François Naville

François Naville was a Swiss physician and director of the medico-legal Institute of the University of Geneva. He was the only truly neutral expert participating in the international Katyn Commission investigating the Soviet Katyn massacre of some 22,000 Polish prisoners of war, mostly Polish Army officers, who had been arrested and imprisoned in the course of the Soviet and German invasion of Poland. Their bodies were discovered in a series of large mass graves in the forest near Smolensk in Russia following the Nazi German Operation Barbarossa.

Biography

Naville was born on 14 June 1883 in Neuchâtel, the son of Adrien Naville, a theologian and philosopher, and Isabelle Roguin. His maternal grandfather was Jules Roguin. Naville studied medicine in Geneva and Paris, obtaining his federal diploma in 1907 and his doctorate in 1910. He initially dedicated himself to neurology and child psychiatry before turning to clinical criminology.
Naville was appointed privat-docent of neurology in 1912, associate professor of legal medicine in 1928, then full professor and director of the medico-legal institute at the University of Geneva in 1934. He was president of the Swiss Neurological Society from 1930 to 1932 and dean of the University of Geneva's faculty of medicine from 1948 to 1950. Naville died on 3 April 1968 in Geneva, aged 84.

Katyn affair

In 1943, Naville was invited to join a commission of experts convened by the German authorities to investigate the massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest, near Smolensk. He participated as a private citizen, though with the consent of the Swiss authorities and the ICRC. The commission's report determined that the executions took place in March and April 1940, when the Katyn forest was under Soviet control. Naville became the target of political attacks and the commission's objectivity was questioned. The criticism persisted until 1990, when the Soviet Union officially acknowledged the massacre.