Nicaiah Williams

17 September 2022

How Ignoring Political Festering can Invoke Global Suffering. Despite years of strained history and an increase in political tension between the Slavic nations of Russia and Ukraine, the arrival of the ongoing 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war was as unexpected as it was predictable. With the United States, European Union, and various other geopolitical entities currently backing the Ukrainian government, a question has been rising amongst the Western populace: why should our support, aid, and care go to a country seas away? To sufficiently answer this question, it is necessary to look at the current conflict from a broader lens, for the beginning of this issue is not in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of the contested Crimean Peninsula. In fact, the core of this war is not isolated to these two nations at all. Rather, the conflict traces back to the 20th century, to a Europe freshly ravaged by a second Great War and succumbing to the expansion of the Communist regime. Thus, by examining the nation of Poland post World War II and its development under Soviet occupation, the importance of aiding Ukraine and its relevance to people globally will be revealed.

To understand the connection between the current Russo-Ukrainian War and the Russian occupation of Poland post-WWII, one must first understand the circumstances that befell Poland during and after the Second World War. Due to its geographic location – bordered by Germany to the West and Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine to the East – Poland was faced with a unique set of disadvantages. The nation’s large Jewish population and immediate proximity meant that it was a prime target for Nazi Germany. This, combined with its adjacency to the Soviet Republics of Ukraine and Belarus, meant that Poland would become partially occupied by Nazis in 1939. The eastern portion of Poland would be taken by Soviet forces on September 17th of that same year, an act that only succeeded due to the amiability between the two regimes. This German invasion would mark both the official beginning of World War II, and a widespread campaign of human rights violations targeting Jewish and other “undesired” ethnic and social groups in Poland. The greater consequences of this campaign were a progressive erosion of local culture and a decrease in the Polish population as the Nazis’ system of ethnic separatism turned into ethnic cleansing and forced exile.

The Polish people would contribute greatly to the Allied Forces despite these occurrences. The government was also present throughout the war, continuing its correspondence with other Allies while exiled to London. This correspondence extended to the USSR, with whom the Polish government made an agreement on July 30, 1941: “The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics recognizes the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 as to territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity. The Polish Government declares that Poland is not bound by any Agreement with any third Power which is directed against the U.S.S.R” (Wright 304).

Legacy of Yalta

Despite Poland’s war contributions and attempts at diplomacy, the outcome of the 1945 Yalta Conference would lead to extended Polish suffering. Though the Yalta Conference is typically remembered for the partitioning of Germany and its capital into four zones of occupation, this conference also determined what would happen to the war-torn nation of Poland. The intention of the conference was for the Allied Forces to “[consult] with each other in the common interests of the peoples of their countries and those of liberated Europe” (Department of State 215). This discussion involved the United States of America, Great Britain, and the USSR, but notably did not involve the Polish government, which was still operating in London.

This meant that the Polish lacked the representation needed to push for the reinstatement of Poland’s eastern territories, or discuss their own demands as victors of the war. By February of 1945, the USSR had already obtained the western portion of Poland.

With the entire nation under its belt, the USSR took the upcoming conference as an opportunity to speak on the behalf of the now “liberated” Poland; the proposals made “for Poland” were either not aligned with what the nation wanted, or unfortunately were dropped in favor of requests that served to benefit the USSR.

One such request involved territory. Despite the agreement that the USSR signed with the Polish government on July 30, 1941, the conversation at the Yalta Conference made it clear that they did not intend to return the land that was wrongfully given to them by Germany. This would permanently alter the borders of Poland, with its eastern territories being absorbed into border nations such as the Soviet Republic of Ukraine and Belarus. For this move, Poland was “compensated” by having its territory expanded to the west through German land (Wright 308). In addition to the change in Poland’s border, the government itself would be impacted by the conference.

Despite the Polish government still existing in exile, the USSR proposed the implementation of a “Polish provisional government” on the grounds that “a new situation has been created… as a result of [Poland’s] complete liberation by the Red Army” (Department of State 215). The proposal’s purpose was clearly aimed at undermining the pre-existing Polish government and further isolating the nation from foreign allies. In what would later be described as a “compromise” by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, both himself and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill accepted this proposal without ensuring the autonomy of Poland (Wright 307). In doing so, they hoped to avoid conflict with the Soviets. This sequence of events acts as an eerie mirror to the 1938 Munich Conference, in which Czechoslovakia was allowed to fall under German occupation as a means of keeping the peace. Thus, the conclusion of the Yalta Conference brought with it a new era of deprived sovereignty for Poland instead of acknowledgment of its endured tragedies and wartime assistance.

Oppressing of “Liberators”

The acknowledgment of the new provisional government meant two things for the Polish: any chance of the exiled government being reinstated was now thoroughly shot down, and those that remained loyal to the old institution were now in grave danger. Though the USSR failed to uphold its half of the July 30th, 1941 agreement, it fully expected the Polish side to adhere to their half of not conspiring against it. As the new Polish government, the Polish Government of National Unity, was a puppet government installed by the USSR itself, deferring to any other governing body was akin to rebelling against the Soviets in favor of their enemies. This, unfortunately, would not be overlooked by leaders back in Moscow.

Within just a few months of the conclusion of the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, a widespread campaign of political, militaristic, and civil purging would ramp up across Poland. For these systemic changes, the Soviet Union relied upon its security forces the NKVD. This entity served as the Soviet equivalent to the Gestapo of Nazi Germany, a secret police that would quietly remove anyone deemed an enemy of the state. As with all secret police, the practices employed by the NKVD extended beyond the scope of what was ethical or just, including the torture, deportation, blackmail, coercion, and execution-without-trial of many Poles. Additionally, the NKVD had the power to funnel detainees into various prisons and camps situated throughout Soviet territories and Poland. One such prison was the Fordon prison, which only hosted female political prisoners.

The purpose of prisons like Fordon was to destroy the “inmate community” and use tactics of isolation, deprivation, and reward to achieve the “political purpose consisting in complete isolation and indoctrination” (Machcewicz, Anna, et al. 108). The NKVD’s purpose in Poland was thus to indoctrinate and destroy Poles with total impunity.

One of the objectives of the NKVD and Moscow’s purging campaign was the Polish Underground State. The Polish Underground State was, in essence, the complex culmination of various resisting bodies– political, civil, educational, and military – that still saw the exiled Government of the Republic of Poland as the rightful federal institution. The organization also strived to preserve the quality and quantity of institutions as they were under the exiled government’s reign (Nowak 4). The military units of the organization were the Home Army (initially called the Union of Armed Struggle) and the National Armed Force. These units were formed in the struggle to defend Polish autonomy amidst the German invasion. When the Soviet Union made its appearance as a German collaborator, the efforts of these military units and other armed resistors were painfully crushed by an encompassing vice of totalitarianism.

By the early half of 1945, the organization was already dissolving due to the combined loss of Allied support, manpower, and communication with the exiled government. Additionally, there were internal fears of starting a Polish civil war, which would only serve to benefit the Soviet Union. Despite the organization ceasing its operations, those that had been contributing members were still unknowingly wanted by leaders back in Russia.

Show Trials

This would all come to a head on the 27th and 28th of March, where 16 former leaders of the Polish Underground State would be beaten and arrested by the NKVD and brought back to Moscow, Russia, for trial (Fijalkowski 90). There was only one catch: the charges against them were fabricated, and the trial already had a predetermined outcome. The entire event had been carefully orchestrated, starting with the 16 men receiving an invitation to a public meeting (Fijalkowski 90). By assuming a cooperative front, Stalin and the NKVD were able to bait and switch key figures of the Polish resistance and charge them with various crimes. These key figures included the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army, Leopold Okulicki, and Deputy Prime Minister of Poland (delegate of the exiled government), Jan Stanislaw Jankowski. Excluding the four that were ultimately acquitted, the charges stuck, and the men were sentenced in June to various labor camps.

This trial was not the only one of its kind to occur– various other individuals (typically anti-communist, protesting, or otherwise dissatisfied with occupation) would find themselves in a similar situation; they would have their names smeared in a show trial, be forced to collaborate or support the narrative of the trial despite the evidence being nonexistent or questionable, and then find themselves in either a labor camp, political prison, or awaiting execution. It is for this reason that the most devastating aspect of this trial was the lack of outrage from abroad, though this had long since been anticipated as shown by a conversation between Joseph Stalin and the Prime Minister of Poland, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk:

He talked for a long time, but it was extremely clear just what kind of Poland he wanted after the war. In view of what both he and everybody else already knew about Anglo-American appeasement and indifference, it was also apparent what he would get. Above all, I could see as he talked that he was determined that all Polish resistance, as exemplified by the Polish Home Army, would perish. (Mikolajczyk)

Just as both suspected, there would be no repercussions for Stalin, no push from Great Britain or the United States to make these show trials end, and some of the underground leaders would ultimately meet questionable ends before their sentences were over.

Augustów Operation

With the targeting of the Polish Underground State came the natural decision to also target former Home Army fighters and dozens more groups of armed resistance and/or military personnel. Since the Soviet invasion of Poland, the Red Army and NKVD had already been taking out the armed members of Polish society. Thus, the fight to dismantle these groups of resistance – and consequently suppress the Polish population – carried on. There had already been prior round-ups of Polish armed fighters, the most infamous of which was the Katyn massacre of 1940. In July of 1945, it appeared that the Soviet Union was planning a similar mass execution– this time with the Red Army. Within the area of the Augustów Forest, Soviet intelligence had predicted that there was a hidden base of operation for thousands of Polish guerilla fighters. As such, a plan was devised to encircle the area of the Augustów Forest and dragnet it (Adamski and Motyka 5). Essentially, any Polish guerilla fighter that happened to be in the area was forced to remain there until they were found by the numerous sweeps that the Red Army did through the area:

On 12 July, having spent the entire day combing the indicated areas, Red Army soldiers detained at least 820 suspected individuals, including sixty-two Home Army members. On the next day, another 889 individuals or more were detained. In the following days, Red Army soldiers detained between three hundred and nine hundred individuals daily. This is the lowest estimated number—daily figures provided by the Soviets in their reports are frequently mutually exclusive; the final figures indicated that a total of more than seven thousand individuals were detained during the entire operation. (Adamski and Motyka 6)

After weeding through all 7,000 people, it was concluded that 844 were criminals; 252 of them would be deported to Lithuania as they were Lithuanians, while the remaining 592 (all of which were Polish) were relocated and quietly executed without trial (Adamski and Motyka 9). Without a trial, there was no way to definitively prove if these individuals were truly a part of underground rebellion movements. Considering how the detained Lithuanians were sent off before the mass execution started, the Augustów operation feels less like a tactical attack upon the Soviet Union’s enemies, and more like a large-scale extermination of an ethical group that the Soviets disdained. These interpretations are not mutually exclusive, for this operation did indeed destroy any large-scale fighting in the area and left “small groups of guerrilla fighters only” (Adamski and Motyka 8). At the same time, it also made nearly 600 people disappear off the face of the Earth.

Polish Operation 1937

The continued targeting of resistance and military entities by Soviet officials still does not paint the full picture of Polish suppression under the Soviet regime. As stated earlier, the USSR’s activities in Poland occurred not on a unilateral scale, but on as many levels of society as humanly possible. While counterculture was being dismantled and all Polish Defense entities were being demolished, the people themselves were also under rapid assailment. Despite wanting Polish land, the Soviet Union did not want Polish people. Not even pro-communist Poles were safe, as “Stalin even dissolved the Communist Party of Poland, ordering most of the arrested leaders to be executed” (Musial 99). This was perhaps the lingering effects of the 1930s Great Terror, in which Stalin committed himself to execute thousands; the ethnic Poles were targeted most extensively, with 110,000 Poles being executed, exiled, or otherwise disappearing from Soviet territories (Musial 98).

Though the Great Terror ended in the 1930s, the sentiments of distrust and contempt that fueled the event would be reflected in the Soviet transformation of Polish society (James 751). As established through the Trial of the Sixteen, the USSR’s judicial institutions were less concerned with the truth, and more concerned with the maintenance of Soviet propaganda and public terror. A regime’s power is derivative of the people’s fear and the reaffirmation of their obedience. By infiltrating Polish courts and directing loyal judges to deliver cruel and irregular punishment, the USSR was able to “make an impression on the [people]” and obtain power “over the populace’s public and private lives” (Fijalkowski 85).

General Emil Fieldorf

One such infamous case of cruel punishment involves Polish war hero Emil August Fieldorf. Fieldorf had an extensive military background, serving in numerous battalions and positions before becoming a brigadier general in the Home Army (Fijalkowski 87). When war broke out, Fieldorf traveled to France in order to train himself, and then proceeded to smuggle himself back into Poland in order to aid in the battle against German occupation (Fijalkowski 88). Like various other members of the Home Army, Fieldorf was unaware of the fact that his ties to the Polish Underground State and military experience meant that Moscow wanted him dead. He was surveilled until 1950, as the Soviet Union would, unfortunately, find an opportunity to detain and arrest him. Various corrupt methods were used in every stage of Fieldorf’s trial, starting with the repeated extensions of his detainment, the coercion and torturing of witnesses to build a case against him, and the use of his participation in the 1920 Polish-Soviet War (a war that the USSR lost) and battles against German occupation, to fabricate him into a high position of command and thus attribute the deaths of a thousand people to his name (Fijalkowski 97).

Fieldorf was sentenced to hang despite the court failing to do basic procedure such as the cross-examination of witnesses, or even allowing Fieldorf’s defense counsel to testify; when an appeal with evidence and witnesses supporting Fieldorf was made, the court simply stated that the evidence “had no bearing on the case against the general (Fijalkowski 98). Fieldorf would ultimately be executed on February 24th of 1952 despite the efforts of his family and other parties (Fijalkowski 99). His trial, like many others, served to instill dread into the populace and hammer home the ubiquitous influence of the USSR.

At least one of the overseeing judges, Emil Merz, had direct ties with the secret police while another, Maria Gorowska, had a known reputation of incompetency (Fijalkowski 95).

Thus, through the corruption of courtrooms and the judges presiding over them, the judicial system was no longer on the side of the people. Poland was no longer for the people.

This recollection of events is not meant to condemn the United States or Great Britain for their participation (or lack thereof) in Poland’s transformation into a puppet state. This chapter of history has already concluded, and the men involved have long since perished. To take the time to ridicule President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, or Joseph Stalin is to make empty platitudes. There is no phrase that can be said to bring back those that have already lost their lives or to ease generations of displacement and tragedy.

How Ignoring Political Festering can Invoke Global Suffering

What does exist is a phrase for today, for the ensuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine: to ignore a gaping wound is to die bleeding. The Allied Forces made a conscious decision in 1945 to tolerate the USSR and its atrocities in Poland, even when it became undeniably clear that the Soviet Union was a threat to the vision of a democratic Europe that they were trying so hard to foster.

This policy of looking away was done to avoid the further destruction of Europe through a third World War, but as is now known, this choice would worsen the post-war condition of international politics into a decades-long conflict between the United States and the USSR. The Soviet Union is the “gaping wound” in this case, and no medical intervention was done when the wound festered and began to consume Poland.

No move was done when the infection continued bleeding out of Poland and into the rest of Europe. By the time curative actions were taken, the entire world was bloody. Tolerance of a threat does not make the threat go away. Ignorance does not detract from a threat’s power, and passivity emboldens it. It is for this reason that Ukraine and its fight against Russia have earned the nation widespread financial, military, and political support. The Russo-Ukrainian conflict is not just a conflict between two bordering nations, it is the byproduct of decades-old policies that tried and failed to birth global peace through enabled destruction. To repeat the actions of the 1940s and offer Ukraine to Russia as Poland was given to the USSR would be nothing short of a grave blunder. There can be no coexistence with an entity that enriches itself off the decimation of others. Likewise, one’s safety is not guaranteed simply because their neighbor was eaten first. To quote pastor Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem:

First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

If one wishes to disregard the historic warning that is the occupation of Poland and the importance of no longer enabling global threats, then one should be prepared to revise this poem with the names of Poland, Ukraine, Europe, and finally, themselves.

Bibliography

“Conversation between Stanislaw Mikolajczyk and Stalin,” August 03, 1944, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Mikołajczyk, Stanisław. The rape of Poland: Pattern of Soviet Aggression. (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1972), 72-75. https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/219986

Fijalkowski, Agata. “Politics, Law, and Justice in People’s Poland: the Fieldorf File.” Slavic Review, vol. 73, no. 1, 2014, pp. 85–107, doi:10.5612/slavicreview.73.1.0085.

The US Department of State. The Department of State Bulletin. vol. 12, pp. 215 HathiTrust, #221 – The Department of State bulletin. v.12. – Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library

Adamski, Lukasz and Motyka, Grzegorz. The Last Mass Execution of World War II: The Roundup Carried Out by Soviet Troops in the Augustów Forest in July 1945. SAGE, https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254221093642. Accessed 17 Sep. 2022

Machcewicz, Anna, et al. Political Prisoners in Poland, 1944–56 : The Sources and Strategies of Resistance in the Authoritarian State’s Prison System. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2018, http://rcin.org.pl/Content/71879/PDF/WA303_93538_A296-APH-R-118_Machcewicz.pdf.

Musial, Bodan (2013). The ‘Polish Operation’ of the NKVD: The Climax of the Terror Against the Polish Minority in the Soviet Union. Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 99-124.SAGE, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009412461818. Accessed 17 Sep. 2022.

Morris, James. “The Polish Terror: Spy Mania and Ethnic Cleansing in the Great Terror.” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 56, no. 5, 2004, pp. 751–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4147481. Accessed 17 Sep. 2022.

Nowak, Chester M. (1986). The Polish Resistance Movement in Second World War.

Bridgewater Review, 4(1), 4-7. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol4/iss1/6 Wright, Herbert. “Poland and the Crimea Conference.” The American Journal of International Law, vol. 39, no. 2, 1945, pp. 300–08. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2192348.  Accessed 14 Sep. 2022.

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Olivia Morin

September 15, 2022

Polish Independence Movement after WWII

The fact continues to remain that despite Poland’s important and unfailing role in World War II, the nation’s military achievements and struggles following the resolution of the battle in Europe fail to be thoroughly acknowledged to this day. The Polish hardships over the past decades in particular have much to blame on the Yalta Conference of nineteen forty-five, which placed the nation under the Soviet regime and essentially sentenced the population to live their lives completely in fear for years to come. Citizens were methodically deported, killed, and tortured as they lived under the terror-based rule of the Soviet Union, but hardly anyone recognizes the devastating losses the Polish population sustained before they became a free nation and held their first democratic election in nineteen ninety-one.

To begin the history of Poland’s oppression under the Soviet’s rule, it must be acknowledged that most articles identify the Yalta Conference as a success because “the Soviets did make many substantial concessions,” and praises are given for the ability of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin to reach a compromise that would allow the three nations to heroically defeat the Japanese and German forces. However, some articles acknowledge that the agreement made at Yalta was not a success for everyone, as “Yalta means a betrayal of their countries and the United States’ abandonment of its core values on the altar of Great Power politics.” Truly, Roosevelt made an agreement on the fate of an entire nation without consulting their government; a fatal mistake when the entire war was started with the invasion of Poland due to its coveted location between the two hostile nations of Russia and Germany. The promises made by a dictator who had always had a stake in Poland’s fate should never have been taken so lightly, but Roosevelt still claimed: “it [was] the best [he could] do for Poland at [the] time.” Despite this belief, there were multiple reasons why the Yalta Conference spelled disaster for the Polish people.

Not only did the Big Three decide that an entire one-third – or approximately seventy-thousand square miles – of Polish land would be taken over by the Soviet regime, but they also chose to alter the borders by essentially shifting the entire nation of Poland to the west, and giving them territory previously controlled by Germany. This additional land may have seemed like a perk of the agreement, but it came at a time when Poland was already being taken over by the Russian regime, and the gaining of land meant nothing when so much was simultaneously being stripped from them. As far back as nineteen forty-three, that is two years before the Yalta Conference came to be, Russia was already refusing to acknowledge the Polish government, and was actively replacing those in power with their own people in the Polish Committee of National Liberation until creating the provisional Lublin Government in nineteen forty-four. This provisional government was “almost universally regarded as a puppet regime,” but still accepted by both Roosevelt and Churchill during Yalta. This means that all Polish land, including that which was stripped from the nation and that which was meant to be gained, was entirely controlled by the Soviet Union.

USSR Murders 16 Polish Leaders

In late March of nineteen forty-five, sixteen leaders of the exiled Polish government were invited to speak with Soviet commanders on the topic of the results of the Yalta Conference and chose to attend in the hopes that Russia would be willing to compromise. Upon their arrival, they were taken into custody by the NKVD – or Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs in English) and held in the Lubyanka prison, where the USSR’s secret service headquarters were located.

This brutal political police captured the Polish leaders under the false accusation that they had planned “an attack on the Soviet Union together with the Germans,” and all sixteen of them endured a four-day-long staged trial in Moscow after “the Poles were interrogated for almost three months and evidence was prepared against them.” The trial, which found thirteen of the accused to be guilty after each of them pleaded as such, was in complete violation of international agreements that had no guidelines for putting citizens of another country on trial. While a few of them were released and the longest prison sentence that was issued was a maximum of ten years, three of the sixteen never returned to Poland. General Leopold Okulicki, Jan Stanisław Jankowski, and Stanisław Jasiukowiczere were all said to have died in prison, though there is a very likely conspiracy that Okulicki was murdered in the Lubyanka after other members of the sixteen said they “heard Okulicki being led out of his cell, to which he never returned.” The false trial proved to be exactly what Stalin needed to cement his hold on the Polish people, as the exiled government was nearly annihilated by the loss of the sixteen leaders.

Unfortunately, the show trial that upended the Polish underground was not the last tragedy to befall the nation in the year nineteen forty-five. Only a few months later, thousands of anti-communists and Home Army sympathizers were arrested for their actions in a series of operations the Polish underground planned against the Soviet presence in Poland’s northeastern territories. Although many of those arrested are said to have been released, at least six hundred of them were loaded onto military tracks and never seen again. A relatively recent discovery of a Russian telegram suggests that these people were systematically executed by a special operations unit from one of the Soviets’ counterintelligence groups.

Despite multiple extensive investigation efforts over the past decades, the remains of those missing six hundred Poles have yet to be found in the present day. This event – known as the “Augustow Round-Up” because of the location of the event in the Augustow region and also known as “Little Katyn” – is often referred to as “the largest crime committed by the Soviets on Polish lands after World War II.” The name “Little Katyn” itself suggests an exceptional tragedy, as it references the Katyn Massacre of approximately twenty-two thousand military officers by the Soviet Union in the midst of World War II. Multiple articles comment on the heartbreak of those who were left behind after their loved ones and family members were kidnapped – touching on how this was more than a historical event; it was personal to many citizens of Poland. The unjust and unsolved death of so many people continues to leave behind a legacy that calls for action against the “perpetrators [who] remain unpunished to this day.”

However, some people still held out hope and despite all of Russia’s crimes against the Polish people, believed that the best approach to their survival and freedom included a coalition between the exiled Polish government and the communist party in Warsaw. One of the most prominent figures who held this belief was Stanisław Mikolajczyk, who had been a part of the Polish government in one way or another for much of his life.

A brief history of Stanislaw Mikolajczyk

Mikolajczyk’s story begins with his volunteering for the Polish army in nineteen twenty and fighting the Soviet forces away from the River Vistula under the leadership of Marshall Pilsudski. After that, he was injured and returned home where he joined the Farmer’s Party.  Subsequently, he stood up against the same Marshall Pilsudski, blaming him for setting up a military dictatorship. He remained politically involved as a member of Parliament until joining the army again in an effort to fight off the German invasion of nineteen thirty-nine.  After their loss, he fled to Paris in pursuit of the Polish government in exile, which later moved to London. Mikolajczyk quickly moved up the ranks of the exiled government and, in nineteen forty-one, became the Minister of the Interior at the signing of the agreement with Stalin “to fight against Hitler’s imperialism.” He took over as the Minister-President of the government in exile in nineteen forty-three after the tragic death of his predecessor General Sikorski, at which point Stalin’s communist puppet government was in the process of formation in Poland.

Mikolajczyk resigned from his position in the exiled government and joined the government in Warsaw even before it was recognized as the true government of Poland in nineteen forty-five. That is when diplomatic relations between the Allied countries and the legitimate Polish government in London were broken off. However, his position in Warsaw was not long-lasting, as his efforts to recreate the Farmer’s Party and speak for the Polish people resulted in death threats. He fled for his life in nineteen forty-seven.

Known as a communist traitor to the Polish people, he received too much hate in his homeland and was forced into exile in the United States where he spent the rest of his life as the Chair of the International Farmers Union. Much of the information on Mikolajczyk’s life is drawn directly from his personal memoirs, which were published in Washington in nineteen forty-eight. Any information not provided by him was likely provided by his son Marian. The “scope and content” section of these memoirs, provided by Stanford University, explains that “while the London years are well documented, the period from 1945 to 1947, during which Mikolajczyk served in the provisional government in Warsaw, is not.” These years made up a period of time in which Mikolajczyk’s mission “had been following the same aim” as the Polish government in exile, despite the adversity he faced from the communist leadership. Ultimately, he was unable to make the coalition work towards the freedom of Poland as he had hoped, and brought about yet another accidental setback in the nation’s long history of struggles.

Mikolajczyk’s role as Minister President brings about the most important part he played in the history of Poland, as he was the one who “agreed to a coalition under Communist leadership” with Stalin in nineteen forty-four. He quickly realized, much like Roosevelt learned of his mistake in trusting Stalin’s words at the Yalta Conference, that by this move he had taken even more power away from the Polish people.

Barbaric methods of Russian secret services

The death threats received by Mikolajczyk, the disappearances of the six hundred Polish citizens during the Augustow Round-Up, and the staged trial that took down sixteen leaders of the Polish underground without reason were only a few of many illegal and brutal acts performed by the Soviet’s secret police – the NKVD. The discriminating history of the force is hardly surprising, considering that such organizations operate “for the most part in secrecy and especially for the political purposes of [their] government, often with terroristic methods.” Britannica also confirms that “secret police tactics include arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution of political enemies and intimidation of potential opposition members,” most of which have already been seen in the topics of this essay.

Russia’s secret police agencies have undergone multiple reconstructions over the decades. Most recently known as the GRU, it was preceded by the KGB, MVD, MGD, NKGD, NKVD, and more as the agencies were often rebranded with each major political shift. These agencies sometimes included only the secret police, and sometimes included all police forces – those meant to serve and protect the public and those operating above the law for political benefit. The NKVD – led most notably by Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria – primarily operated under Stalin, and was responsible for many atrocities acts of terrorism against the Polish people and other prominent non-Russian groups of the era – such as the Ukrainians in nineteen forty-one.  The UB – Urząd Bezpieczeństwa or the Polish “Ministry of Public Security” – was the Polish secret police force, similarly controlled by Stalin as part of the NKVD, though it mostly dealt with prisons.

The Soviet extermination crimes of the secret police stretch back even farther than the second world war, beginning with the “Polish Operation” in nineteen thirty-seven where Stalin ordered the death of over two-hundred thousand Polish citizens who were tortured and forced to falsely plead guilty to committing horrific crimes as part of the Polish Military Organization.

The torture methods used to bring about the confessions included “whips, batons, bayonets, rifle butts and at times even electricity” and are said to have also been “used in occupied Poland from 1944 onwards.” These terrible deaths were often covered up as nurses and physicians were required “to write down fake causes of death such as a heart attack or illness – for detainees that had been killed.” Each killing ultimately led to more and more deaths, as “individuals were forced to provide names of alleged co-conspirators… they were the names of friends, family members, and co-workers.” Each unjust death was used as an excuse for additional violence – sending the widows and children of murdered men to prison or labor camps – or if they were young enough to orphanages where “attempts were made to strip them of their Polish identity.” Parents and grandparents of the accused individuals would be left out on the streets as the police confiscated their homes and their belongings – many of these family members being older and unable to work, at which point they often did not survive the winter months.

Similarly, discriminant events followed as Stalin continued to search for methods that would allow him to “kick and clean out [the] Polish…for the good of the Soviet Union”.The “Great Purge” or the “Purge Trials” included a series of three staged show trials in which some of Stalin’s greatest political opponents and critics pleaded guilty to numerous charges such as forming a terrorist organization, working for Germany and Japan, or assassinating Sergei Kirov – a prominent supporter of Stalin. Later investigations into the trials indicated that the “cases were fabricated by the secret police” and the “confessions were made under the pressure of intensive torture and intimidation.”

For Stalin and the NKVD, there was no limit to the actions they were willing to take to bring about the extermination of the Polish people.

Many Polish citizens – whether politicians, fighters, or family members – were detained by the police and placed in prisons to live out unjust terms. Among the most infamous of these were the Mokotow Prison, the Lublin Prison castle, the Fordon Prison, and the Inowroclaw Prison. The Mokotow Prison is more commonly known as the Rakowiecka Prison, as it is located on Rakowiecka Street in the borough of Mokotow. It is perhaps the most notorious of these prisons. The Polish Army officer Witold Pilecki, who wrote “Witold’s Report” on the Auschwitz concentration camp in nineteen forty-three was imprisoned in the Mokotow Prison after being detained by the UB. The Rakowiecka/Mokotow Prison is often identified as “the worst prison in Poland” during the Soviet occupation.

Pilecki himself claimed that “compared to [Rakowiecka] Auschwitz was just a trifle” in a letter to his wife.

Pilecki, along with many others, underwent severe torture while being held in the Mokotow prison, and following yet another show trial he was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by Staff Sergeant Piotr Smietanski, a man known as “The Butcher of Mokotow Prison.”

Lublin Castle was more distinctly noted in history for its time under the German occupation of Poland, during which the Third Reich tortured and executed thousands in the span of five years. In the last hours before the German forces were evacuated from the city, approximately three-hundred prisoners were murdered. The oppression failed to end with the defeat of the Third Reich, as the NKVD quickly secured control of the Lublin Castle and filled it with thousands of Polish prisoners again. One article claims that prisoners in Lublin at the beginning of the Soviet occupation described how “the cells were still wet from the blood of the victims of the execution” that had taken place in those last hours before the Germans escaped. The cells were overcrowded with both falsely accused civilians and true criminals – many who had been previously detained under the German regime were now confined together in the same cell with their torturers, who had been captured by the Soviets by the end of the war. Lublin Castle is thought to have seen the highest numbers of inmates during the Soviet occupation, with a predicted thirty-two to thirty-three thousand inmates having been recorded over the span of ten years. Unsurprisingly, the Russians maintained similar practices to the Germans that had come before them – prisoners were brutally tortured, interrogated for false pleas and information, and often executed if they remained alive after their interrogations.

The two remaining prisons – despite being the crime scene for thousands of murders and torturous acts – were more difficult to find adequate sources on. The Fordon Prison and Inowroclaw Prison are hardly recounted at all, besides a couple of interviews given by inmates years after they were released from their sentences. The inmates of these two prisons were unique from those sent to the other prisons as most of these were women. The women of Fordon are known for typically having had young children with them or being pregnant and giving birth whilst in confinement, while those of Inowroclaw were often nuns. One article by Monika Scislowska details the accounts given by three women, two of them had been pregnant and gave birth in Fordon, one was forced to bring her young son with her, and all of them lived in horrifying conditions and underwent harsh treatment just to keep themselves and their children alive. Fordon, although it may not have been the prison that contained the most gruesome torture events, was infamous for its own kind of brutality. To bring women and children into such an environment just to cause them and their families pain is, in itself, the cruelest of acts. A similar account from the survivors of Inowroclaw quotes Sister Zofia Luszczkiewicz in her reference to Inowroclaw Prison as the “Polish Auschwitz.” Many of the sisters gave accounts of specific methods of torture that went against their fundamental practices as nuns. Often times these women were raped or forced to remain naked whilst doused in water and left in freezing or damp cells. Accounts confirm that it was “typical of Poland’s nuns” to refuse to collaborate with their prosecutors and thus sentence anyone else to such treatment by extension. Though often seen as feeble old women tasked with teaching unruly children and caring for the elderly, these women held a strength beyond their own belief and typically remained steady against every cruel attempt by the Soviet regime at gaining information.[ For more information about Fordon and Inowroclaw prisons see:  M. B. Szonert, Null and void; Case Study on Comparative Imperialism,” University Press, 2008 https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761840282/Null-and-Void-Poland-Case-Study-on-Comparative-Imperialism]

Danuta “Inka” Siedzikowna

As with many events in history, women played a greater role in liberating Poland from the control of the Soviet Union than is often acknowledged. A lot of these women suffered greatly for their cause; undergoing severe torture, encountering disease, and suffering starvation like the women of Fordon and Inowroclaw. Some other women on the Polish front were more like Danuta “Inka” Siedzikowna, a seventeen-year-old nurse in the Home Army, who was sentenced twice to death in addition to a fifteen-year prison term. Siedzikowna joined the Home Army during the German occupation, determined to aid her nation in gaining freedom after being raised in a very patriotic home with a family that took great pride in their country and her people. After her father was deported in nineteen forty, and her mother was murdered by the Gestapo in nineteen forty-three, Siedzikowna saw no other option for her future besides fighting for their values and beliefs in free Poland. As the Germans were pushed out of Poland and the Soviet occupation began, Siedzikowna continued to subscribe to the Home Army – fighting against a new enemy, but for the same dreams of liberty and freedom. Besides performing as a nurse for injured members of her brigade, Siedzikowna went out on missions on behalf of liaison officers, often to trade supplies or retrieve information. During a mission to obtain medicine and information on the disappearance of the brigade’s commanding officer, she was followed and arrested by the UB. Despite the fact that “she did not have military training and did not participate in hostilities,” and that she was underage, Siedzikowna was found guilty of numerous false allegations and was sentenced to death.  These charges included “shooting at a policeman and inciting the killing of security service officers” even though she possessed no weapon. She was murdered by the communist security services in August 1946 at the age of 18.

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate facts of the struggles of the Polish people to fight off the Soviet occupation is that it fails to be acknowledged in the present day.

All of these people who were arrested, put on trial, forced into overcrowded cells, beaten, tortured, and executed are forgotten by the people of the present day – especially those of us in the United States. To us, those are events and figures of the past, but as we look at the battles currently going on in Ukraine, it becomes clear that “that which is done is what shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.”

The tragedy in Ukraine, where the Russian occupation is being fought against every day, and where it has been revealed that the Russians left mass graves in their wake, is the same treatment that has already been exemplified in Poland. Did we not learn exactly how much the Soviet Union covered up for years in terms of the treatment of the Polish people?

Have we really forgotten all that pain and brutality, such that we are willing to let it happen again?

The Ukrainian people have made it clear that they are suffering and that they need help, and yet the world watches as history repeats itself and people are unjustly murdered today. The history of Poland is long, but that does not mean it should be forgotten – it should be learned and used instead as a call to action.

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Łukasz Jasionek

LEGACY OF INVINCIBLE SOLDIERS: Duke Mieszko I was the founder of the first independent Polish state, he ruled and united several Western Slavic tribes (Oleksiak). His vision of unity has been repeatedly challenged by devastating destruction and bitter upheavals caused by Poland’s neighbors. From dismantling the Polish state to waring between themselves, their goals typically involved crossing into Poland and causing destruction and chaos. The most recent example that salts old wounds, is the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian sentiments of erasing Ukrainian culture, sovereignty, and extermination are eerily similar when compared to the atrocities they committed against the Polish people. The parallels to the massacre at Bucha, where hundreds of civilians have been found in mass graves, the massacre at Katyn, and others, are a reminder of how history repeats itself if we do not learn (Russell).

Growing up in the United States has fortunately shielded me from the pain, scars, and fear of another potential invasion. I have always had a passion for history, especially when it involves information relating to Poland, my ancestral homeland. Writing this essay taught me a lot more about Poland’s history. In addition, it also led to me finding out that my aunt was part of Poland’s Solidarity Movement and performed a critical role in getting people involved. The Polish Solidarity Movement (1980-1989) was a nonviolent struggle against the authoritarian communist government in Poland (Bartkowski). Although it states that it began in 1980, it really began in 1945, as soon as Joseph Stalin’s grip over Poland was almost solidified. For her actions, my aunt was jailed in Mokotow Prison in Warsaw and interrogated. This prison was built in the final years of the foreign Partitions of Poland. It was extensively used by Nazi Germany and later Russians as a place of detention, torture, and execution of Polish political opposition (Schwartz).

Digging further into my background I was shocked to find that my grandfather’s uncle, Stanislaw Baczyk, fought in the 1939 Defensive War. He defended Polish civilians, sovereignty, and the very idea of Poland itself. This was very emotional to me because as a history buff, having someone fight in World War II, especially Poland, makes it more personal and interesting. In 1939 he was wounded and for his heroic actions was given the Order of Polonia Restituta (Order Odrodzenia Polski). This would make his life difficult after the war, during Soviet occupation, because in 1939 the Soviets invaded Poland too. On a trip to Poland, I was able to recover his helmet (Hełm wz. 31). This made me feel connected to him like his memory would live on through me!

The Yalta Conference is the next major event, much of Poland’s current events and recent history were shaped by it. No single issue created more distress between the United States and the Soviet Union during the final stages of World War II (WWII) than what was known as the “Polish Question” (Irons 5). The Yalta conference was where the West accepted the division of Europe and made no attempt to help establish a state for one of their most faithful allies. The fact is that Eastern Europe was already conceded to Josef Stalin by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as early as the Tehran Conference. At Yalta, the British and Americans tried to make a last-ditch effort to try to fashion some sort of arrangement to assure some freedom. Instead, in the end with no enforcement by the West, the Soviet promises of “some freedoms,” like elections being held and a free government, were not kept. This would lead to Europe being divided into two spheres of influence.

The issues of Yalta commenced with the Soviet government breaking diplomatic ties with the Polish Government-in-exile in London during 1943, hence ceasing to recognize the rightly elected Polish government (Schlesinger). Instead, the Soviets formed the Lublin Committee, also known as the Polish Committee of National Liberation, to govern the ‘liberated’ parts of Poland as they fell to Red Army control. This presented an issue because the Western Powers thought about the government-in-exile as legitimate, while the Soviets thought of their own puppet government as such. The issues were exacerbated by the government-in-exile being firmly anti-Soviet and the Lublin committee was exactly what they opposed. At the Yalta conference, this proved a challenging situation for the West (Schlesinger). They could not recognize the Lublin Committee Government in its current form, and they felt compelled by honor to do something about the situation. They pressed the Lublin Committee Government to include members of the Polish Government-in-exile until a free and fair election could be held.

This presented an issue because in 1942 the USSR entered the Atlantic Charter, which included the United States (U.S) and the United Kingdom (UK). It was based on these three principles. First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other. Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned. Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them (Stone). What the western leaders were contemplating at Yalta would be in violation of all three principles. They were not only ready to recognize the Soviet puppet government, but they were also bartering Polish territory without the consent of the Polish government or people.

With a stroke of a pen and without any Polish representation, Eastern Poland would be given to the Soviet Union. This was a third of the previous Polish state and comprised over 70,000 square miles. Poland would gain territory to the west at the expense of Germany, but the territorial gains were a net loss for Poland. This was especially painful for the Polish veterans because they had fought for the winning side. This would also cause massive population transfers/migrations. With the decisions finalized, the announcement would be called the “Declaration of Poland”, but in reality, it would be the declaration of a Soviet puppet state. The pledge by Stalin to hold free and unfettered elections based on universal suffrage, secret ballots, and free candidate selection would end up being a dream for Poles.

Just weeks later in March 1945, sixteen members of the Polish resistance, including General Leopold Okulicki of the Home Army, were arrested. (ZUROWSKI 319) They were tortured and eventually confessed to anti-Soviet activities. Their show trial was held on the same day of the conference on the composition of the new Soviet-backed Polish provisional government. This became known as the Trial of the Sixteen. The affair started in February 1945 when Soviet General Ivanov sent a letter to Jan Jankowski and Leopold Okulicki. Jankowski was the deputy premier in Tomasz Arciszewski’s Polish government in exile and Okulicki was the last commander of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa). This letter was an invitation to a conference to discuss alleged diversionary actions by the Home Army in the Red Army rear. Okulicki replied to the letter by stating that the Home Army had already been dissolved because it was formed only to rid Poland of the Germans and denied involvement in these actions.

To his response, a second letter was delivered to him with a second invitation to meet quickly and settle these matters in person, with the personal safety of the attendees guaranteed. The Soviets stated that this conference would be in the name of clearing the atmosphere of excess democratic parties and combining them into one democratic force in Poland. At the meeting held on March 11th, 1945,  Jankowski stated that the four parties in the government-in-exile were willing to come out in the open to help reconstruct their country if certain conditions were met. These parties, the Socialists,  National Democrats, Populists, and the Labourites, wanted guarantees of individual basic democratic freedoms (ZUROWSKI 318).

General Ivanov, under the authority of General Georgy Zhukov, said he had been assigned to conduct discussions with Polish political leaders about their future. Jankowski agreed to meet again and was to be given a plane to visit England and consult with the government-in-exile. On March 27th, Jankowski, General Okulicki, and Kazimierz Puzak, the General Secretary of the Polish Socialist Party, traveled to the town of Pruszkow for the meeting. On March 28th, thirteen more Polish leaders joined them at Pruszkow for the trip. Once on the plane, they did not fly to London. Instead, they flew eastwards toward Moscow. Once landed, they were met by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) and were told they were under arrest. These Polish leaders were falsely charged with maintaining an illegal underground organization, an illegal anti-Soviet army, operating illegal wireless radios, conducting espionage, and murder and terrorist acts against Russian civilians. (ZUROWSKI 318).

They were then hauled away to a prison in Moscow called Lubianka. There they were starved and given just enough to survive. On average there were 120 to 150 interrogation sessions per person. This was a common tactic used by the Soviets to get a person into a state of mental and physical exhaustion so that they would confess to something they did not do. None would end up cooperating and after much misinformation and suppression, the news eventually reached the world. Some in the West doubted that they would be harmed, but Winston Churchill took a darker view stating he believed they had walked into a trap set by the NKVD and were already dead.

This fear prompted the Polish government-in-exile’s ambassador to the U.S. to appeal to the American government and approach Moscow about their fate. After several more months of interrogation, the final charges were as follows, collaborating with Nazi Germany, carrying out intelligence gathering and sabotage at the rear of the Red Army, state terrorism, planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany, owning radio equipment, printing machines and weapons, anti-Soviet propaganda, and membership in underground organizations. The trial took place between the 18th and 21st of June 1945 with representatives from the UK and U.S press

The verdict on the 21st was no surprise, as mentioned most were tortured and coerced into pleading guilty by the NKVD, while General Okulicki’s witness for his defense was unreachable. It was a trial without evidence, without witnesses due to tampering, and just an attempt to influence the formation of the government by intimidation dominated by Moscow-backed collaborators (Lublin Committee). Of the sixteen defendants, twelve were given prison sentences from four to ten years, while four had charges dropped against them. After the trial, the Provisional Coalition Government of Poland was formed, although dominated by Lublin committee members. The show trial was just a prelude to what was to come.

The election would be postponed for two years and the Communists knew they would not win in a general election, so they used this time to destroy the opposition. Press, radio, and speech were strictly controlled, and oppositional leaders were falsely arrested. This led to thousands of Poles being incarcerated or murdered by the secret police and Red Army. Soon after the Augustow roundup would occur and be known as Little Katyn. Being hyper-sensitive of his safety, Joseph Stalin avoided air travel. When attending the Potsdam conference, which took place from the 17th of July to the 2nd of August 1945, he was to take the safest route in an armored train. This meant bypassing Warsaw and East Prussia, the route chosen meant Augustow Forest was his biggest threat.

According to numerous historians, Stalin’s safety was a factor in why the Augustow massacre happened. The main perpetrator of this crime was no one else but the NKVD with the assistance of the Red Army. Additionally, this route was important because it transported soldiers from the west and the property they plundered. There is also a theory that in addition to Stalin’s safety, it was a way to liquefy the population in and around the area of Suwalki. The purpose was alleged to annex it so that Kaliningrad could be linked with the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR).

As early as June 27th Soviet forces cleared the forest in the border regions like Giby, Sejny, and Sztabin of partisans. This prelude to the Augustow roundup was called the small roundup with over a hundred people being apprehended. These individuals were arrested and charged with being partisans without evidence. Just two weeks later more than 45,000 soldiers would take part in the actual clearing of Augustow Forest and the territories around it from anti-communist partisans. Roadblocks and checkpoints would be set up with fortification at certain points so that any thwart to break out would be futile.

 The Soviets searched house by house without a warrant, mistreated civilians, and in line formations combed the woodlands. Those found were searched, identified, and put into makeshift prisons consisting of pigsties, barns, and dugouts. Everyone would be arrested in the area including children, the elderly, men in their prime, and even pregnant women. These people were later used as hostages to lure out the partisans in the woods resisting the roundup. Hundreds of structures in the area were searched, over 7,049 people were arrested, and some were designated for liquidation. Most civilians instead of dying decided to form pockets of resistance and battle the better-armed soldiers. One such example is when 170 partisans fought 7000 NKVD for five days and upon running out of ammunition and food, tried to break out. Unfortunately, being under crippling machine gun and mortar fire led to seventy being killed and fifty taken prisoner. The ones taken prisoner would be loaded onto trucks and never seen again.

 The situation would get worse on July 20th, 1945, with the arrival of a group of officers led by General Ivan Gorgonov. We know that 7049 people were arrested from a document published in 2011 that contains telegram data dated July 24th, 1945. In the telegram, an officer asks for permission to liquidate 592 of the bandits arrested in Augustow. He also stated that a further 828 were being vetted. In another report, the 50th Army quoted 5192 people arrested and again 592 bandits marked for extermination. Some of those marked for extermination were fifteen children and twenty-seven women, including pregnant ones. Some of those arrested who were deemed missing could have ended up in Siberian concentration camps. According to witnesses those arrested and marked for execution were taken in trucks, taken to the woods, and shot Katyn-style in the back of the head. Their bodies were then thrown into mass graves. Many estimates place the casualties of the massacre at around 2000 executed and 600 deported. There is also speculation that this operation was approved at the highest levels of the Kremlin and done professionally. This is due to the fact that despite many searches and investigations, we can only guess the details of their fate.

 Although the prospects of a democratic Poland were dwindling and violence rampant, someone still dreamt of a free, independent, and democratic Poland. Mikolajczyk became the Prime Minister when the famed Wladyslaw Sikorski was killed in a plane crash in 1943. In a broadcast to Poland on taking office he said:

 “We do not wish to see only a formal democracy in Poland but a social democracy which will put into practice not only political, religious, and personal freedom but also social and economic freedom, the Four Freedoms of which Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke of so finely. In any case, there is, and will be no place in Poland for any kind of totalitarian government in any shape or form.” (Mikolajczyk).

However, at this time his ambitions for Poland would be difficult to achieve, it was clear by that time that the Soviets, not the Western Allies would seize Polish territory. His fear was that communism would be imposed and a puppet Polish government.

 In 1944, Winston Churchill attempted to have Mikolajczyk and Stalin negotiate but this would never work due to many issues. Major issues included the Katyn massacre where 22,000 Polish militaries, politicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals were murdered, and Poland’s post-war borders (Mikolajczyk). As a result, Stalin agreed to the Provisional Coalition Government of Poland, discussed above. Later a socialist and Moscow sympathizer, Edward Osóbka-Morawski, became the Prime Minister of Poland and Communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka became one of the two Deputy Prime Ministers. Because of this the government in exile lost its diplomatic recognition as the legal government of Poland on the world stage and Mikolajczyk resigned. He then intended to return to Poland and become the other Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture.

 Many Poles living in exile opposed this move as they thought the new government in Poland was an illegitimate puppet government. On his return to Poland, he immediately set to revive the Polish People’s Party (PSL or PPP). With an absence of Polish leaders such as himself, the Communists started to set up his former Peasants’ Party as their own. His arrival stopped this attempt, and he bolstered his ranks with the Peasants’ Party. The PSL party would soon become the most popular party in Poland and by far the largest at 600,000 members. He hoped that with such large political pressure and opposition, he could make Poland ungovernable by the Communists and the Soviets would accept Polish neutrality.

With the help of the Communists (unintentionally) they passed a land reform law that created a new class of small farmers that benefited from the reform and ended up becoming firm supporters of the PSL. When the 1946 Polish people’s referendum also known as the Three Times Yes referendum was held under the authority of the State National Council it was show time. The referendum presented an opportunity for the forces vying for political control of Poland following WWII to test their popularity among the general population.

This was exactly the opportunity Mikolajczyk was waiting for to “test” the puppet government. The PSL decided to oppose the referendum calling for the abolition of the Senate as a test of strength against the communists and perhaps showing the world the illegitimacy of the puppet government. Two-thirds of voters supported Mikolajczyk, way over the 50% mark, but the Communist-controlled Interior Ministry issued fake results showing the opposite results (Mikolajczyk). Between this time and the 1947 general election, the PSL and Mikolajczyk himself, were subject to ruthless persecution, with hundreds of candidates prevented from campaigning. From 1946 to 1948 military courts sentenced 32,477 people, with the charges being “crimes against the state”. Only after this was the general election allowed, let’s say “perfectly timed”, to happen.

When the elections finally took place on January 19th, 1947, the outcome was easily decided by a government campaign of arrests and voter intimidation. The non-Communist parties were destroyed, and leaders were forced to flee. The elections produced a parliament with 394 seats for the Communists and twenty-eight for the PSL (Mikolajczyk). This result could only have been achieved by massive voter fraud. Even with all the abuse and violence, PSL was still more popular. The opposition claimed that if the election produced the actual results, they would have won 80% of the vote. Mikolajczyk would have likely become Prime Minister had the election been honest, instead faced with the fabricated results, he resigned from his post in protest.

 Facing arrest, he left the country in October 1947. Winston Churchill upon seeing him in London remarked “I am surprised you made it out alive.” (Mikolajczyk). Having “worked” with the communists, the government-in-exile marked him a traitor. Later Mikolajczyk immigrated to the United States, authoring several books and papers, forever being a staunch supporter of democracy. Unfortunately, by that time the United States and the United Kingdom had given up on the battle for Polish independence and thought it could do little, especially with the Cold War underway.

With the puppet government firmly installed and most Polish resistance quelled. It was time for the NKVD to clean up Poland completely. With torture dungeons set up at Mokotow (also known as Rakowiecka), Lublin Castle, Fordon, and Inowroclaw prisons. All of these followed a similar trend of being used by the Nazis and then taken over by the Soviets to do the same exact thing, weeding out resistance to their occupation (“History of the Lublin Castle”) (Courtois and Kramer). At Mokotow, heroes such as Witold Pilecki and Emil Fieldorf were tortured and executed. Pilecki had a traumatic existence being at Auschwitz and fighting in the war multiple times. Upon returning to Poland in 1945 he was under orders from Wladyslaw Anders to gather intelligence on the situation in Poland. Specifically, in terms of its prevailing military and political situation under Soviet occupation.

LEGACY OF INVINCIBLE SOLDIERS: Pilecki and Siedzikowska

Pilecki was arrested on May 8^th, 1947, by communist authorities and tortured to extract information. In order to protect others, he sacrificed himself, bearing extricating pain, but never revealing the others to face the same fate. Later being executed by a shot in the back of the head in 1948 because of many false charges brought against him (Zgorzelski). Similarly, Emil Fieldorf was arrested for similar reasons, specifically being a resistance member and loyal to the government-in-exile. The puppet government offered amnesty to resistance fighters loyal to the exiled government and Fieldorf decided to come out of hiding. He was arrested and then taken to Mokotow for questioning via interrogation and refused continuously to corporate. For this, he was charged as a fascist-Hitlerite criminal and for executing Soviet partisans. He was sentenced to death by hanging on February 24^th, 1953, at Mokotow (Stan).

The Communists had no mercy even going after Danuta Siedzikowna, a national heroine. Siedzikowna joined the Home Army when her mother was killed by the Gestapo and learned very valuable medical skills. After the Soviets took control of Bialystok, she started work as a clerk in the forest inspectorate. She was arrested in 1945 by the NKVD for collaboration with the anti-communists. Likely her convoy was attacked by partisans, and she was freed by Ex-Home Army commander Stanislaw Wolonciej, later assisting the unit. In 1946 she was sent to Gdansk to get medical supplies and arrested again. This time she was not as lucky and was brutally tortured and beaten but refused to give information. She was later charged with taking an active, violent role in the partisan army, and sentenced to death. They refused to give her clemency for only being 17, being a medic (noncombatant), and having no evidence. She was to be killed by the firing squad and refused to wear a blindfold. She was wounded during the execution, and they refused to kill her, eventually, she died of her wounds (Kalisz).

Lessons learned throughout this research experience were how fragile a country’s sovereignty and democracy are. The United States will likely never experience the same plight Poland has faced. Being surrounded by relatively weak and peaceful neighbors, we don’t have to face an existential crisis every twenty years as Poland has. However, similar tactics of destruction, genocide, and deception are taking place in Ukraine today as we have seen in Poland during WWII and the post-war era. The professional, state-authorized killings of civilians, torture, filtration camps of “undesirables”, and the deportation of populations to other regions are just some examples. Another series of hateful, power-hungry strikes from the same oppressor.

We see the barbaric Russian army hit civilian targets purposely and then feed a false narrative to the media.  Poland knows this all too well and it’s inspiring to see the Polish population be so supportive of Ukraine. In contrast to sitting idle as the Western Allies did during the German and Soviet invasion in 1939 and later occupation. Poland did not have to be so welcoming to Ukrainian refugees and provide such support because they were in no real danger of being in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But it would be unlike the Polish people to see the same scale of brutely they experienced and do nothing. The people know all too well the crimes Russia has committed and will continue to do.

 Instead, Poland is now facing economic backlash because of their support toward Ukraine. In my opinion, the most valuable lesson learned is that if we all stand up against injustice instead of being bystanders, the world could change for the better. I can almost guarantee Russia is regretting stepping foot in Ukraine because they did not expect such unity from the West, led by Poland and the United States. They were expecting the west to stay idle and complicit as they did in 1945 and 1939! This historical research contest encouraged me to research my family ancestry, go to Poland, and strengthen my Polish language skills. I am extremely thankful for this life-changing opportunity and the Polonia Institute.

Works Cited

Adamski, Łukasz, and Grzegorz Motyka. “The Last Mass Execution of World War II: The Roundup Carried out by Soviet Troops in the Augustów Forest in July 1945.” East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2022, p. 088832542210936., https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254221093642.

Bartkowski, Maciej. “Poland’s Solidarity Movement (1980-1989).” ICNC, 9 Mar. 2022, https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/polands-solidarity-movement-1980-1989/.

Courtois Stéphane, and Mark Kramer. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 2004.

“History of the Lublin Castle.” Strona Muzeum Narodowego w Lublinie, 23 Mar. 2021, https://zamek-lublin.pl/en/o-muzeum/history-of-the-lublin-castle/.

Irons, Peter H. “‘The Test Is Poland’: Polish Americans and the Origins of the Cold War.” Polish American Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, 1973, pp. 5–63. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20147875. Accessed 13 Sep. 2022.

Kalisz, Łukasz. “Działalność konspiracyjna Danuty Siedzikówny.” Trans Humana, 2012. Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw. The Pattern of Soviet Domination. Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1948.

Oleksiak, Wojciech. “Learn the History of Poland in 10 Minutes.” Culture.pl,  https://culture.pl/en/article/learn-the-history-of-poland-in-10-minutes.

Russell, Graham. “’Massacre of Innocents’: How the Papers Covered Russia’s Atrocities in Bucha.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Apr. 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/massacre-of-innocents-how-the-papers-covered-russias-atrocities-in-bucha.

Schlesinger, Arthur. “Origins of the Cold War.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 46, no. 1, 1967, pp. 22–52. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/20039280. Accessed 15 Sep. 2022.

Schwartz, Herman. Prison Conditions in Poland. Vol. 1245. Human Rights Watch, 1988.

Stan, Lavinia. Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Reckoning with the Communist Past. Routledge, 2010.

Stone, Julius. “Peace Planning and the Atlantic Charter.” The Australian Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 2, 1942, pp. 5–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/20631017. Accessed 15 Sep. 2022.

Zgorzelski, Rafał. “Witold Pilecki – a Flawless Hero.” Warsaw Institute, 24 May 2021, https://warsawinstitute.org/witold-pilecki-flawless-hero/.

ZUROWSKI, MICHAEL. “THE PAPER TIGER: BRITAIN AND THE AFFAIR OF THE SIXTEEN.” The Polish Review, vol. 34, no. 4, 1989, pp. 317–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25778455. Accessed 15 Sep. 2022.

See also:  https://poloniainstitute.net/recommended/2022-competition/

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2022 Competition on the History of Poland

2785 Pacific Coast Highway, #295

Torrance, CA 90505

info@poloniainstitute.net

For Immediate Release — March 1, 2022

 2022 Historical Essay Competition

First Prize – $3,000

TORRENCE, CALIFORNIA: POLONIA INSTITUTE announces 2022 Historical Essay Competition on the Polish Independence Movement after WWII:

“I conducted myself as I should have”

Legacy of Invincible Soldiers.

Poland, the first country to stand up to Nazi Germany, was the most loyal member of the WWII Allied Coalition. Polish armed forces fought the Axis Powers on all fronts of WWII from day one to the very end of the war. Yet, despite being the most unwavering member of the winning coalition, Poland was not among the winners of WWII. After the war, Poland lost one-third of its territory to the Soviet Union, fell under the Soviet occupation, was never compensated for devastating war losses caused by Germany and Russia, and was excluded from the Marshall Plan that helped Germany and other countries in Western Europe to recover from the war. All these actions were taken in the name of not upsetting the Russians.

Betrayed by the Western Allies, the Polish Armed Forces were excluded from the victory parade in London and the Polish pilots who defended London from Luftwaffe in the 1940 Battle of Britain could only watch the victory parade from the sidelines… The Polish soldiers fighting in the West could not return to Soviet Poland after the war while many in Poland were forced to run for their lives and never return to Poland.

As a result of the Yalta Agreement, the Western Powers effectively handed over Poland and other East-Central European countries to the Soviet Union, recognized the Soviet puppet government in Warsaw, gave the Soviets free hand in exterminating the Polish independence movement, and have been effectively covering up the Soviet crimes of exterminating Polish freedom fighters to this day.

Such attitude emboldened the Soviets who took over Poland in 1945 and for the next two decades conducted the most brutal persecution of the Polish freedom fighters and the entire Catholic population of Poland with full impunity. They murdered thousands of people on a mass scale in special operations, put criminals in the position of judges and prosecutors, conducted show trials, committed judicial murders, tortured people in the most vicious ways, burry their victims in undisclosed locations, persecuted their families for decades, barred their children from pursuing higher education, developed lies and black legends about their victims to discredit them in the eyes of the public for posterity, and promoted traitors and criminals to the highest positions. Only now the forbidden truth about the crimes committed by the Soviet henchmen on the Polish freedom fighters began to emerge from oblivion.

In view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Polonia Institute encourages the American public to study events that followed the Yalta Conference of 1945 because this important part of the XX Century history, only now being pieced together, is most relevant to the Euro-Atlantic developments in 2022.

In your essay please analyze the following issues: 1) the Yalta Conference of February 1945; 2) June 1945 show trial of the 16 Polish leaders in Moscow 3) 1946 Special Augustów Operation (Little Katyn) 4) 1944-1947 mission of Stanisław Mikołajczyk in Poland; 5) NKVD/UB machine of oppression, a) special forces, prosecutors, court murderers, and show trials; b) torture dungeons: Rakowiecka, Fordon, Inowrocław, Lublin prisons, c) exterminations ex. Witold Pilecki, Danuta Sieradzikówna “Inka,” Emil Fieldorf and others; 6) threats, blackmailing, deportations, discrimination, terror; 9) lesson for today.

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 2022 Essay Competition on the History of Poland is open to adults who are at least 18 years and older as of September 17, 2022. Proof of age is required. A copy of a valid document showing date of birth is acceptable.

Deadline:

September 17, 2022 (postmark date). Results will be announced on or about November 11, 2022.

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 at: http://poloniainstitute.net/.  Attach the Application Form and proof of age to the essay. Mail and email the complete package to Polonia Institute.
Mail to:

2022 Historical Essay Competition

Polonia Institute, Inc.

2785 Pacific Coast Highway, #295

Torrance, CA 90505

Email to: info@poloniainstitute.net

For more information send an email to: info@poloniainstitute.net

The post Polonia Institute Announces 2022 Competition on the History of Poland appeared first on Polonia Institute.