Polish Ambassador reflects on significance of 1945 in Poland's history
04.05.2020
In 1945, the Polish nation, hugely impacted by the Second World War, with other victims of two totalitarianisms in Central and Eastern Europe, witnessed what we call today “liberation without freedom”. In Poland, left behind the Iron Curtain, Josef Stalin implemented his policy of building a communist empire - writes Ambassador of the Republic of Poland Zbigniew Gniatkowski in his latest article.
"(...) Despite many people welcoming liberation from German Nazism, institution of the Soviet order, lacking social support in Poland, was only possible by means of mass terror, that faced wide resistance by 200,000 people, including 20,000 armed members (until 1947). The final number of victims of the communist crimes of 1944-1954 may total 50,000 – equal to the losses suffered by the Home Army under German occupation until March 1944. When we add thousands of political prisoners, deportees to the Soviet Union and those persecuted on account of belonging to an undesired social group (Catholic Church adherents, farmers, private entrepreneurs and others), we begin to comprehend how repressive the whole system was. (...)
To Poland, and to the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, freedom came much later than to Western Europe and other parts of the world. The real beginning of the road to freedom was the pontificate of the Polish Pope John Paul II, and then the rise of the “Solidarity” social movement in Gdańsk - many years after the war."
Read the full text of Ambassador's article attached below.
Materials
Article on the end of WW2 by Ambassador Z. GniatkowskiAmbassador_Z_Gniatkowski_-_article_about_the_end_of_WW2_(002).pdf 0.06MB