‘The year 1945. The earth is bound by 3 chains: war, frost and hunger. The year of death, later named the year of resurrection and spring," wrote Wiesław Dymny in an excellent communicative "The Sun rises erstwhile a day." Indeed, it was for us Poles, a year of extraordinary paradox...
1945? Who can't remember the celebrated photograph of Alfred Eisenstaedt portraying a sailor and a caregiver kissing passionately in the mediate of Times Square in fresh York City among the crowd cheering people to hear of Japan's surrender or movie chronicle with a large triumph parade in Moscow on June 24, 1945, culminating in the minute erstwhile 200 red-armists at the ft of Lenin's mausoleum threw 200 won Wehrmacht banners... A year later, besides in June, a London triumph parade was held, and in it marched all the formations allied in the fight against the 3rd Reich and another Axis states. 1 was short of an army – the 1 that was the first to face the power of Nazi Germany and to fight faithfully and self-sacrificely with the British – Polish Armed Forces. The West did not want to annoy Stalin with the presence of Polish soldiers... Although an exception was made for Polish airmen who participated in the conflict of Britain to defil in the RAF ranks, they decidedly refused, solidarity with the remainder of our army.
Winston Churchill, in opposition at the time, took the liberty of speaking honestly: “I profoundly regret that no of the Polish troops who fought alongside us in so many battles and who shed their blood for the common origin were allowed to participate in the triumph parade. We'll be reasoning about that army on that day. We will never forget his courage or his fighting feats, which relate to our own fame under Tobruk, Cassino and Arnhem.” Let us note that Churchill lists Arnhem, the defeat of the British air-desanant troops, for which the British commanders tried to charge the incorruptible commander of the 1st General Stanislaw Sosabowski Paratroop Brigade. The erstwhile British Prime Minister so admitted that his marshal and generals were lying... Soldiers of the 1st Parade Brigade were the elite of the Polish Armed Forces, which in 1945 created highly trained and equipped units of individual weapons. And this modern military that year had excellent victories on the Western Front, and after the defeat of the 3rd Reich there were plans for its further development, there was potential... – there is inactive small cognition of him in Poland today. Therefore, we invitation you to read the debate on the Polish Armed Forces conducted by our editorial board, and excellent experts of the subject took part: prof. Jerzy Kirszak, prof. Jacek Tebinka and prof. Colonel Juliusz S. This. It is not incidentally called "Polish Armed Forces – inactive unspeakable history".
When Polish soldiers, despite their victories, to which they joined in 1945 the capture of Bologna and the seizure of Kriegsmarine base in Wilhelmshaven, experienced the bitterness of the Allied selling of their homeland to a russian dictator, rather akin feelings struck many Polish soldiers who came to fight on the east front in the military created under communist control. They knew well who was following them (though many had their service in the AK) in navy hats... However, in the Pomeranian Wall, in the bloody conflict of Kołobrzeg or yet in the streets of Berlin, they fought unquestionably for Poland, symbolised by white and red flags over the ruins of the capital of the 3rd Reich. Captain Andrzej Nusbek, then a young bombardier fighting in Berlin 2nd Haubic Artillery Brigade, recalled: “As a Warszawiak and erstwhile Grey Army Boy Scout, I was virtually inflated by the fact that I could avenge my city here in Berlin!” This military satisfaction cannot be forgotten today.
Paraphrased by the poesy of Wiesław Dymny, 1 can say: the barbed wire of the German business after six years of war was broken from Poland in 1945. The spectrum of annihilation of an full nation was dispelled. For thousands of prisoners of German concentration camps, forced labour and extermination – including the top charge of horror and crime Auschwitz – the slogan “liberation” was not an empty place. But at the same time Poland was entrenched in fresh chains – russian dependence. If we remember thousands of prisoners liberated from German lagers, we must besides remember thousands of soldiers of the AK or people simply considered dangerous to russian power, who were murdered, imprisoned and transported in cattle carriages into camps inside the russian Union. That was 1945... And yet totalitarianism coupled with a peculiarly harsh winter failed to kill hope in people – among another things, the unbreakable Warsawers who returned to rise their city and the capital of Poland from the ruins.
So how should we treat the end of planet War II, which is this year's round, eighty-year anniversary? This is our unique paradox in past and we effort to answer this question in a conversation with prof. Jakub Polit. Finally, let us callback the iconic scene from “Pope and Diamond” with the light of the spirit glasses and the conviction that Maciek Chełmicki said at the time: “Life was simpler during the war.” May we never gotta experience this simplicity...
Feel free to read.
