By Zbigniew Wojcik

1. Forgotten case: How Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland,
    became an accessory in the murder of an innocent Pole.

1.1. The scene of the murder. I, along with millions of Poles who followed the news on TV, had witnessed Donald Tusk’s action, which led to the killing of an innocent Polish citizen.  Muslim terrorists caught a Polish engineer who worked as a contractor in Pakistan and requested money for his release. A Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, made a public announcement on Polish TV news channel that he will not pay the ransom. I  personally saw and heard his statement widely distributed on Polish TV. Because of this official declaration made by the top Polish official, the Polish engineer was immediately executed. I was shocked: why the Polish Prime Minister deliberately chose the course of action that caused the prompt brutal murder of Mr. Stanczak? Instead of giving this formal announcement which was equal to giving a death sentence to an innocent man,  Donald Tusk could talk to the Pakistani government first and also to international organizations familiar with terrorism and kidnapping. There might exist religious organizations or individuals in Pakistan to assist in a hostage situation to save an innocent life. I have not heard anything about diplomatic or religious attempts to release the Polish citizen, as it should be Tusk’s obligation and responsibility. Instead of the brutal public speech made by Donald Tusk, other options could be exercised,  and maybe some positive solution could be found. I did not see it necessary that a top official of a country loudly makes the ruthless, deadly decision. “The claim to have murdered Stanczak came just hours after Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters that no ransom would be paid.” [1] “’ We have beheaded the Polish engineer after the government failed to meet our demands and we will not hand over his body,’ a Taliban spokesman said by telephone.”

1.2. Motivations of killing an innocent Pole. Could this be just a mistake of Donald Tusk, a Polish Prime Minister, to announce publicly his no-ransom decision? If you, the reader of this article, are an innocent working person shouldn’t you be afraid to live under Tusk’s power? If not, why would you support Donald Tusk to govern the country you live in?

Is it possible that Donald Tusk made a deal with the Pakistan Government against the Polish engineer?  Indeed, the statement [1]: ”The kidnappers had demanded a large ransom and the release of six jailed militants in exchange for the engineer’s release” may suggest, that Pakistan had no interest to release six jailed militants and it was purposeful to talk to Tusk, the Polish top official, rather than to the Taliban. If I was the Prime Minister of Poland, I  would declare that I would pay my part for the release of the Polish citizen. Donald Tusk preferred to support a far-distant country rather than his citizen, Mr. Stanczak, and it likely had to be a very dirty deal.

Further on, the statement [1]: “Piotr Stanczak was seized on September 28 by armed men who killed his two drivers and bodyguard in restive northwest Pakistan, where he was working for a Polish energy company” indicates, that Pakistan felt responsible for the safety of the Pole but failed. Pakistani government knew of the Taliban threat and preferred that Donald Tusk takes full responsibility for the death of  Mr. Stanczak on their territory. Pakistan made no mistake: the six militants in jail were of very high value, as they were extremely good at killing and thus dangerous since one militant easily handled a bodyguard, two drivers, and one engineer. This explains also why Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, took loudly and officially full responsibility for killing an innocent Pole. Tusk likes responsibility for dirty or brutal decisions.

1.3. During the ongoing political campaign preceding the 2023 elections, the media in Poland forgot to recall the crime committed on an innocent Polish engineer. I wonder why the media in Poland forgot the fact of sentencing innocent  Mr. Stanczak to death by Donald Tusk while he wants to get full power over Poland again. Perhaps political conspiracy exists against the free government currently in charge of the country.

2. Donald Tusk with his “Polish government” fully collaborated
with Russians during the murder of Poles in the Smolensk crash

2.1. Several explosions destroyed a Polish plane in Smolensk.  The Soviet-made TU-154M aircraft with 96 Polish officials and crew on board crashed in Smolensk in 2010. One of the victims was the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński. “The TU-154M aircraft was destroyed in the air as a result of several explosions.” [3]

2.2. Reaction of the Polish government to the explosions. Immediately after the Smolensk crash, “…the Polish government decided to leave the investigation solely in Russian hands, without securing the rights to appeal to international organizations, aviation organizations, and relinquishing the right of an inspection, or any efficient supervision over examination procedures.”[2] Donald Tusk was the Prime Minister of Poland at the time of the Smolensk crash.

2.3. Restrictions imposed by Russia and by the Polish government. To prevent any medical evidence, “…opening the coffins was strictly forbidden”. Under the total supervision of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, “there were no Polish crash investigators, criminologists or explosives experts allowed to inspect the scene.” Dr. Michael Baden, the “world’s most famous forensic pathologist turned away by the Polish government”, said: [2] “I’ve never heard of the family not being able to get an autopsy.”

2.4. Rejection of any help offered by NATO and America. Also, “…the Polish government refused to consider any help from NATO and did not attempt to gather any support from other European Union countries. As a result, all the evidence gathered has been left on Russian soil, including confidential military and security codes belonging to NATO’s armies, “black boxes”, and other flight recording devices containing all flight parameters. None of this evidence, as well as any debris of the wreckage, has ever been returned to Poland.” “…during the first night of the crash, the Russians were removing the most important pieces of evidence.”[2]

2.5. Support for Russia by Tusk and his government. By the orders of Donald Tusk, especially by forcing the use Chicago Convention regarding civil aircraft crashes, the Polish experts did not have independent access to evidence material, witnesses, and other information, which still remain in Russia’s hands.[3] Yet, Russians broke the Chicago Convention, e.g. by not securing the crash site.

All these facts mean that Donald Tusk with his Polish government fully collaborated with Smolensk’s murderers of the Poles. E.g., the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski, did not sign a diplomatic note to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding the crash scene be secured and that Polish representatives have full and unobstructed access to carry out their investigation [3].

2.6. Resumption of the investigation and release of a report by the new free government. Fortunately, the investigations continued despite obstacles set by Donald Tusk and his government, and the final report was released [3] after Poland gained true independence and sovereignty in 2015.  Andrzej Duda become the President of free Poland in 2015.   The Committee for the Re-investigation of the crash of TU-154M was established [3]. “In 2016, the State Prosecutor’s office decided to perform exhumation of all victims, which, e.g. confirmed the swapping of bodies in coffins. “ [3]  A thorough analysis of available evidence stated beyond doubt the use of explosive materials to crash TU-154M. For instance,  “elements of the skin of the left wing, which according to the MAK (Russians) and Miller (Polish) reports were supposed to have made contact with the bb [Bodin birch] tree are torn off and bent outwards; the upper side bent upwards, and the bottom side bent downwards.” [3] The birch tree, as reported by  Russians and Polish minister Miller, could not make the upper wing side bent upwards, and the bottom side bent downwards.  Simulations, experiments, and knowledge of experts proved that only explosions from inside the wing could make the numerous destructions observed.

2.7. The scene of the brutal Russian attack. “Many of the pieces of debris had distinct traces (micro craters) on their surface. Their appearance corresponds in shape and size with the traces of the debris created during the pyrotechnical experiment performed by the Committee. [3]  This feature is typical for explosive destruction.  “The explosion of the ballast box … was the main reason for the destruction … killing all the passengers, and distributing their body parts across the entire crash site.”[3]  “… Only small, torn body parts of victims were found, including numerous, identified internal organs, which prove that even before the plane hit the ground, the bodies of the passengers sitting in the center part of the aircraft cabin were impacted and torn into pieces.”[3]  The Committee found a “.. massive presence of traces of explosive materials”.

“The body of one of the passengers sitting in the rear part of the plane was rammed into the rear wall of the toilet (without the seat backrest) in such a way, that the wall was folded around the body of the passenger. The damage of the body and location of it shows that the body was moving in the direction opposite to the moving plane.”[3]

From what I understood, pictures were made at the scene of the crash and handed to the Committee. Jerzy Miller was the Minister of Interior in the Tusk government, and MAK is the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee (Межгосударственный Aвиационный Kомитет), showing a tight dependence of Donald Tusk and his Polish government on Russia.

2.8. More findings. Investigations revealed also [3], that during landing, “the guidance of the TU-154M was performed with a systematic misleading of the Polish pilots by Russian General V. Benediktov.” In effect,  the plane crashing place was located in the woods far from buildings and did not align with any runway [4].

Explanations of the Smolensk Crash provided by MAK and Miller’s reports were modeled by virtual experiments on computers. “The simulation of the plane’s destruction shows a completely different destruction of the model than the plane at the crash site.” [3] Simply, both MAK and Miller reports are lying.

3. Poland took the chance of a stable friendship with America
after a long history of Poland’s occupation by hostile neighbors

3.1. Polish politicians used to collaborate with the Soviet occupants of Poland. Poland has a recent history of occupation by the Soviet Union from about 1945 to 1990, immediately after about 5 years of occupation by Germany during WWII. Earlier, for about 120 years till 1918, Poland was occupied by Germany, Russia, and Austria. This history explains in part the behavior of many Polish political leaders promoting the domination of Germany and Russia over their country. Leaders like Donald Tusk do not hesitate to collaborate with Russia and Germany against the Poles. There are thousands of previous active Soviet collaborators living in Poland. Their descendants enjoy relative prosperity inherited after their parents together with connections (an example is Piotr Kraśko, the descendant of Wincenty Kraśko, a national secretary of the Polish Communist Party during the Cold War. After the Cold War Piotr was so successful that he even reported St. John Paul II pilgrimages.)

3.2. The political future of Poland is its friendship with America [4]. I discussed with the CIA in 1886/87 the significance of a prospective member of Poland in NATO and how Poland could easily break with the Warsaw Pact [4].  US intelligence officers I talked to did not oppose it and then I got many questions about Polish culture, the achievements of outstanding Poles, and the attitude of Poles toward America.  The U.S. is the only strong strategic partner, because of the disastrous Poland’s history of living between two hostile and very strong neighbors. The second strategic partner for Poland is the United Kingdom. Perhaps also Germans are today not as bad for Poles as the Polish collaborators with the Soviets or with Russians. The collaborators lost their political employer during the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and are now anxious to have again a strong new master.

3.3. America needs faithful friendship with Poland. Poland is of the greatest significance for America in Europe, as Poland is located between Germany and Asian Russia [4]. Russia does not lose its imperial politics and is in a military war to get back the territories lost after the Soviet Bloc collapse. Germany is the strongest Western Europe power hungry for total domination in the region through the  European Union. Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS), a national-conservative political party,  opposes German domination over its country. Both Germany and Russia tend to eliminate America’s influence in Europe. PiS supports friendships with America.

3.4. Pro-German and pro-Russia movements in Poland. The opposition party Civic Platform (PO) with its leader Donald Tusk is highly pro-German and pro-Russian. Well-known politician Lech Walesa works for PO. Germany strongly supports Polish opposition through the UE parliament, punishing for instance Poland for not complying with EU (often illegitimate) orders.  PO leaders strongly support orders of the EU against Poland and even complain to the EU against Poland, openly asking to punish their country.

The cases with Donald Tusk’s active involvement described in the sections above show that both Germany and Russia tend to fight freedom-loving Poles by all means using opposition leaders like Tusk.

4. Poland suffered an attack from Russia in 2010

4.1. Smolensk Crash was an attack of Russia against Poland. Tusk was instrumental in this attack: his refusal of NATO assistance became a significant part of Russia’s attack against Poland and also against NATO countries through Article 5 of the NATO Charter. Tusk prevented military assistance from NATO by declaring the incident in Smolensk was a civilian crash. By rejecting any help from NATO and living all evidence on Russian soil, Tusk gave Russians confidential military and security codes belonging to NATO’s armies [2]. This was a betrayal. Article 5 of the NATO Charter assured Poland reasonable military assistance from all NATO countries after the crash. Obviously, the plane carrying the Polish President was not a civilian but a military plane. Tusk resorted to Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention from 1944 applicable only to civilian aviation and not to the bilateral Agreement between Poland and Russia from 1993 that provided for equal access to all evidence and information.

4.2. Russians fully trusted Donald and they did not doubt Tusk’s loyalty. In other words, Smolensk Crash was a large-scale well-prepared attack after which Russia, counting on Tusk,  did not expect serious consequences. The information about rejecting any help from NATO by the Polish government comes from a trustable internet source [2] as this source publishes articles by a CIA expert, Eugene Poteat, LL.D., specializing in Polish-Russian relations [5]. A reader needs to understand that the Technical Report [3]  covers only “findings concerning the most important technical aspects of this crash”, and that the CIA knows [2] about other aspects of the Smolensk crash.

The reader may think, Donald Tusk was afraid of the Russians and did not want to escalate the Russian attack. But Tusk also sacrificed a Polish engineer in Pakistan, see the story above, where he did not need to be afraid of a very distant country, so, escalation did not come into play. As the Prime Minister, Tusk should discuss the attack on the Polish military plane with NATO as Poland is a member of this pact since 1999. Article 5 says about “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, and not necessarily a military action”. Tusk was hostile to NATO and sided with Russia. This Tusk’s attitude will likely continue once Tusk will govern Poland again, which may lead to the end of this country.

4.3. Friendship with America vs. post-communist Tusk. Support for Tusk is the support for the return of the power of the post-communist people in Poland, who will govern like during communism, and the support for getting rid of the friendship with America. The fact is that Tusk with his Polish government already rejected the help the NATO with Americans just after the attack of the Russians on Polish military aircraft in 2010 [2]. The fronts will completely change after Tusk gets power.

5. Consequences of the Round Table Agreement

5.1. The cost and advantages of the Round Table. Polish communists received everything they wanted as a result of the Round-Table agreement so that they would agree to a democratic free election. Even their man, Lech Wałęsa, was elected during the first free elections in Poland after the Cold War. Polish post-communists felt safe when Wałęsa, a former paid communist undercover agent became the first President of free Poland. The process of peaceful transition into capitalism in Poland needed some sacrifices [4]. Justice was left in the hands of communists to avoid the punishments of accomplished terror-keepers in Poland. But there was no blood-shed.

5.2. Secret of communist terror.  Terror in Poland under Soviet occupation in the years 1960 -1990 was maintained by undercover agents pretending to be anti-communists who were very successful in detecting true patriots by using well–played provocations: all who were willing to fight communism and who confessed to the secret agents their attitude towards freedom were then persecuted. Many lost lives [4,7]. Lech Walesa, a former communist agent, still pretends to be an anti-communist fighter and he always does this so well that many people still trust him, including professional politicians, especially in America.  [8,7]

5.3. The role of the post-communist time. Adam Michnik, an accomplished communist undercover agent, also pretended to be an anti-communist fighter [4,7]. After the Cold War during the post-communism, Michnik had several years to destroy communist archives.

After taking power, the post-communists, among them the former highly accomplished communist agents, were free to rob Poland. An example is the robbing and complete devastation of the modern and highly competitive Cable Factory in Ożarów near Warsaw [4] when Kwasniewski was the President. Post-communist authorities, except for President Lech Kaczynski,  kept robbing and devastating Poland through a few presidencies up to President Andrzej Duda, an honest Polish patriot.

5.4. Never trust post-communists. Many undercover communist agents converted into activists of political parties, some of them pretending they were anti-communist heroes. Lech Wałęsa was not alone. Under the presidency of a patriot  Andrzej Duda, the post-communists do anything possible to take power back. EU served them with strong support. An example is the support of the opposition party PO for Donald Tusk: evidence shows he sided with the successful attack of Russia on Polish military aircraft and rejected NATO help. Poles will be left without any assistance under Tusk’s power: knowing this and counting on Tusk, Russians will likely attack Poland, e.g. through  Belarus’ territory.

5.5. Polish post-communists’ dream is to take totalitarian power back. Tusk openly says that he takes full responsibility for his orders, this way he declares he is a totalitarian ruler. His slogan is: you do what I say, and I am responsible for this. His subordinates obey him more easily under this motto.

6. The attitude of Germany toward Tusk and Russia

Germany likes and supports Tusk, mostly through the EU. In appreciation of Tusk’s performance during the Russian attack against Poland through the military plane crash in Smolensk, Chancellor Angela Merkel gave him the position of EU Council president, which he took in 2014.

Germany’s politicians were in strong friendly ties with Russia after the Cold War. As the Chancellor, Schröder opened Gazprom, a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.  Only days after his chancellorship, he has been working for Russian state-owned energy companies and was lobbying on behalf of Russia. Schröder’s salary paid by Russia is about $1 million per year. Angela Merkel intensified Schröder’s strategy, declaring to close all its nuclear power plants, making her country more dependent on Russia’s energy supply.

Historically, Germany and Russia (or the Soviet Union) collaborated strategically for over a century to control the center of Europe, which led to  WWI and WWII. These two powers continue their strategy: Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022 and Germany for a long time only pretended to support Ukraine.

7. The attitude of the EU and Germany toward Poland

Germany seeks to subordinate Poland through the EU, this time not by military aggression. Support for Tusk to govern Poland is one possible way to destroy Poland.

The EU claims to have authority over a sovereign country and may take legal action against its member for failing to apply EU law. As a sovereign country, Poland refused to implement EU law in case it violated the Polish constitution. No international agreement can violate Polish Constitution, which is a supreme law for Poles. Way to go through the wise decision of the current patriotic Polish government! EU, and in reality, the Chairman of the EU Commission, the German politician Ursula von der Leyen,  attempted to deprive Poland of its sovereignty. Fortunately, the EU Commission has no military power and cannot reinforce its decision with a military attack. A monetary penalty is nothing compared to allowing for the loss of the Polish government elected by Poles. Poland wants to be an EU member as a sovereign nation.

Poles have got the lesson that only America’s friendship is valuable. Not Russia and not Germany with its UE click,  as the history of Russian and German imperialism repeats itself in front of our eyes.

8. The test for the intention of Germany toward the Poles

The test for the intention of Germany after strong attempts to put Tusk to govern Poland is the call for reparation after WWII. Poland suffered enormous losses in human lives and the horrible destruction of the entire country and never received a dollar of compensation from Germany.  EU countries support the demand and penalties imposed on Poland to control this proud country that wants to stay free. Interestingly, not much pressure from the EU countries is visible to encourage Germany to compensate, even symbolically, for the damages Germans did to the Poles during WWII. EU propaganda in the media blames Poland for not respecting the EU law and is quiet on the issue of war reparations. The EU propaganda does not correlate these two issues, although these two problems appear at the same time. German people are given the chance to humanly resolve the issue of their ultimate hate towards Poles. If a living Pole says about the organized systematic killing of Polish citizens in concentration camps, or about the enthusiastic support of German leaders by German people to murder Poles as well as burn their houses and demolish infrastructure, the Germans would say “we did it, and we are proud to compensate for all the loses as you required”. Instead, Germany pushes to put their ruthless man, Donald Tusk on the throne of Poland. Many supporters of Tusk exist in Poland who are ready to govern with him as they or their parents did during the Cold War. An example is Lech Wałęsa [7], an extremely successful officer in undercover provocations to detect patriots who were not happy with Soviet/communist oppression. Do they plan an equally oppressive government in Poland? If not, why Donald Tusk? And why is the major opposition party PO (Civic Platform) under the leadership of Tusk? Lech Wałęsa is a member of the PO, providing spiritual leadership for his comrades.

9. Spiritual leadership for Tusk’s political party in Poland

9.1. Dirty political job needs high rewards and satisfaction.  Governing is frequently a very dirty job. Monetary compensation is not enough for this type of duty. Approval by people counts.

Wałęsa received the opinion of a national hero for fighting against Soviet communism in Poland while he was a communist agent keeping terror. Perhaps it is hard to understand, why the communist undercover officer, giving out patriots for Soviet oppression, becomes a national hero.  Well, this is exactly what is needed in a tyranny:  many power-supporting officers who are seen as national heroes while they do very dirty political inhumane duties.  Lech Walesa is an excellent example of such an officer [7]. Walesa is now worshiped even in America. See e.g. excerpts describing key activity of Polish organizations in Texas: [8]

“Adam Dominski, President Walesa’s Chief of Staff and President of the Board at the Lech Walesa Institute.

Nathan Silverstein, the founder, and president of the Polish Club at the University of Texas.

Pawel Hardej, a local businessman, Polish American activist, and community organizer.

United States headquarters of his new Lech Walesa Foundation in Austin.

AUSTIN, TEXAS (PRWEB) MAY 21, 2022

The Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Poland Lech Walesa draws crowds at the UT Austin AT&T Hotel and Conference Center during his speech on the war in Ukraine.”

“President Walesa also visited with Texas Governor Greg Abbott during his stay in Austin. Meeting at the Governor’s Mansion with the Governor and his staff, Walesa was accompanied by local leaders of the Polish American community…”

Lech Walesa indeed was the “Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Poland. So, where is the problem and why are these facts disturbing?  Disturbing are his oppressive communist activities in the past that were not presented to the Texas Governor before Walesa visited Austin in 2022.  These disturbing facts were discovered, analyzed, and published by the top historical authority of Poland, The National Remembrance Institute (IPN) [9, 4,7]. Disturbing also is the fact that political authorities in America are easily manipulated and perhaps do not know or underestimate the power of communist propaganda. Speaking about the war in Ukraine [8], post-communists pretend to be honest people but as evidenced by Donald Tusk and the growing conflict between the EU and Poland, they support the German imperium known as the EU and not the free Poland.

What does the pro-Wałęsa propaganda get?

A few things.

i. The propaganda gains the trust in the words of the big post-communist-like leaders: you trust them because they claim they are accomplished “anti-communist” heroes. They support the EU with the leadership of Germany and then you also trust them.  Pro-Ukraine propaganda is correct, so, you trust Wałęsa more.  This is typical propaganda to mislead you to satisfy the power-hungry of EU politicians.

ii. The ad [8] shows many Polish activists promoting the spirituality of Lech Wałęsa to follow: you will be a national hero like Lech Wałęsa if you listen to your political leader (like Tusk) while doing dirty work for him.

9.2. Hiding the historical truth about Lech Walesa by Polish Historians in the US. There is no space in Polish American Congress (PAC), for the truth after 40 years since the creation of the Solidarity movement in Poland, and after 30 years since the Berlin Wall collapsed. Poles living in Poland know the truth about Lech Walesa, but Polonia in the US and American people are kept in the dark.  Historical studies carried out by the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) concluded that Lech Walesa worked as a paid communist agent under the Soviet occupation of Poland during the Cold War. And look what Prof. Emeritus Donald Pienkos, a professional historian says on the Internet of PAC, published as “The Amazing Story of Solidarity…” [10]:

“Lech Walesa, a former worker blacklisted for his independent labor union organizing activities, joined them and was immediately made a leader of its strike committee. “ … “An inter-factory strike committee headed by Walesa was set up, with new demands calling for the creation of an independent union and a union newspaper free of government censorship. Solidarnosc was born.” … “This unimagined agreement sparked Solidarity’s amazing expansion into a massive national force that grew in just a few weeks to nearly ten million members.”

What is wrong with the professional historian’s story on the history of Solidarity?

9.3. Disturbing elements in Polish historian’s story about Lech Walesa. Disturbing is the lack of information in the entire Pienkos’ text [10] about the communist dark past of Lech Walesa, which was studied and published a long time ago by historians of the top historian institution,  IPN in Poland. This is wrong, at least there should be a remark in “historian” Pienkos’ text about the findings of the supreme historical authority investigating communist crimes in Poland. Prof Pienkos knew about the IPN and its study about Walesa and Solidarity, as Pienkos’ article starts with information on an exhibit about the IPN in Warsaw’s Pilsudski’s Square. A professor of history knows that Solidarity was highly infiltrated by communist security. Putting a secret communist agent in charge of Solidarity was a good move for the communist regime [7,4]. How could workers just elect the leader of their movement in communist Poland without the consent of the top communist figures?

9.4.  Professor Pienkos’s story about Walesa is propaganda. Communists in Soviet Bloc kept all people under strict political control [4]. There was no way a politically independent human could be in charge of a free labor union like Solidarity. Walesa could not be an exception in communist Poland, this is what true historians of IPN say [7]. Father Jerzy Popieluszko was a spiritual leader of Solidarity after Polish Pope John Paul II visited Poland in 1979. Then, the priest Popieluszko was tortured and murdered in 1984 by communist security. I attended a historical catholic mass carried out by the Polish pope in 1979 at St. Ann Church in Warsaw during which he repeated statements containing the word “solidarity”, asking people to get involved and “not be afraid”. Solidarity was created by the Polish pope, but unfortunately, Solidarity became inactive after the 6-day torture and murder of Father Popieluszko by communist security. Most likely, Solidarity would not resume if not for the ‘perestroika’ announced by Gorbachev.

Prof Pienkos did not resolve the combination of two key facts [6,7]: i. St. Father Popieluszko was terribly tortured and killed, and within the same communist regime, ii. Walesa stayed untouched on the top of Solidarity.

Also, Prof. Pienkos disregards not only professional historians living in Poland but also ignores the CIA.  How would Poland become a free country and join NATO without the knowledge of this powerful US organization [4]?

In addition, Wałęsa recently lost two cases in the court against history professor Cenckiewicz in Poland [11]. Interestingly, Wałęsa launched the trials. Cenckiewicz is the main IPN figure who studied Walesa’s dirty past.

9.5. Publishing of anti-Polish propaganda by Polish clubs.  Polish Heritage Center (PHC) in Panna Maria, Texas, accuses Poland of expelling millions of Germans at the end of WWII [6]. The exhibit entitled ‘REFUGEES, EXPULSION, RELOCATION” says: “… Poland ultimately expelled four million of five million Germans who had not already fled west. …” Also Lech Wałęsa was found to be a nasty communist agent, [7]  is depicted as a Polish hero by PHC.

                                       Conclusion

After the attack by Russia in 2010 on a military plane carrying 96 patriotic Poles, including the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, Poland undergoes an attack from Germany through the EU institutions controlled by berlin.

Poland did not adequately oppose the Russian assassination attack in smolensk because of Donald Tusk’s conspiracy, who refused any assistance from NATO in the crash investigation. Also considering his contribution in killing innocent Polish engineer in Pakistan, it is very likely that once Tusk gets power in Poland, this country will no longer survive as an independent and sovereign entity.

regretably, many Polish clubs in America still align with the politics of Tusk’s political party, especially by propagating dirty political disinformation.  they will continue to do so with the Poles after Tusk gets power in Poland. This dirty political work promoted by Polish clubs in the US is what Walesa was doing when he was an undercover communist agent, for what, ironically, he is worshiped in the US as a national Polish hero.

the Polish Heritage Center in Texas is probably the worst, presenting Germans as the victims of the Polish government at the end of WWII [6]. This type of propaganda is hostile to Poles and may disturb negotiations for WWII reparations, as well as may strengthen German-Russia ties against Poland. Poland was occupied by Soviets immediately after WWII and Poles were excluded from making any decisions about their future after the war.

References

[1]. https://www.france24.com/en/20090207-poland-confirms-death-kidnapped-engineer-pakistan

[2]. https://www.smolenskcrashnews.com/polish-air-crash-disinformation.html

[3]. 2021 Final Report of the Polish Commission to Reinvestigate the Smolensk Crash https://podkomisjasmolensk.mon.gov.pl/pl/2.html. See also: https://www.poloniainstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Smolensk-Report-April-2018-final.pdf

[4]. Zbigniew Wojcik, “Slaying the Soviet Beast. A True Story about How the Cold War was Won. What Next”, Liberty Hill, 2019.

[5]. https://www.smolenskcrashnews.com/russian-image-management.html

[6]. Zbigniew Wojcik, “Polonia clubs in America engaged in anti-Polish propaganda?” https://poloniainstitute.net/current-events/polonia-clubs-in-america-engaged-in-anti-polish-propaganda/

[7].  “Wałęsa, also known as “Bolek”. Communist Terror in Poland under the Shield of Solidarity”,  by Zbigniew Wojcik, https://poloniainstitute.net/recommended/walesa-also-known-as-bolek/

[8]. https://www.prweb.com/releases/2022/5/prweb18694655.htm

[9]. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/lech-walesa-was-paid-informant-communist-regime-documents-n520591

[10]. Donald Pienkos, “The Amazing Story of Solidarity Begins – 40 Years Ago”, http://pacwisconsin.com/2020/08/28/solidarity/

[11]. https://ground.news/article/cenckiewicz-won-the-trial-with-walesa-down-with-agentura

The post Opportunists harm Poles and Poland appeared first on Polonia Institute.

3400 W.  Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90018

For Immediate Release:  

2023 Historical Essay Competition of the Polonia Institute

First Prize – $3,000
Sponsored by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland

May 20, 2023

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA:

Polonia Institute announces 2023 Historical Essay Competition on the German extermination of ethnic Poles during WWII.

I have placed my death-head formations in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death, mercilessly and without compassion, men, woman, and children of Polish derivation and language.

Adolf Hitler

August 22, 1939

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Within two months, the Germans destroyed 434 Polish villages and several hundred Polish towns, devastated Warsaw, and launched the Extraordinary Pacification Action called Action AB, in which at least 6,500 people were murdered.

For 55 days, from September 1 to October 26, Wehrmacht participated in 311 mass executions of Polish civilians and soldiers of the Polish Army. Thousands of other mass murders of ethnic Poles were carried out by units of the German Selbstschutz and Volksdeutsche militias as well as police units and SD Operational Groups. In total German invaders carried out at least 764 mass executions during this period, killing at least 24,000 Polish people.

After combat had ended, unlawful acts were taking place on a massive scale in violation of international law and norms and without military necessity. Taking and shooting hostages in towns occupied by the Wehrmacht and Einsatzkommandos, setting houses on fire, and expelling the local population were regular occurrences.

Mass Extermination of Ethnic Poles

During the entire occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1944, the Germans regularly carried out round-ups on the streets of Polish cities, in trains, or even at schools, and deported Polish civilians en masse to concentration camps or slave labor camps. Throughout occupied Poland, Germans built many concentration camps to exterminate the local Polish population. Frequently, the Polish people were arrested and murdered based on proscription lists prepared by the German minority in Poland. Starvation rates for food were introduced for ethnic Poles to exterminate the Polish population biologically.

About 100,000 people were murdered in a “political cleaning-up” operation code-named “Tannenberg.” It was the first such planned extermination operation carried out with great precision and determination during World War II. According to Alexander Rossino “the unlimited, almost nihilistic violence of the Wehrmacht” emerges first in these initial weeks of the Polish campaign… The invasion of Poland thus occupies a crucial place in the history of Nazi Germany’s descent into mass murder and genocide.”

While in Eastern Poland ethnic Poles were exterminated by NKVD or deported to Siberia, in Western Poland the civilian population of ethnic Poles was exterminated in Gestapo prisons, in street executions, or in death, concentration, or labor camps.

Throughout the Second World War, which lasted 2076 days, Germany murdered, on average, about 3,000 Polish citizens every day, which is more than the total number of all people killed in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center – every day for 2076 days!

On the day of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on August 1, 1944, Hitler ordered Himmler to raze Warsaw to the ground and murder all the inhabitants. According to SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, this was the order:

EVERY INHABITANT OF WARSAW MUST BE KILLED.
NO PRISONERS MUST BE TAKEN.

WARSAW IS TO BE RAZED TO THE GROUND.

After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, the Reichsführer-SS Himmler ordered on October 9, 1944, the complete destruction of Warsaw. The order was as follows:

THIS CITY IS TO COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH… STONE UPON STONE SHOULD NOT REMAIN. ALL BUILDINGS MUST BE DEMOLISHED DOWN TO THEIR FOUNDATIONS.

During the war, Poland lost from German hand 39% of its doctors, 33% of its teachers, 30% of its academic faculty, including 700 professors, 28% of its priests, and 26% of lawyers. Germans kidnapped over 200,000 young Polish children and shipped them to Germany for Germanization. Material damage and non-material losses caused by Germany to Poland in WWII amounted to 6 trillion 220 billion 609 million Polish zlotys. To this day, Germany has not compensated Poland for these losses and has not educated its people about the crimes committed by Germans against ethnic Poles in WWII.

Essay:

In your essay, please analyze the following issues: 1) German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, 2) Action A-B, 3) Operation Tannenberg, 4) ethnic Poles in KL Stutthof, 5) ethnic Poles in KL Auschwitz, 6) Polish priests in KL Dachau, 7) Polish women in KL Ravensbrück, 8) Polish men in KL Mauthausen-Gusen, 9) Polish children in KZ Litzmannstadt in Lódź, 10) Operation Zamość, 11) 1944 Wola genocide, 12) lesson for today. Please reach out to the sources of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance here: https://ipn.gov.pl/en. Do not use references to Wikipedia.

Essay Requirements:

The essay shall reflect the contestant’s own research and original thinking.

The paper shall not exceed 15 typed pages (including bibliography), shall be typed in 12-point font, double-spaced with 1” margins; pages shall be numbered. The essay shall be submitted in the English language. All entries become the property of the Polonia Institute.

Eligibility:

The 2023 Essay Competition on the History of Poland is open to adults at least 18 years and older as of October 15, 2023. Proof of age is required. A copy of a valid document showing the date of birth is acceptable.

Deadline:    October 15, 2023. Results will be announced on or about November 11, 2023.

Awards:      First Prize is $3,000. Additional monetary awards may be offered.
Additional essays may be considered for recognition and publication.  Polonia Institute reserves the right to publish selected essays and/or excerpts of selected essays in future publications, newsletters, and other materials.

Procedure:   The Application Form can be found here.

Email your essay with the Application Form and proof of age to:

info@poloniainstitute.net

with  cc to:

mszonert@yahoo.com

For more information, send an email to: mszonert@yahoo.com

Polonia Institute, Inc.

2023 Historical Essay Scholarship Competition

  APPLICATION FORM

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Address:                  ___________________________________________________

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Email by 10/15/2023 to:       info@poloniainstitute.net with cc to mszonert@yahoo.com

The post Polonia Institute announces 2023 Historical Essay Competition appeared first on Polonia Institute.

Note from Polonia Institute:

This Letter to the Editor in response to Michal Krupa article on Gen. Jaruzelski was never published by the Chronicles. Accordingly, it is time to finally make it public.

According to Michal Krupa, the communist dictator of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, was a closet conservative. I suppose if we follow Krupa’s logic, his coming out was the very introduction of martial law in 1981? As we now know, his martial law was an in-house job, not a Soviet diktat under threat. He sodomized Poland, not under duress, but rather acted in line with his political commitment from the very beginning, having willingly joined the Soviet security apparatus in 1947 where he remained its loyal agent for the rest of his life.

At last, the general was coming out and displaying all paraphernalia of his political sodomy, standing bare and naked in front of the Nation, unashamedly proud and stiff, as the coming out etiquette requires.

Mr. Krupa authoritatively tells the American audience that the general was one of the “most important figures in Poland’s modem history “. If by “important” he means “having a significant effect on Poland’s success or national well-being” – he was not important, not even by a labored stretch of one’s imagination. Jaruzelski was as detrimental to Poland’s well-being as any of the bloody communist satraps of the XX century.

There are civilized limits to how vulgarity can be expressed in public. Mr. Krupa crossed the civilized frontier between journalism and propaganda by using Martin Luther King’s image to elevate Jaruzelski’s image in the eyes of an unsuspecting American audience.

Mr. Krupa, with the self-authority of a budding historian, relates that Jaruzelski re-converted to Catholicism on his deathbed and received the Last Rights Sacraments. There is no public record that such deathbed conversion ever took place. It appears to be fake history, a spurious conversion as similar ones in the past, not unlike that of Charles Darwin. Sadly, Jaruzelski was no match to Darwin’s evolutionary mind, only its pathetic pedestrian disciple.

If there was a confession and the Eucharist Communion, as Mr. Krupa insists, the Church would have issued an official document or a public statement attesting to the alleged “re-conversion”.

The “re-conversion” of General Jaruzelski is a rumor spread by his communist-era security services comrades. It is reminiscent of the 1943 rumors spread in Washington by the Soviet Ambassador that Joseph Stalin “re-converted” his spiritual life and embarked to support the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union. The Washington elite on upon hearing this “good news” entered seventh heaven of its blissful political ignorance.

One should remember the doctrine of the Catholic Church, namely the Seal of Confession, which is the absolute duty of priests not to disclose anything that they learn during the course of a confession. Did the Father confessor publicly announce the conversion?

Mr. Krupa, a doctoral reader at the Catholic institution of higher learning, introduced the confusing term “re-conversion” of Jaruzelski to the Catholic Church. Is anyone aware of any possibility of “re-converting” to the Church? The doctrine of the Church plainly states that once a Catholic by the sacramental authority of baptism and confirmation, then always a Catholic. Catholics who willfully and repeatedly commit mortal sins and do not repent during the Sacrament of Confession head for damnation in Dante’s Inferno.

Mr. Krupa goes on further, stating that the funeral was “… a solemn ceremony” disrupted by a group of pathological protesters loyal to the current ruling party.

However, he left out that the “solemn ceremony” was not a Sacramental Funeral Mass, but a civil ceremony like a memorial service open to atheists. Yes, the patriots were shouting, appropriately so, as that theatrical assembly was attended by detested communist rulers of the past. For Mr.Krupa, who represents a Catholic academic institution in Warsaw, the Polish patriots who demonstrated against such demonic rites are the “pathological example”.

 In summary, contrary to the author’s thesis, Jaruzelski prolonged the well-being of communism in Poland, and Poland remains its captive.

Mr. Krupa missed a golden opportunity to tell the American audience something with more substantial historical interest, instead propagandizing for a communist” ..favor of broadly nationalistic ideology rooted in tradition “‘ that never was. Communist apologetics exemplified by a long citation from an unscrupulous work “From the Communist Project to the Neoliberal Utopia” intends to convince the American reader that Jaruzelski had a neoliberal economic mindset and rejected a centralized non-market economy.

The fact is, Jaruzelski was an uneducated, simple-minded, political apparatchik and could not remotely understand the free market economy’s nuts and bolts and its prerequisites.

To suggest otherwise amounts to intellectual abuse and violence done to the truth.

At the time around 1989, there was almost ecumenical fervor of the ruling communist class to privatization of the national economies and public property. Privatization – not the free market – was the political goal.

By “privatization” ruling communists meant “theft”. And they were quite successful at that, as theft has been the essence of communism since 1917.

It was in 1981 at the very beginning of the Martial Law that Jaruzelski arrested and imprisoned top comrades of the Polish Communist Party (PZPR), including its first secretary, Edward Gierek, and its premier, Jaroszewicz. This was a seminal historical moment, marking the new era of political power transfer from the communist party to the communist security and military intelligence services under Jaruzelski’s control. Juruzelski’s power grab was undoubtedly ordered by his handlers in Moscow. Soon, the same power grab happened in Moscow itself when the Soviet Communist Party and its Politburo were ousted from power by the state security apparatus of the KGB GRU of the Vladimir Putin incarnation. And so it remains.

Mr. Krupa writes, “Then came the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the partition of Poland in 1939.” No, definitely not some “partition” and not some innocuous “pact”, but rather joint aggression and brutal occupation of Poland by Germany and Soviet Russia. It was a jointly executed Russo-German annihilation of the Polish nation, exterminating jointly 3,000,000 Christian Poles, devastating the country, and helping themselves to enormous theft of national treasures and property.

The historical fantasy continues in Mr. Krupa’s learned narrative meant to canonize Jaruzelski: “.. .his tragic deportation to Siberia” … “We know that during this time Jaruzelski lost his religious faith and renounced his anti-Soviet views.”

 Soviet deportations to Siberia were not tragic as Mr. Krupa wishes us to believe, but rather deadly. Very deadly, in fact. Imagine a forced weeks-long cattle train journey from Poland in the dead of winter. The elderly and many young children did not make it. There were no funerals along the way, no “solemn ceremonies”. Dead bodies were thrown from moving train cars.

Krupa continues his journalistic fiction by poetically reflecting that Jaruzelski, during his time at the Siberian GULAG, came to his senses and naturally lost his religious faith and bravely renounced his anti-Soviet views. I am curious how he “lost” his Christian faith and why he fell in love with the hangmen? Well, some of us may have an inkling of how it happened.

I suppose Mr. Krupa may know it too, but he will not divulge it.

History tells a different story, namely that Jaruzelski denounced his own father to the Soviet security forces NKVD. His father perished and young JaruzelSki returned to Poland to a bright and secure life in the communist-occupied country. His mother, an exceptional woman, passed in 1974. Five bishops celebrated the Catholic Mass and burial followed with similar pomp and reverence. Her son, Wojciech, did not attend the Mass or burial.

Mr. Krupa allows his imagination to run amok with a comically servile claim that Jaruzelski would himself fully identify with statesmen like French Marshal Petain. Did he?

Marshal Philippe Petain, a French patriot, and hero of World War I, pragmatically collaborated with the Germans after France fell before the German army in May-June 1940.

For ever-so-politically-correct Mr. Krupa, it was the Nazi invasion. The difference is that Marshal Petain was a French officer and a patriot and did not arrive in France with the occupying German army to occupy France. Quite the opposite.

In stark contrast, Jaruzelski arrived in Poland in 1944 as a trusted political and intelligence officer of the occupying Soviet Red Army. At no point in his lifelong loyal service to Moscow did Jaruzelski ever defend Poland, in spirit or in deed.

The world continually needs idols to adore and Poland, in her long history, lacks no heroes. A penetrating question to ask: why do forces remain in Poland trumpeting the merits of communists to the heavens? Even more astounding is the fact that this trumpeting hails from a supposedly Catholic University in Warsaw bearing the name of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.

Cardinal Wyszynski (1901-1981), the Primate of Poland, was unabashedly confronting communist rule in Poland. He was a statesman of the highest caliber. He was the lnterrex of Poland.

Lastly, I must point out an omission intended to whitewash an ugly image into a politically respectable one. The author willfully omitted Jaruzelski’s rabid Anti-Semitism, which prompted him to purge his communist peoples’ army corps of all Jews.

And one more thing which flies in the face considering the timing of publishing such a triumphant panegyric of Jaruzelski:

In August 1920, 5.5 million Red Army troops under the command of the arch-Bolshevik Leo

Trotsky was marching West to conquer Europe. At the gates of Warsaw, the immense communist army was confronted by less than a million Polish troops. The asymmetry of the armed forces was spelling defeat for Poland, and the Red Army had already announced its impending victory. “Not so fast, comrades” the Poles announced, and the monstrous Soviet Red Army was decisively defeated by Poland. Christian Europe was saved.

Wouldn’t it be a great subject to write about today, 100 years after that Polish victory? And by the way, on November 3 vote T-Rex.

Sincerely,

Mark Maciolowski

[a long-time Chronicles subscriber]

The post A Letter to the Editor re: Gen. W. Jaruzelski appeared first on Polonia Institute.

Hon. Piotr Andrzejewski: “The current aim of the EU bodies is the gradual colonization of Poland.”

“No branch of the government in Poland is safe from having its existence and competence undermined by EU bodies. None. This interference nullifies the scope of the subjectivity of the law and the Polish state,” says in an interview with the wPolityce.pl portal – Piotr Łukasz Andrzejewski, attorney and Vice-chairman of Poland’s State Tribunal.

wPolityce.pl: The European Commission has initiated infringement proceedings against Poland over two rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal on the primacy of the Polish Constitution over EU law. It seems that this is an attack not only on the Polish Constitutional Tribunal but – first and foremost – on the Constitution itself, as the Constitutional Tribunal is not a source of law. How do you assess this?

Piotr Łukasz Andrzejewski: The Constitutional Tribunal (TK) is a body of the Polish state securing by its rulings the functioning of the hierarchical structure of the sources of law in Poland. The scope of international treaty law binding on Poland derives exclusively from its jurisprudence. The TK, in its jurisprudence, is guided by the assessment of the compliance of other sources of binding law with the benchmarks of the Polish Constitution. This system under the control of the Polish TK shapes the non-contradictory, complementary and complete nature of law in Poland. The rule of law is the compliance of this system with the Polish Constitution. Based on the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union is pushing through a procedure for the incompatibility of the activities of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal with the formal, undefined directional norms of so-called EU law. It has long used a procedure to formulate allegations against Poland of violations of the rule of law based on Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states that: “the European Council, acting by unanimity on a proposal by one-third of the Member States or by the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, may determine the existence of a serious and persistent breach by a Member State of the values referred to in Article 2, after inviting the Member State in question to submit its observations.”

Article 2 refers, in a manner that needs to be clarified, to the observance of values such as freedom, democracy, equality, respect for human rights, tolerance, justice, and solidarity as slogans commonly used in the democratic systems of European states.

The procedure that has been initiated may be followed when “on a reasoned proposal by one-third of the Member States, by the European Parliament or by the European Commission, the Council, acting by a majority of four-fifths of its members after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, may determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach by a Member State of the values referred to in Article 2.”

This procedure has been going on for some years now based on ever-new concretizations of the nature of the interpretation imposed on the enigmatic and undefined concepts to which it refers.

This method of casuistically specifying requirements according to the political demand for the EU to subjugate the functioning of the bodies of a Member State of the Union to itself while keeping things in proportion may be comparable to the use of the slogan of the “struggle for peace” by the USSR in its ideological struggle against the democratic countries of the West.

Article 7, point 2 of the Treaty, then provides for the possibility to declare that a Member State, in this case, Poland or Hungary, is in serious and persistent breach of the enigmatic and indefinite values listed in Article 2 of the Treaty.

Then we have the next stage (point 2, Art. 7.) “The European Council, acting in unanimity…” and here is where it hurts the most because this unanimity cannot be achieved so far because there are two countries – Hungary and Poland – that are preventing this procedure from being limited to obtaining the full consensus of all members of the European Union. The European Council, unanimously, at the request of a third of the Member States or the EC, and with the EP’s consent, can therefore conclude, after calling on a Member State to submit its observations, that there has been a serious and persistent breach by that Member State of “…the values referred to in Article 2.”

Such a conclusion requires unanimity of all EU members, which, given the position of Poland and Hungary, cannot currently be achieved. In this state of affairs, the procedure itself can serve to arbitrarily apply another provision of the Treaty, which, through the CJEU, can conclude that a Member State is not complying with the obligation imposed on it by the Treaty and, through the CJEU’s jurisprudence at the unilateral discretion of this EU body, can impose significant financial penalties deducted from the funds allocated to the Member State.

This practice is being implemented against Poland because the Polish state has not conferred decision-making or adjudicatory powers to EU bodies. According to the Polish Constitution, this character of diktat violates the rule of law not in Poland, but in the functioning of the European Union.

The regulation supplementing the Lisbon Treaties regarding the conditioning of the spending of funds allocated to a Member State under the European Union Recovery Instrument (NGEU) and the raising of its budgetary resources by the EU from borrowing and the imposition of additional taxes on citizens of EU Member States, to the extent that Poland has agreed to a procedure for waiving unanimity in the application of this procedure, is currently being interpreted in a way that violates the agreement concluded in December 2020 between Poland and the other members of the European Union in the European Council.

The regulation conditioning the disbursement of allocated sums on compliance with the rule of law, according to the agreement, was intended to deal solely with protecting how funds allocated to a member country under the Reconstruction Fund (NGEU) were spent against corruption, embezzlement, misappropriation or diversion for purposes other than those in the approved plan.

This international agreement, which modifies treaty obligations, is currently being challenged on its content and is being unjustifiably extended by EU bodies. This constitutes a breach of the treaty agreement.

From what you have said, I infer that the European Commission’s game is to bring about, as a result of this action, the suspension of Poland’s vote in the European Council and thus make it possible to revise the treaties without the Polish side. Is this the case?

Yes. There is an aggressive, frontal attack on Poland and Hungary. Just as from the east, Putin’s Russia is questioning the sovereignty and subjectivity of Ukraine, so from the west, the European Union, under the dictates of Berlin and Brussels, is applying procedures to the unallocated competencies of the Polish state for the practical limitation of the sovereignty and independence of the Polish state and its people.

To what extent, in your opinion, does this legal juggling act have a chance of success?

Preliminarily, a particular difference was outlined in treating and defining the content of Poland’s obligations to the EU and the Union’s obligations to Poland in Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s speech to the EP in the fall of 2021. Not only that, it was followed by letters of the so-called “aide-mémoire” of the Prime Minister of the Polish government to the leaders of all EU member states, but this was completely ignored in the further actions of the EU bodies. Moreover, this speech by Mateusz Morawiecki is not followed up due to restrained political decisions, nor is it enforced by international politics.

What is this justified by?

By looking for any pretext to “starve” Poland by not transferring the funds due to it. With this practice of legal invasion, in my opinion, the consequences of what Mateusz Morawiecki stated in his letter to EU leaders should continue. The EP pretended not to hear it, that it doesn’t exist, and that Poland doesn’t count for the EU as an entity whose treatment is equivalent to other EU members, such as Germany. Recall that concerning Germany, with a similar ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to the case law of the Polish Constitutional Court, such an aggressive Article 7 procedure was not applied, recognizing the inviolability of respect for the constitutional identity of an EU Member State. As for Poland, different principles are applied in the absence of a uniform benchmark in this regard.

The media exaggerates the conflict between the position of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro when it comes to assessing the current situation in this case. Does this conflict really exist?

There is no contradiction between the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice in assessing the illegality of the EU bodies’ actions against Poland.

The current goal of the EU bodies’ actions is the gradual colonization of Poland through the proliferation of more and more directives, recommendations, or “milestones.” We are dealing not only with discrimination but with an attempt to impose systemic norms that harm the independence and sovereignty of the Polish state.

It is worth quoting what Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a letter to EU leaders, in which the autonomy of functioning is indirectly mentioned. The head of the government writes:

The principle of Granting authority, derived from Articles 4 and 5 of the EU Treaty, is the supreme principle of the Union. It means that the powers of the EU bodies extend only to those matters that we have entrusted to them in the Treaties. Attempts to expand these competencies cannot be accepted: for any such action is ultra vires, intrinsically contrary to the treaty principle of the rule of law. No body of the European Union can take any action that it is not authorized to take in the Treaties.” Prime Minister Morawiecki says that the consequence of rulings by national judicial bodies has always been that individual CJEU rulings as ultra vires are not binding on a particular Member State. This means that, as Morawiecki points out, “the Polish Constitutional Court, therefore, does nothing today that courts and tribunals in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Romania, the Czech Republic or other EU countries have not already done in the past.

Uninformed people are still distracted by this supposed conflict between Mateusz Morawiecki and Zbigniew Ziobro, which is simply a different style of operation.

Prescribed therapy in the situation of a western invasion, which is closer, and eastern, physical aggression, which is likely, looks completely different.

Mateusz Morawiecki has not given the EU the power to control the rule of law in Poland in all areas, including the judiciary, except for how the funds allocated to Poland are spent. Conditioning the availability of funds allocated to Poland on claims of compliance with the so-called “rule of law” has not been granted by the Polish state either in the treaties or in the agreement on the application of the conditionality (compliance with the rule of law) mechanism. Compliance with the rule of law, to the extent recognized by Poland, was and is supposed to concern only how the funds granted to it are implemented as to their purpose, scope, and compliance with the purposes for which the funds were granted.

Poland’s agreement to waive the principle of unanimity in the implementation of control over the disbursement of post-COVID funds granted, having the nature of an international agreement, was treated as a “Trojan horse” for blackmailing Poland with the withholding of payments of funds given to it in the event of non-compliance with ever-new directives, recommendations, and orders of the EU ultra vires (to the extent not granted by Poland to the bodies of the Union). The current positions of the European Commission are an abusive interpretation that expands the content of the contractually concluded agreement on applying the conditionality mechanism.

It seems – please correct me if I’m wrong – that the whole story with judges, with the European Commission interfering with the courts’ composition and sentences, may lead to further consequences, even to the undermining of the last elections in Poland. Because why wouldn’t it?

This practice indicates that no level of authority in Poland is safe from undermining its existence and competence by EU bodies. None. This interference nullifies the right of Poland to promulgate the laws and the sovereignty of the Polish state.

Thank you.

Interviewed by Anna Wiejak

For the Polish original see: https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/606969-andrzejewski-celem-ue-jest-stopniowa-kolonizacja-polski

The post The current aim of the EU bodies is the gradual colonization of Poland appeared first on Polonia Institute.

Lech Kaczyński obstructed doing “dirty deals”

with Russia

“Lech Kaczyński had no illusions about the nature of the system of power in Russia. Western politicians wanted to live in these illusions because they were profitable for them” – assessed sociologist Professor Andrzej Zybertowicz on TVP Info. The advisor in the offices of Presidents Lech Kaczyński and Andrzej Duda argued that the so-called ‘mechanism of contempt’ towards the deceased Polish leader had a purely practical basis – from Russia’s point of view. The program also recalled a recently declassified memo from 2008, which referred to the need for Donald Tusk’s government to “neutralize” Lech Kaczyński’s statements.

The program “Minęła 20″ [It’s past 8:00 pm] on TVP Info raised the issue of attitudes towards the war in Ukraine in some Western European countries, which seem to be still interested in doing business with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Are German politicians only puppets?

Professor Andrzej Zybertowicz cited the opinion of Euro Intelligence analyst Wolfgang Munchau, who claims that the German Eastern Business Association – one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the world – bribed German politicians and made them dependent on having some kind of relationship with Russia.

“From this, it follows that, to some extent, the German economy is a façade. But also that when Prime Minister Morawiecki or our ministers go to meetings of EU bodies and talk to German politicians, they are not talking to policymakers but puppets of German business. We must draw conclusions from this,” said the guest of TVP Info.

Zybertowicz on illusions towards Russia

The sociologist pointed out that a similar dependence on interests with Russia was tried to be counteracted by President Lech Kaczyński, who was killed in the Smoleńsk airplane disaster in 2010.

“He had no illusions about the nature of the system of power in Russia. Western politicians wanted to live in these illusions because they were profitable in business and PR terms. And he tried to launch alternative paths of diversification (of energy – ed.). In other words: Lech Kaczyński got in the way,” Zybertowicz argued.

TW [Secret Collaborator] ‘Wolski’, TW [Secret Collaborator] ‘Bolek’, TW ‘[Secret Collaborator] Alek’

In his view, the strategy of contempt against President Kaczyński was part of a larger puzzle to maintain Russian influence in Europe.

“Where do I see this mechanism? TW ‘Wolski,’ TW ‘Bolek,’ TW ‘Alek’ – the first three presidents of free Poland – were registered as Soviet or Polish security services secret collaborators. This means that behind-the-scenes methods could have been used to pacify and control them.

The speakers in the program also recalled a recently declassified memo that Polish military diplomats sent from Moscow to the Ministry of Defense in Warsaw in 2008:

For the Polish side, it is necessary to continue the existing positive rhetoric, although, in this particular issue, a completely uncontrollable factor is the statements of L. Kaczyński, which sometimes become a reason for serious irritation in Moscow. In order to neutralize them, it would be possible, for example, to have a counter-testimony made by D. Tusk or semi-formal signals sent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government that similar statements will not guide them,  we read in the document.

It was about more than a “dispute over a seat.”

“This is the key issue: Lech Kaczyński was inconvenient. First, he was the President of a sizable, important EU country. Second, he was launching specific energy projects. Finally, some people remember the “dispute about the seat” and about the plane in connection with the meetings in Brussels. Today we know that it was about not letting Lech Kaczyński get in the way of doing ‘dirty business deals’ with Russia,” assessed Zybertowicz.

It is worth recalling that in 2008, the employees of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland said clearly that the president was going to the summit of the European Council to talk about sanctions against Russia. The mainstream media in Poland said it was a “dispute over a chair or an airplane,” pointed out Michał Rachoń, the interviewer.

For the link in Polish, see:

https://www.tvp.info/60346266/minela-20-dlaczego-lech-kaczynski-znalazl-sie-na-celowniku-prof-andrzej-zybertowicz-przeszkadzal-w-robieniu-brudnych-interesow-z-rosja

The post Late President of Poland Lech Kaczynski stood up against “dirty deals” with Russia appeared first on Polonia Institute.

Professor Bogdan Musiał has made public a 1990 ciphertext of the Polish intelligence service. It says that “it is advantageous from the point of view of Germany to break up political groupings in Poland, assure the emergence of no dominant political party and support divisions within Solidarity.”

Ciphertext No. 3398 was drawn up in June 1990 by a Polish intelligence officer on the basis of information revealed to him by a German agent codenamed “Wolf.” Professor Bogdan Musiał, currently acting director of the Jan Karski Institute for War Losses, says he came across the report during his research work.

Ciphertext No. 3398

The ciphertext reads: “According to ‘Wolf’ and the circles of political and economic advisers to the German government, it is advantageous from the point of view of Germany to have a splitting up of political groupings in Poland, with no dominant party and supporting divisions in Solidarity itself. According to ‘Wolf, the optimum scenario for a then-unifying Germany would be the final disintegration of Solidarity and the rebirth in Poland, from a significant part of its members, of a strong peasant grouping, consisting of several peasant parties supported by the Church.”

The report continues: “According to these assessments, this will effectively hinder the rebirth of stable political life in the Republic of Poland and the emergence of a social stratum of small and medium-sized Polish industrialists on the basis of the reprivatization laws. Thus, a middle class, which in the West plays a decisive role in the country’s development. For Germany, this would create an opportunity for economic expansion (as was the case in the Second Republic) and enable industrial investment in Poland by small and medium-sized German capital. It would also bring Poland closer to Germany’s sphere of direct influence in Eastern Europe.”

Professor Bogdan Musiał admitted that he had learned the contents of the ciphertext some time ago, but decided to reveal it after the publication of the German weekly “Der Spiegel.”  “When ‘Der Spiegel’ wrote about documents of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1991, they showed that the then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to prevent the eastward expansion of NATO and the independence of Ukraine and the Baltic states. He called the collapse of the Soviet Union a ‘catastrophe.’ Reading about this reminded me of a report from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) archives. This document also dates from those crucial times and says a great deal about the attitude of the Germans towards Poland at the time. I think that now when there is a war in Ukraine, which called to question Germany’s eastern policy, the time is ripe for the public to learn the contents of this ciphertext,” said the professor.

The professor further pointed out that “the report was received by headquarters on June 11, 1990, i.e., practically a year after the partially free elections in Poland, where Solidarity achieved a huge victory. It seemed to everyone that Solidarity would be a strong bloc, which would mean that Poland would become politically stable.”

“We all hoped for some kind of unity, but that is something our western neighbors rather didn’t want, and obviously Russia didn’t either,” he said.

“We don’t know who the agent was”

Professor Bogdan Musiał said it was not known who the Polish officer’s informant, i.e., agent “Wolf”, was. “We also do not know exactly whether ‘Wolf’ realized that he was talking to a Polish agent. My impression is that he did not realize this. However, we know that especially in the Free Democratic Party (FDP) there were agents close to Genscher (German Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1992), his closest collaborator or even he himself was an agent,”  explained Prof. Musiał.

“I have a Russian note of a conversation between Genscher and Gorbachev in early December 1989. This conversation looks as if Gorbachev was Genscher’s superior, as he even chastised him. But this is just my impression; we don’t know that until the end. What we do know is that Genscher was, for example, against Solidarity,” he added.

“German decision-making circles wanted a political breakdown in Poland”

Referring to the content of the report, the professor stressed that it shows that “the German government of the time was interested in a political split in Poland so that no dominant party would emerge, as was the case in Germany, where there was a stable situation and one time one party and another time another won the elections, but it was always possible to create a stable government, which is very important for political stability and the development of the country.”

“As far as Poland is concerned, the German decision-making circles were absolutely interested that the political situation should not stabilize there, that the political groupings should split up, and in particular that a strong party should not emerge from Solidarity. The optimal status from their point of view would have been the eventual break-up of Solidarity and the emergence of peasant parties,” he said.

“The middle class is the key”

Asked why such an arrangement suited the German authorities best, he pointed out that it was calculated that it would “effectively inhibit the rebirth of stable political life in Poland” and assure “the emergence of a class of small and medium-sized Polish industrialists on the basis of reprivatization laws.”

“This is an indication that, without this re-privatization, the middle class, which is of enormous significance for the development of the country, will not be created. We know that in democratic countries the middle class is crucial for economic life,” he said.

Why didn’t the Federal Republic of Germany want a middle class to emerge in Poland along Western lines?  The answer is to be found in the ciphertext. Because it would create opportunities for German economic expansion. It would create investment opportunities in Poland on the part of small and medium-sized German capital, i.e., not only large corporations could enter the Polish market. “This would bring Poland closer to the zone of direct German influence in Eastern Europe,”  the professor quoted from the report.

Professor Bogdan Musiał stressed that “we must have a realistic view of Berlin and its interests, be aware of them, and then it may turn out that these interests are to some extent common and we can act together. We must be aware, however, that Germany has cynically pursued its own interests, and has added to this a moral and ethical packaging.”

The original in Polish was published here:
https://polskieradio24.pl/Rzad-RFN-chcial-rozbicia-partii-politycznych-w-Polsce

The post In 1990 German government wanted to break up the political parties in Poland appeared first on Polonia Institute.

by Prof. Andrzej Nowak

“I begin the book with a statement that I am prepared to defend: it is impossible to understand anything about today’s Russia if one does not know history. All considerations about it – historical, political, geopolitical – will be suspended in a vacuum if we do not try to understand why 85 percent of the citizens of the Russian Federation support the actions of Vladimir Putin,” emphasizes Professor Andrzej Nowak, historian, author of the just-published book Poland and Russia. The Neighborhood of Freedom and Despotism in the XXI Century.“

Putin’s decisions and history

Prof. Nowak pointed out that the reasons for Putin’s decisions are explained mainly by history, which at the same time makes the history of Russia and Russian imperialism, as well as Polish-Russian relations, to be taken into account not only when “we think about what is happening now.” The historian added that Russian culture is not an innocent bystander either although this culture should not be dismissed in its entirety.

“But I come back to the fact that history is important and that Russian culture sustains, carries precisely this imperialistic charge, and does so extremely effectively. Suppose one goes back to Dostoyevsky, to Pushkin, to his extremely chauvinistic poems, which are constantly repeated in Russian schools and the Russian media. These are poems that declare war on the West, indicating that Poland is the main tool of the West, which is always dreaming about the destruction of Russia,” pointed out Prof. Nowak, adding that in the Russian mentality and culture, the vision of empire is deeply rooted, and Russia “has the right to conquer, always calling this conquest liberation.”

 Mistakes of the West

Prof. Nowak was asked why the West – despite the experience of history – repeatedly makes the same mistakes when it comes to Russia. According to the historian, “it is not so that the West knows history or is interested in history. As he added, it was easier for people in the West to believe that history is something of the past – and public opinion is not interested in history.”

“Russia addresses its imperial plans, implementing them very consistently by various methods to the elites of the West by speaking their language. […] The serious partner for Moscow, as Russia emphasizes at every step, is Berlin with Paris in the second place. This is another reason why the West expresses understanding for something that scares us, that is for successive appeasements, that is for satisfying imperialism, in this case, Russian imperialism at the cost of weaker countries, by Western partners who believe that these weaker countries do not count anyway,” said the historian, adding that Poland, the Czech Republic or Ukraine could be sold off for peace.

Eastern policy

The discussion also focused on Poland’s eastern policy. Prof. Nowak directly emphasized that “what the Tusk/Sikorski team did with Poland’s eastern policy was worse than a crime, it was a mistake, to use Talleyrand’s quote because the second aspect of this change was that it was made after Vladimir Putin declared war on the West.”

“When Putin arrived at Westerplatte and was received with the highest honors by Donald Tusk, he made a terrible speech suggesting not elsewhere but at Westerplatte that Germany and Russia had a right to an act of revenge in 1939 for the humiliation of World War I. This was the essence of Vladimir Putin’s speech, whereas Donald Tusk’s justification for inviting Putin was that, at last, the high representative of the Russian Federation would admit for what reason this Second World War began and what the historical truth was. So, he heard it. Of course, President Kaczyński responded to this insult, which was passed over in silence in Poland by the dominant mainstream media led then by the ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’, Prof. Nowak emphasized.

In his opinion, Putin’s attack on Georgia should have immediately revised Poland’s policy towards Russia, but it did not happen.

“This shows a shocking – if not to say – blindness, but persisting in this mistake, had enormous costs, and not only for Poland. After April 10, 2010, what happened was of great importance for all of Eastern Europe,” indicated Prof. Andrzej Nowak.

https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/598494-prof-nowak-dzialania-ekipy-tuska-i-sikorskiego-to-zbrodnia

The post Talleyrand revisited – Poland’s past Eastern policy worse than a crime – it was a mistake. appeared first on Polonia Institute.

A recently declassified memo from 2008 confirms that the Russians expected Donald Tusk not to oppose the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline at an EU forum. Interestingly that same year, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak boasted that he was moving away from the PiS policy of criticizing Nord Stream and allowing this controversial project to move forward. This pro-Russian state of affairs lasted for years. Back in 2015, Radoslaw Sikorski mocked Law and Justice (PiS) leaders for not joining Vladimir Putin’s gas pipeline construction project.

Journalist Michał Rachoń in his Polish TV program “We’re on our way” (Pol.: Jedziemy), published another excerpt from a declassified 2008 memo of the Polish military services from the embassy in Moscow. Polish military diplomats wrote in 2008 that the Russians expected the Polish government to be passive regarding the Nord Stream undertaking.

The idea was that the German-Russian project, which was unfavorable to Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States, was to be implemented without any obstacles.

“The Russian side should, in this regard, submit certain official guarantees that the Northern Gas Pipeline is not a project constructed against Poland’s interests and should invite her again to participate in this project,” read the document.

Interestingly in 2006, the Secretary of State of the Prime Minister’s Office, Ryszard Schnepf, parted ways with the Law and Justice government because he recommended the concept of Poland joining the construction of the Northern Gas Pipeline. At that time, Polish politicians from the Civic Platform party emphasized that “The Polish PIS government rejects German proposals of joining the gas pipeline project for completely incomprehensible reasons.” Lech Kaczyński, who opposed the dependence on Russian resources, was of a completely different opinion.

Despite the passage of years, the gas pipeline continued to divide the Polish politicians of the Law and Justice party (PiS), the Civic Platform (PO), and the PSL.

Pawlak is in favor of cooperation with Russia.

When Russia and Germany were pushing for a gas pipeline to be laid at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Waldemar Pawlak argued that Vladimir Putin’s regime should send the blue fuel via the Baltic States and Poland.

“It will be much cheaper this way,” said the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy.

At the same time, he criticized the Law and Justice party for… opposition to Nord Stream.  “Previously, the Polish side presented a clear, critical view and unequivocally opposed this project. Our government has taken such measures to create opportunities for an alternative project,” said Pawlak.

Sikorski: The Law and Justice (PiS) party was opposed to the Nord Stream project

Leading politicians of Civic Platform (PO) spent years attacking PiS representatives for not going into business with Vladimir Putin. Back in 2015, Radosław Sikorski, then head of the Foreign Ministry, wrote: “The PiS government was in opposition to the Nord Stream project. It was a mistake not to join in when it became clear that we could not stop it.”

He pointed out that we could have gotten a seat on the management board, and the pipeline could have run through our country. “But the official who hinted about this was brutally removed,” Sikorski lamented on social media.

https://www.tvp.info/60091184/rosja-chciala-biernosci-donalda-tuska-ws-nord-stream-zobacz-dokument-i-dzialania-radoslawa-sikorskiego-oraz-waldemara-pawlaka

The post Russia expected Polish PM Tusk to be passive about the Nord Stream project. appeared first on Polonia Institute.

Michał Rachoń on TVP Info’s #Jedziemy program presented a fragment of a declassified memo from the Polish military services of the Polish embassy in Moscow. Polish military diplomats wrote in that memo that the Russians expected the Polish government to prolong and obstruct negotiations with the U.S. on a critical issue for Poland’s security – the missile defense shield.

This memo written by the Polish military attache in 2008 and sent from the Polish Embassy in Moscow to the Polish Ministry of Defense by military diplomats was declassified in April 2022. In this note, we read about the Russian perspective on what was happening in Poland at the time.

This document was attached to the recently published final report of the commission for the investigation of the tragic Smolensk catastrophe.

“It is a document that shows the way of thinking of the Polish military services, describing the views of Russians on Polish politics,” comments Michał Rachoń.

The memo deals with military issues related to negotiations fundamental to Polish national security – the agreement negotiated with the United States on the missile defense shield for Poland and the first permanent U.S. military base in the country. “To achieve a political reset with the Russian Federation, the Russians expected the Polish government to prolong and obstruct negotiations with the U.S. on this issue,” the journalist notes.

Polish diplomats’ note from Moscow

The memo reads: “Moscow demands either to give up building the system on Polish territory (which is completely unrealistic) or to ensure continuous control of the station by the Russians. Understandably, the Russian government hoped that the talks between Warsaw and Washington would be broken off or dragged on due to the more intransigent stance of Donald Tusk’s government on this issue. Moreover, the Polish approach to this issue is fundamentally different from the Russian one.”

What were the decisions of Donald Tusk’s government on this issue?

Negotiations on the missile defense shield construction during George Bush’s presidency resulted in an offer presented to Poland when Tusk was prime minister. This offer was rejected in July 2008,” said Rachoń.

“The installation of the missile defense shield in Poland increases primarily the security of the United States. It is also important for us and the whole world. Still, the fact that this installation would be built in Poland increases the risk and threat to Poland.” This is the statement made by Donald Tusk in July 2008, when negotiations between Poland and the USA were taking place.

An agreement was reached in August. Less than four months later Witold Waszczykowski, then deputy head of the National Security Office (BBN), accused the government of inaction in this matter.

“We should ratify the agreement signed in August and allow the Americans to start building. And so far, nothing is happening,” assessed Waszczykowski, who was previously involved in negotiations with the Americans.

The agreement negotiated with the George Bush administration was to be carried through by the Barack Obama cabinet. “We have confirmation – a few days ago, Gen. Henry Obering, the head of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Agency of the outgoing (George Bush) team, also confirmed that everything is being done according to plan. He said that the Democrats, although not in power in recent years, were prevailing in Congress, allocating money for the missile shield. He said this on behalf of Congress,” noted Waszczykowski.

The 2008 agreement provided for the placement of a base with ten long-range interceptor missiles in Poland. According to the assumptions of the George W. Bush administration, the system’s radar installation was to be placed in the Czech Republic. On September 17, 2009, Obama announced a change of plans on the missile-defense shield in Poland.

The agreement with the Americans was finally ratified in early March 2011, but the assumptions by then were different.

https://www.tvp.info/60086098/odtajniona-notatka-o-tarczy-antyrakietowej-tego-oczekiwali-rosjanie-od-rzadu-tuska

The post This is what the Russians expected from the government of Donad Tusk. appeared first on Polonia Institute.

2021 Competition on the History of Poland  

A Brush with History

by Peter J. Obst

As the year 1981 was coming to a close I was working for the United States Steel Corporation at the large plant in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania located on a bend of the Delaware River, north of Philadelphia. At this time I was still living in Philadelphia with my parents in the Northeast section of the city. Then Sunday, December 13, 1981 came and it changed our world. The evening news carried an item that Martial Law was declared in Poland and that the Solidarity Labor Union was disbanded by order of the government. Later, there would be reports that Poland’s borders were closed and that many individuals active in that labor organization were being rounded-up, arrested and placed in “preventative detention.”

The Polish community in the States, what is commonly known as Polonia, was shaken by this news. The Solidarity movement was Poland’s hope for a freer and more open society in a country dominated by the Polish United Worker’s Party or simply the Communist Party of Poland. As World War II ended in 1945 a new government was ushered in on the back of the Red Army. Ironically called the Government of National Unity, it quickly moved in to take control and suppressed any political opposition. Those who tried to resist were crushed by their Security Service, the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, or UB for short.

The elections, promised by the Allied Powers, that followed were anything but open and free. The communists falsified the results as it suited them. This was documented by Jacek Kuroń in his book PRL dla Poczatkujacych (2004) and in I Saw Poland Betrayed (1948) by Arthur Bliss Lane, the United States Ambassador in Poland at the time.

On Monday the 14th word went out through the Philadelphia Polonia that Fr. Bernard Witkowski would hold an evening prayer service “for Poland” at St. John Cantius Church in Bridesburg. We drove down US 95 from the Northeast and joined the hundreds of others who thronged the church. The place was filled to capacity, standing room only. We prayed the rosary and Fr. Bernie gave an oratory that focused on having hope, that Christ and the Virgin Mary would see us through, and that historically Poland has always endured through such crises. The atmosphere was one of apprehension, fear and confusion. Several local TV stations sent their news crews. Later, reports from the event appeared on the late news.

In the days and months that followed, local Polonia organizations and individuals would send aid to the people of Poland. Among the leaders in this action were John Cardinal Krol, Archbishop of Philadelphia diocese, and Edward Piszek, owner of the ell-known frozen fish processing concern, Mrs. Paul’s Foods.

Meanwhile, President Ronald Reagan gave a televised speech of support for the people of Poland condemning the actions of the Communist Government. Two Polish ambassadors, Zdzisław Rurarz in Japan and Jerzy Spasowski in Washington DC resigned their positions and asked for asylum. In retaliation the Warsaw regime put them on trial in absentia. Convicted of treason they were given death sentences.

Later, on December 23, public television (PBS) ran a program called Let Poland Be Poland borrowing the title from a popular Solidarity song Żeby Polska była Polską by Jan Pietrzak. The White House mobilized a wide array of talent. The program was hosted by Charlton Heston and featured, along with the president, a number of prominent persons including the two rebellious Polish Ambassadors. Among the individuals who appeared were: Orson Welles, Bob Hope, Alexander Haig, Paul McCartney, Tip O’Neil, Pope John Paul II along with a number of other well-known persons. The program was a powerful statement of moral support for the Polish people. Later, this was followed by a suspension of trade relations between the US and Poland. Among the affected parties was Poland’s LOT Airlines who were no longer able to land their IL-62M transatlantic aircraft at the New York airports.

The trade sanctions further affected Poland’s already shattered economy. Some industries were brought to a standstill without imported materials. In reply the government propaganda organization issued a poster that listed the names of so-called “traitors,” Solidarity activists who were then abroad and the two rouge ambassadors. Another propaganda poster showed Ronald Reagan as a cowboy, pointing his revolver menacingly at the onlooker. The logo implied that this was the true face of America and the forces of the west were turned against the “legitimate regime” of Peoples Poland.

To conduct their public relations program the Polish communists engaged Jerzy Urban, a sleazy journalist-writer. Though never a communist party member, Urban served them well, unleashing a cynical campaign of misinformation and lies against the banned Solidarity labor union. Foreign reporters who attended his press conferences were incredulous that someone would even try to defend a government which had such contempt for the ordinary Polish citizen.

To shift attention away for the difficult economic conditions in Poland, Urban’s press bureau put out the news that Poland would donate sleeping bags to the homeless in New York City. Soon afterward, an ad appeared in the Warsaw newspapers, “Will exchange an apartment in Warsaw for a sleeping bag on the streets of New York.”

At this time Poland’s borders were sealed. Only information issued by the government was getting out. Foreign reporters already in Poland were under close scrutiny. When one picked up a telephone receiver, a recorded message would start blaring: “This conversation is being monitored.” How many conversations and letters the government could actually review and censor was debatable, but the seeds of fear were planted.

At this time my sister Ursula was employed as a reporter at The Philadelphia Daily News. Among her assignments was the roving fix-it column where she would intervene in solving difficult problem for readers. Since she could speak Polish, and had family in Poland, she decided that it would be possible for her to get into Poland and report on the situation from within. Her editor heartily approved of the idea. But it was she who would first have to obtain a visa to enter Poland. Meanwhile, the Polish consulates were giving few visas, if any at all.

By sheer force of will she obtained an appointment at the New York consulate and went there to plead her case. The story she managed to sell was that her grandmother in Poland was ill and perhaps already on her deathbed. Armed with some natural acting ability and refusing to take “no” as an answer, Ursula was able to persuade a younger male assistant consul to sign off on her paperwork. I have never known of a situation where a woman’s tears could not melt the heart of even the most resistive man. Speaking aside, our grandmother would not depart this world until 1992 at age 94.

Travel to Poland required her to fly to from Philadelphia to Montreal to catch a plane to Warsaw on LOT, as no other airline was flying into Poland. Unfortunately, her luggage got fouled up in the baggage transfer system and was were never loaded onto the Warsaw bound plane. Not only did these contain her clothes, and personal care items, but a fair quantity of non-perishable food. The bags did not arrive at her destination until after she would be out of Poland. When opened, it was obvious then that they had been thoroughly rifled and a number of items “confiscated.”

After landing in Warsaw, Ursula traveled to Poznań to stay with her female cousin Renata Gubała and family. On the way out of the capitol she saw that there were army checkpoints everywhere. Armored cars were parked at strategically important points in the city. Across the street from the main train station in town is the Palace of Culture and Science, the tallest building in Warsaw. It was a “gift” of the Soviet Union to the Polish people. Built in the “Stalinist skyscraper” style it was completed in 1953. At a closed-down movie theater that was part of the complex, the marquee proclaimed a screening of the film Apocalypse Now. Ironically, troops and their support vehicles were stationed on the nearby street. This meaningful picture was captured in a photo made by one of the Solidarity supporters.

At this time, strict curfews were imposed and inter-city travel was severely restricted. Once in Poznań, Ursula would have to go to a special office of the military commandant and obtain a permit. She made her case, but it was a harrowing experience.

She did manage to travel around the city, attempting to get a reading on how life was being conducted. There were shortages of nearly everything. Food, meat, gasoline, sweets and cigarettes were rationed. Long lines of people stood outside stores, which often had very little to sell. A curfew was being enforced. Young army inductees were used to man checkpoints scatted at many points in the city.

One day Ursula was out on the town her own. Evening comes early during the winter in Poland. Darkness approached and so did the curfew hour, yet she had not returned. Renata and her mother started worrying, concerned as something evil might have befallen her. The police were arresting people at the smallest provocation. Then, suddenly, a canvas covered army transport truck pulled up on the deserted road in front of the gate. The brakes screeched. After an moment’s pause, Ursula jumped out the back and shouted “Bye, boys!” – which was answered a chorus of cheers. Apparently, the young army troopers, forced to do street patrols in the city, had a whole different approach as to what constituted “martial law.” She was fortunate that she had not run into more doctrinaire enforcers of the peace.

After reconnoitering in Poznań, she took the train to the Silesian town of Będzin, located in the industrial region around the city of Katowice. Edund Wilk, a member of our extended family lived there. Before retiring he was a Communist Party member and financial comptroller for one of the coal mines in the area. He was forced into retirement because of his criticism of the Party and he later joined the Solidarity movement.

He had information about the repressive activities of the government during the first days of Martial Law. At the Wujek Mine in Katowice, workers decided to strike in place. After 4 days the government sent a force of tanks and riot police, the hated ZOMO troops (Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej , known in English as Motorized Reserves of the Citizens’ Militia), to break it up. When the miners attempted to resist, force was used. A tank broke the wall and the ZOMOs poured into the mine compound. An order to shoot was given, 9 miners died while another 21 were wounded. Others were rounded-up, brutalized, beaten as they ran a gauntlet formed by club swinging ZOMOs, and then taken to prison.

Because of the news clampdown none of this was known outside of Poland. Soon Ursula was talking to witnesses and to Solidarity activists who had gone into hiding and avoided detention when Martial Law was declared. During the action against the miners some individuals had taken clandestine photographs. These were made available to her. The group that took these pictures had tried to get them out to the western news services. They wrapped up a packet, that included a description of the events, and threw well wrapped package over the wall at the American Consulate in Kraków. Unfortunately, nothing came from this effort. They conjectured that one of the Polish employees at the consulate, who were also Polish security service operatives, must have intercepted this package.

The Solidarity member gave her photographs and other materials. This was a major scoop that exposed the true nature of Gen. Jaruzelski’s regime and his methods of operation. Now she had to get the story back to Philadelphia and The Daily News.

It became quite clear that she could not just put the photographs and papers into a bag and go. On Renata’s recommendation a plan was developed to sew these items into the lining of Ursula’s heavy suede winter coat. Renata carefully undid the vertical double stitched seams of the coat and after placing the items behind the lining, carefully stitched them up again. Fortunately, she was able to match the thread color precisely from the large selection of colored threads that she used for embroidering.

Renata accompanied Ursula to Warsaw. After eighteen days in Poland and a series of adventures while traveling around the country in the middle of winter Ursula was ready to return. She packed a borrowed bag and went to meet her plane at the Warsaw airport.

There a female security conducted a thorough strip search. Ursula’s shoulder bag was carefully emptied and a stack of notes, written in shorthand, fell out. On her visa application, she had not been deceptive but gave her occupation as writer. The notes she explained as some work she was doing on a novel. The security people were not believing her. The interrogation continued, with the plane delayed at the gate. Though they had examined and handled the coat, it did not betray its secret. Finally, Ursula was allowed to board only to face an aircraft cabin full of irate and annoyed passengers who (rightly) blamed her for the delay.

After 9 hours of flight, she disembarked in Montreal still wearing the underwear she had borrowed from her cousin.

Now the work of getting the story out began. On Monday, February 8th, readers of The Daily News, “the easy to hold, easy to read” tabloid were greeted with a 2 inch high headline that practically screamed “Inside Poland, Daily News Reporter’s Exclusive Story.” This was paired with one of the photographs from the Wujek Mine. It showed a tank standing in the mine courtyard, while four men carried out a bleeding, injured miner on a stretcher.

The story continued for a total of three days. It was then reprinted, in part or in full, by other papers causing a bit of a flare up among the authorities in Poland. They were definitely not happy about the American press showing the amount of force and violence the regime would actually use to suppress opposition in Poland.

The Daily News made a reprint of the three days of stories that ran from February 8 to 10, 1982. Ursula would then distribute these whenever she would meet groups and speak about her experiences in Poland. One such meeting was organized at the Our Lady of Czestochowa Roman Catholic church in downtown Philadelphia. It was well attended by members of the Polish Heritage Society who presented her with a calligraphed certificate of recognition.

More recognition was to come, later that year she received the Enterprise Award for Journalism from the Philadelphia Press Association at their annual banquet.

Sometime thereafter, I heard from her that a British documentary film maker working with the BBC was interested in producing a documentary-drama based on the events at the Wujek mine. One of the problems they faced was that of finding a suitable mine location, one that shared some of the features present at the Polish mine. I put her in touch with the United States Steel Corporation (USS) public relations office. The matter passed out of mind.

During this period I was attending training sessions at USS headquarters in Pittsburgh. One feature that no visitor to downtown Pittsburgh can miss is the large, old stone prison building that takes up a entire block of the downtown. Now, I noticed that a new guard shack and a raised entry bar were placed at the entrance. At the time it did not mean much to me. It was odd though that the prison would need such an addition, and one painted in broad and bright red-white stripes.

However, once the film Two Weeks in Winter was aired on PBS, the purpose of that guard shack became quite apparent. One scene showed a number of arrestees being taken to prison by truck. They passed through this very checkpoint.

The USS public affairs office was of immense help in the making of the film. They found a closed mine in McKees Rocks, PA, where the filming could take place and additional footage was shot around Pittsburgh. Extras were hired from the local population for crowd scenes. Some put on ZOMO uniforms, others wore mining gear. A National Guard unit in the area provided the tanks – repainted with Polish markings. The film, though made on a relatively tight budget, strove to depict the actual events faithfully. And, yes, there was a dramatic scene where one of the tanks crashed through a wall. The film was broadcast on December 13, 1982, on the first anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in Poland.

Again, this event did not go unnoticed in Poland. Polish newspapers condemned the film as a provocation and anti-Polish propaganda. My sister was declared a persona non grata in Poland.

The Wujek Mine tragedy passed into history. Events moved ahead as people went about their everyday concerns. In Poland, Martial Law slowly eased. Lech Wałęsa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko was murdered by the communist Security Service in 1984. Mikhail Gorbachev became head of the Soviet Union, promising reforms – perestroika and glasnost. Yet, various repressions continued against the Polish people and this gave rise to a vigorous underground press, run by Solidarity activists with support from abroad. This press was a voice that would not let the communist government forget the hypocrisy it was attempting to perpetuate – where a “workers’ party” was unjustly punishing the very people they were claiming to represent and support. Poland’s communist rulers were signatories to the Helsinki Agreements on Human Rights, yet were sill unjustly persecuting their own citizens.

General Wojciech Jaruzelski, now head of the government, as well as of the communist party and the Polish army was given a favorable treatment in the New York Times in a lengthy article “The Importance of General Jaruzelski.” The writer, Michael T. Kaufman, tried to develop a theme where the General might have been a “secret patriot” who chose the “lesser evil” of Martial Law to inflict on his countrymen.

But the Poles were not buying this line. Mirosław Chojecki, an activist in the underground press, summed it up best, “Jaruzelski was a communist dictator who obediently executed the orders given by his masters in Moscow.”

As the end of the 1980s approached, Poland’s economy was unmanageable. The country was becoming ungovernable. Societal pressure for substantial changes in the system was growing.

With the influence of the Soviet union decreasing and the calls for reform getting louder ad louder – both inside and outside Poland – the government had to give in. The first real election in Poland since 1945 was finally held in 1989. Though the communist party upper-caste rewarded itself and retained some political influence, the days of communist party dominance in Poland were over.

One may wonder on how such a change came about. Certainly there were heroes, martyrs, leaders and inspirational figures. But mainly, the revolutionaries were the people of Poland. Polish society had developed a mindset that “they were fed up and would not take it any longer.” Small acts of defiance propelled the Solidarity movement even after it had been banned. Where one person was arrested another would fill the void. Just as an avalanche starts with but a few pebbles moving and grows into an irresistible force; such was the will of the Polish people. Once they realized this they were unstoppable.

My sister Ursula’s reporting was one of these random rocks rolling down the mountain side. She got her momentum from the Solidarity activists, who would not stand for the outrage at the Wujek mine. Then her article inspired a dramatic film that, through the medium of television, activated other people into more pro-freedom activities.

In 1994 the incident at Wujek was filmed again, as a historical document Śmierć jak kromka chleba. This was necessary as a way of maintaining memory of such events. It is also necessary for a free people to have an unfettered press and media that can act as a collective memory for society. Otherwise, such horror-filled and tragic scenarios will continue to be replayed over and over, until the very last gasp of recorded time.

Bibliography and Referenced Materials

Jones, Seth E., A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland W.W. Norton, New York, 2018

Kaufman, Michael T. “The Importance of General Jaruzelski,” The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 9, 1984.

Kuroń, Jacek, PRL dla Początkujących, with Jacek Żakowski, Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, Wrocław, 2002.

Kurski, Jarosław, Lech Walesa: Democrat or Dictator? Westview Books, Boulder, CO, 1993, (English version of Wódz, Pomost, Warsaw 1991; trans. Peter J. Obst).

Kutz, Kazimierz (director), (film) Śmierć jak kromka chleba ; (script) Kazimierz Kutz, Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych (WFD), Katowice, Poland, 1994 (1 hr. 56 min).

Lane, Arthur Bliss, I Saw Poland Betrayed, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948.

Nagorski, Andrew, The Birth of Freedom, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2003.

O’Brien, John, Docudrama on Polish miners filmed in Pa; UPI Archives, Sept. 24, 1982.

Obst, Ursula, “Inside Poland,” The Philadelphia Daily News, February 8-10, 1982.

Olgiati , Christopher (director), (film) Two Weeks in Winter: How the Army Took over in Poland (1982); Andrew Carr (script), (40 min) BBC TV aired as part of the Panorama Series in England, broadcast on PBS in the United States.

O’Rourke, P.J., “Poles Just Wanna Have Fun,” Rolling Stone, November 6, 1986, p. 56-83.

Steven, Stewart, The Poles, Scribner, New York, 1982.

Wałęsa, Lech, A Way of Hope, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1987.

Wałęsa, Lech, The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography, Arcade Publishing, New York, 1994.

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