941 while returning from a bombing mission over Cologne. There, the participants met with Karolina Maczek-Skillen - the granddaughter of General Maczek. They also visited the Church of All Saints in Faldingworth, where Polish airmen and their families funded a commemorative stained-glass window, and laid a wreath at the memorial at the end of the runway of the former RAF Faldingworth base. Representatives of the Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Manchester - Deputy Consul Michał Lutyński and Attaché Alan Słowik also joined the participants. 

This initiative constituted yet another undertaking organized by the Polish Bomber Squadrons Centre at the former RAF Ingham base in which representatives of the Institute of National Remembrance played an active role.