Book Review: Forgotten Holocaust

January 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Until I reached young adulthood, my knowledge of Poland’s history during World War II was minimal. While I had learned of Hitler’s genocide of the Jews of Europe, I knew nothing of the suffering of any other group. As a child I naively thought that the non-Jewish, civilian population largely managed to avoid the horrors of war. How wrong I was.

Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation, 1939-1944  by Richard Lukas is the best attempt so far to shed light on this lesser known part of history. The Poles were the first nation to feel the full brunt of Hitler’s maniacal plans. From the first day of the war civilians were targets of bombing, strafing and over 16,000 Poles were executed within several months. The Nazis carried out a systematic campaign, AB Aktion, against Poland’s intelligentsia in the first half of 1940, arresting tens of thousands and executing over 6,000 more individuals, burying their bodies in forest pits. Auschwitz, the most notorious Nazi enterprise, began as a concentration camp for Polish “political prisoners”. Witold Pilecki, one of the bravest individuals of World War II, volunteered to be arrested during one of Warsaw’s random street roundups, and taken as a prisoner to Auschwitz to report to the Polish Home Army on conditions in the camp. Surviving for nearly three years before escaping, Pilecki sent the first reports of Hitler’s evolving Holocaust and the accelerating elimination of Europe’s Jews.

Forgotten Holocaust not only illuminates the Nazi policy of extermination in Poland, but describes the armed resistance of the Polish people. A multitude of underground, military organizations formed before the September Campaign ended, and coalesced within several years to form the Armia Krajowa (Home Army), composed of several hundred thousand sworn soldiers. The AK carried out sabotage against the Nazis throughout the war, bombing train tracks and destroying communication lines, they collected and transmitted military intelligence to the Allies and carried out executions of traitors and Nazi collaborators.

Poland was the only country in Europe where assisting and hiding Jews was punishable by death. Unsurprisingly, some Poles betrayed their Jewish neighbors as an act of self-preservation, anti-semitic hate or perhaps a mixture of both. The Home Army however decreed that such acts were capital offenses, and carried out death sentences on those who informed on Jews. Civilian authorities in occupied Poland organized Żegota, an organization dedicated to rescuing Jews (particularly children) by transferring them to safe houses and falsifying their identities, all at the risk of torture and execution at the hands of the Nazis.

Having just marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army on January 27, 1945, it’s time to revisit the meaning of the Holocaust for all of Europe’s peoples. As Norman Davies aptly states in the foreword to the book, “…no one can analyze the fate of one ethnic community in occupied Poland without referring to the fates of other…readers should receive a comprehensive picture of occupied Poland, so that each and every one of the separate but interlinked tragedies can be fully understood. Luka’s book marks an important step in that direction.”

Richard Lukas has done a great service through his book, not only filling a glaring void in World War II scholarship, but by giving us a window through which to better see and understand the greatest period of suffering in modern history. Though challenging to experience, the powerful emotions of revulsion, indignation, empathy and understanding are the vehicles by which we come to know the truth.

Forgotten Holocaust on Amazon

Filed Under: Poland, World War II Tagged With: ,

Unlocking Andrzej Pomian’s London Archive

October 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Last week I had the privilege of participating in a conference titled “Documents of the Polish Underground State 1939-1945″ organized by the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw. My presentation was on the Andrzej Pomian papers, which I organized and that were recently added to the Hoover Archives. The conference was held in the historic PAST building, which was captured in a fierce battle by the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. I was somewhat nervous to give my talk, since it was in Polish and I’d never spoken before an audience like this. As usual my worries were unfounded and my presentation was well received. I met a number of interesting historians and archivists, nearly 30 of whom also spoke during the two-day conference. Below is the translation of my presentation. Let me know what you think.

The PAST building (site of the conference) in downtown Warsaw

Andrzej Pomian, who died four years ago in Washington D.C. at the age of ninety-seven, was a Polish journalist and author who spent many years working for Radio Free Europe. During World War II, he was a member of the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Home Army, the largest underground organization in Nazi-occupied Europe. Evacuated from Poland in April 1944, in one of the most spectacular flight operations of the war, Pomian worked in the Polish government-in-exile in London for the next ten years, before moving to the United States. He brought with him to the U.S. a large metal trunk filled with notes, documents, underground publications, and reports on the activities of the Home Army. These documents, untouched for more than fifty years, in accordance with Pomian’s wishes, were sent to the Hoover Institution Archives as a large addition to a small set of Pomian’s papers given earlier.

Andrzej Pomian, the name adopted during the war, was born in 1911 as Bohdan Sałaciński in the Polish village of Black Ostrów in Podolia, which became part of the Soviet Union after 1920. Escaping from the Soviets, the family moved to Warsaw, where  Bohdan became a student, completing his legal studies at the University of Warsaw in 1932, where he remained as a lecturer. From the beginning of the German occupation, Pomian was involved in underground work. He taught law at the underground university and worked in various units of the resistance, eventually working in the Bureau of Information and Propaganda, which coordinated the work of intelligence and underground newspapers, broadcast underground radio programs, and operated photographic and film units.

“Operation N“, an initiative of the Bureau, published documents in German, with the aim of weakening the morale of German soldiers and colonists in Poland. Several examples of magazines and proclamations created under Operation N are in Pomian’s collection. The Home Army was involved in sabotage, self-defense and retaliation against the Germans. It also provided the Allies with crucial information in the field of intelligence, monitoring the movement of troops in the east, and the development of the secret, German V-1 and V-2 rockets. The primary goal of the Home Army, however, was to prepare for the expected collaps of the Nazi occupation and the liberation of the country.

After the Allied landing in Italy and the encroachment of the Red Army into pre-war Polish territory, a national uprising was planned, with its center in Warsaw, for the second half of 1944. In connection with this plan, the Home Army and underground civil authorities ordered several officers, including Pomian, to report to Polish and British authorities in London to discuss the progress of preparations. These contacts were usually carried out by encrypted radio transmissions or by individual couriers, and emissaries but the importance of this mission required a different method.

At this time there were regular night flights from England and southern Italy with parachute drops of weapons, documents, money and agents into occupied Poland. A new joint Polish-British operation, “Wildhorn I” (Operation “Most [Bridge] I” in Polish) planned with the intention of landing a plane in occupied Poland, was carried out in the evening April 15, 1944. A Douglas Dakota aircraft, unarmed, but equipped with eight additional fuel tanks, left its base near Brindisi in southern Italy. Crossing the Balkans and Carpathian mountains en route to Poland, it landed in difficult conditions in a beet field near Lublin, southeast of Warsaw. The “runway” was marked by bonfires and protected by several forest units of the Home Army. Couriers and bags of dollars were unloaded and Pomian and other passengers, including Brigadier General Stanisław Tatar, came on board, barely avoiding an intense and bloody firefight between soldiers of the Home Army and Wehrmacht units. The return flight to Brindisi and then Gibraltar, brought Pomian to England twenty-four hours later.

The PAST building during the Warsaw Uprising, August, 1944

Pomian followed the tragic epilogue of the war in Poland from distant London. The Warsaw Uprising, lasting sixty-three days, failed due to lack of support from the Soviet Union – the Red Army that came a few weeks after the uprising started, stopped on the Vistula River, just across from burning Warsaw. Poland’s allies, the British and the Americans, could not do much to help, but they didn’t even protest the treacherous behavior of the Soviets. Among the tens of thousands killed, were most of Pomian’s colleagues and friends. Warsaw was virtually razed to the ground, and Poland became a Soviet dependency. Western powers not only failed to protest but in the following year withdrew recognition for their loyal, war-time ally. You can see that the Uprising dominated Pomian’s thoughts since the majority of his collection consists of documents related to the tragic event including: typescripts, manuscripts, poetry, newspapers and government documents.

During his ten years in London, Pomian continued working for the Polish government-in-exile, coordinating contacts and financial support for the anti-communist underground in the country and veterans of the Home Army. When, in 1955, he decided to move to the United States, he packed everything into a big trunk, apparently never opening it again, and deciding, shortly before his death, it would be best to pass it on to the archives of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California.

The Andrzej Pomian papers consist of twenty-two archival boxes. A significant portion of these materials are post-war newspaper clippings, newspapers and magazines, often commemorating consecutive anniversaries of the Warsaw Uprising. Documents relating to the activities of the Bureau of Information and Propaganda and underground resistance, can be found in the first six boxes.

This collection is now available to researchers. A complete inventory of the collection is almost complete. We are going to microfilm this collection and pass it on to the Central Archives of Modern Records as we recently handed over to the microfilmed collection of Jan Karski. If anyone is interested, I can give you the inventory in electronic form.

I also wanted to quickly show you some scans from this collection. Here are some examples of propaganda from “Operation N”. This cover suggests that it is an anti-Soviet brochure but all the text is devoted to the Nazi crimes in Poland. Several items from this collection are showcased in an exhibition of World War II propaganda currently on display at the Hoover Institution.

“The Red Terror”

I’d like to add that Andrzej Pomian’s later work is well documented in the collection of the Polish station of Radio Free Europe. The corporate and broadcast records of RFE are housed at the Hoover Institution. Most of our collections on World War II were microfilmed, transferred to Poland, digitized and made available online. The best guide to our Polish collections is the book by Professor (and Poland’s Director of National Archives) Władyslaw Stępniak, Polish Archival Materials in the Collections of Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Thank you very much.

Warsaw, Poland October 24, 2012

Recommended:

-“Operation Wildhorn”, The Daring Flight into Nazi-Occupied Poland

-The End of the Warsaw Uprising, October 2, 1944

Filed Under: Nick, Poland, Translations, World War II Tagged With: , , ,

“Operation Wildhorn”, The Daring Flight into Nazi-Occupied Poland

October 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Next week I’ll be making a presentation on the Andrzej Pomian papers, held at the Hoover Archives, at the conference on “Documents of the Polish Underground State, 1939-1945″ at the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw.

Andrzej Pomian was one of the directors of the the Home Army’s Bureau of Information and Propaganda. In 1944, the decision was made to extract Pomian along with other high-ranking members of the underground in a daring mission into occupied Poland.

On the night of April 15, 1944, an unarmed, Douglas Dakota aircraft, modified with 8 auxiliary fuel tanks, took off from its base near Brindisi, Italy. The plane flew over the Balkans and Carpathian mountains into Poland where it landed in a beetroot field 22 miles from Lublin, south-east of the capital, Warsaw and 800 miles inside of enemy-occupied territory.

The field had been marked by bonfires and guarded by soldiers from the Home Army who had lost dozens of men in a bloody, 40-hour firefight with Nazi troops to secure the site. In a period of 6-10 minutes the aircraft was unloaded of its cargo of passengers, documents and bags of U.S. dollars meant for the underground resistance, and five high-ranking passengers boarded the plane for the return flight. One of the departing passengers handed the pilots a bottle of scotch in gratitude. Despite the wet and uneven condition of the field, the plane was able to take off, making the return flight to Brindisi. Within 24 hours the passengers, via Gibraltar, would safely arrive in London.

Planning for the operation had started in early 1943, but competition over aircraft and unfavorable weather and logistics put off the mission until 1944. The “Wildhorn” or “Most” (“Bridge”) operation was of great importance to the Polish underground and the Government-in-Exile, based in London. In January 1944 the Soviet Red Army had entered pre-war Polish territory. Within months of the operation the Home Army would begin operation “Burza” (“Tempest”) by attacking German forces as they retreated from the Soviet advance. The culmination of “Burza” was the Warsaw Uprising which was meant to liberate the capital from the Nazis, but ended in tragedy.

The passengers who were evacuated from Poland along with Pomian included: General Stanisław Tatar, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Home Army, the Head of Courier Operations and several government delegates. These individuals were to brief the Government-in-Exile on the situation in Poland in advance of the resistance operations planned for the coming months.

The success of the first “Wildhorn” mission led to two more such operations, the last of which (“Operation Wildhorn III“), just a week before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, successfully retrieved a disassembled V-2 rocket which had been recovered by the Home Army.

For more detailed information on the “Wildhorn” missions, in addition to commemoration ceremonies held in 2008, check out these links:

-Operation Wildhorn (Operation Mosty or Bridges)

-Operation Wildhorn

Filed Under: Poland, World War II Tagged With: ,

The End of the Warsaw Uprising, October 2, 1944

October 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“Each Round, One German”

Today marks the 68th anniversary of the end of the Warsaw Uprising. The failed attempt by the Polish Home Army to wrest control of the capital from the Nazis before the arrival of the Red Army. Though the goal of the uprising was left unrealized, the memory of the epic struggle permeates Warsaw to this day. The murder of 200,000 civilians and the deliberate leveling of most of the city were devastating to Poland. One laudable aspect of the Uprising was the determination of the Polish people to be free from tyranny even against overwhelming odds. It was perhaps the defining episode in Poland’s national martyrology.

Home Army soldiers marching under a Polish flag (illegal under the Nazi occupation) on the first day of the Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Uprising was an element of Operation Tempest, the Home Army’s plan to take control of Polish cities from the Nazis in advance of the Red Army’s arrival. The Uprising was originally planned to last only a few days, by which time key positions were to have been captured and the victorious Poles could welcome the advancing Red Army from a position of strength, rather than allowing the Soviet forces to seize control of Warsaw and impose Communist rule.

Unbeknownst to the Home Army leadership, German troops were preparing to reinforce their positions in Warsaw in the face of the Soviet advance, rather than retreating which as they had been expected to. Also, faulty intelligence indicated that the Red Army was only a matter of kilometers from Warsaw. While advance units of the Red Army had made it within several dozen kilometers of the capital, they were repelled by a German counteroffensive and it wasn’t until early September, a month after the Uprising started, that the Red Army would reach the Praga district of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula River.

Despite the later-than-anticipated arrival of the Red Army, in early September they were in position to provide critical assistance to the insurgents of Warsaw. Stalin’s plan however was to subject Poland to Soviet imperialism, so the Nazis were allowed to quell the uprising with little interference. Even the heroic attempts of Allied pilots to drop supplies into Warsaw were hampered when Stalin denied their planes the ability to land in Soviet airfields just east of Warsaw, instead forcing them to make the precarious round trip back to Italy over mostly enemy-occupied territory.

The Warsaw Uprising lasted for an unthinkable 63 days, during which 40,000 Home Army soldiers, only about 10% of which were well-equipped, resisted their heavily-armed German opponent who wielded close air support, artillery and tanks. The zeal of the insurgents and the anticipation of a quick end to the fighting led to the rapid depletion of ammunition reserves. Once it became apparent that the battle would continue for some time, orders were given to save ammunition wherever possible. The poster above “Each Round, One German” stressed the importance of making every shot count.

Two years ago I had the great honor to serve as a volunteer at the Warsaw Uprising Museum. The 5 weeks that I spent there were an eye-opening experience and a first-hand introduction to World War II history in Poland to which I had only begun to take an interest. For anyone planning a visit to Warsaw, I consider the Warsaw Uprising Museum to be the number one destination in the city. The Old Town is of course scenic and the Łazienki Park is beautiful, but the Warsaw Uprising Museum gives non-Poles a glimpse into the psyche of the nation, the horrors it endured and the determination made against all odds to fight for freedom. It’s a type of pure resolve to battle against tyranny that I would liken to the Revolutionary War in American history. Though the Warsaw Uprising failed in 1944, the fighting spirit it exemplified would lead the way to Poland’s freedom decades later.

Filed Under: Poland, World War II Tagged With: , , ,

The Medallion in the Skull

September 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Remains unearthed at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, August, 2012

Today is the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939. The Soviets cooperated with the Nazis to dismember Poland and enslave her people. As we now know, perhaps as many as 200,000 Poles living in the Soviet Union had already been murdered as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign, known as the Polish Operation of the NKVD, in 1937-1938. Nearly 22,000 Polish officers who had been captured by the Soviets in 1939, were executed by the NKVD in the spring of 1940, at Stalin’s orders. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported from eastern Poland, many thousands of whom died of starvation and exposure to the elements. Once the Red Army re-entered Poland in 1944 as an “ally” of the Western Powers, the arrests and executions of Poles continued, particularly of those who were members of the Polish Underground State. The occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and the establishment of a Communist puppet state began a new chapter of darkness and repression, the wounds of which have yet to heal.

Below is the English translation of the article “Medalik w czaszce” (Medallion in the Skull) from the Rzeczpospolita (The Republic) newspaper published on September 6, 2012. It consists of an interview with Dr. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, an IPN (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Institute of National Remeberance) historian who is leading exhumation work at Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery, to recover the remains of some of Poland’s greatest heroes. The interview was conducted by Piotr Zychowicz.

Begin Translation:

What happened after 1944 in Poland was the final part of the work of the German and Soviet occupiers. The Communists finished off the Polish elite – assert’s an IPN historian in a conversation with Piotr Zychowicz.

How did the people die, whose bodies you are recovering at Powązki Cemetery ?

Two-thirds of the victim’s have been shot through the skull by bullet. The entrance cavity is on the back or side of their head. They were shot at close range with a pistol.

The Katyń method.

Yes, the Katyń method, moved to Polish soil after 1944. Likewise, the Bolshevik attitude towards the bodies of the murdered. In the Soviet Union it wasn’t sufficient to put a person to death, it followed to obliterate any trace of their burial place. So that no one could ever find the bodies and identify those tortured to death. That’s how criminals operate. And that’s how Polish Communists operated.

Segregating recovered skulls

Some of the bodies were supposedly covered with calcium oxide (“quicklime”).

We still don’t have the final results of chemical tests. Yet, I can confirm that in two of the burial pits we did find traces of the effects of chemical agents which led to the advanced disintegration of human remains. The torso of these skeletons – from the legs up to the skulls – is practically non-existent. Since we’re talking about, among other things, spines and pelvises, bone tissue, which in general is well-preserved, we suppose that these bodies were deliberately doused with a chemical substance.

How many bodies were you able to recover?

We found the remains of 116 people. 109 have been removed. With the rest there’s a problem since we’ve only reached fragments of the body – heads, arms or legs – the rest is located under sidewalks and paths. In other words, beyond the territory in which we have permission to dig. These bodies will be dealt with in the second stage of work.

What problems have you run into during the exhumations?

Six months ago we finished work in the Osobowice Cemetery in Wrocław. We were able to recover and remove many bodies of victims of Communist crimes. It seemed to us that we’d be able to utilize that experience in Warsaw. However, even though it’s the same period of Communist terror, the scale of difficulty of work at the “Meadow” at Powązki was far greater.

Why?

In Wrocław the prisoners, who were murdered in the prisons and detention centers of the UB (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, Department of Security), were written into the cemetery logbook. The field and grave number was noted. People were laid individually. In Warsaw there were three, four, six and even nine people in one burial pit. These pits were too small and people were piled up. Oftentimes, in order to fit the maximum number of bodies, the legs of one of the murdered victims were laid on the head of the next. People weren’t placed in graves, they were thrown in.

How do you know this?

This can be seen by the arrangement of the bodies. Legs, shoulders. Many people lay face down, or on their side. They were thrown down from a significant height. Straight from a horse-drawn wagon, and later from trucks. Often, feet and arms are still leaning on the side wall of the graves. It’s a dramatic sight. In between the bodies we found lumps of coal, which indicates that vehicles used to supply heating fuel transported the bodies. The most appalling thing though is whom they are laying with.

With whom?

The “Ł” quarter in the Powązki Cemetery, where we conducted surveys, was again designated for burials in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. It’s not a coincidence that the graves of many people engaged in the Communist terror were placed there. Ministry of Public Security personnel, military prosecutors, judges who handed down death sentences. After several decades, the criminals were buried next to their victims.

With whom specifically?

Julia Brystiger, chief of Department V of the MBP (Ministerstwo Bezpieczństwa Publicznego, Ministry of Public Security). Ilia Rubinow, the judge responsible for the murder of General Emil Fieldorf. Roman Kryże, a judge who had many death sentences  on his account. One could spend a long time listing others.

You’re saying that this isn’t a coincidence.

No, because the practice of burying those honored by the Communist authorities in areas earlier used to hide the victims of the Red Terror was likewise applied in many other places in the PRL (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, People’s Republic of Poland). Communists believed that their system would be eternal. Thus they believed that no-one would ever dig-up the graves of well-known Communists. This way the traces of the crime would vanish forever.

One of 116 sets of remains unearthed at the “Meadow” in Powązki Cemetery

Whose bodies are you recovering?

Until we have the results of DNA tests, we can’t say with certainty who we’ve succeeded in recovering. We know that General Emil Fieldorf, Captain Witold Pilecki, Major Zygmunt Szendzielarz “Łupaszka”, Colonel Hieronim Dekutowski “Zapora”, Lieutenant Colonel Stanisław Kasznica, the last commandant of the National Armed Forces, were buried at the Meadow. The most beautiful figures in our history. Over 20 knights of the Virtuti Militari, over a dozen combatants in the Warsaw Uprising, Cichociemni (“The Unseen and Silent”). The flower of the nation. What happened after 1944 was the final part of the tragic work of the German and Soviet occupiers. The Communists finished off the Polish elite. Those whom the Soviets and Germans hadn’t managed to exterminate.

What did the road to the death pits on the Meadow look like?

The victims were brought by night. From the prison on Rakowiecka street and likewise from the Military Information prison and Department of Security prisons in the Praga district. Specially designated prisoners, escorted by prison guards, buried the bodies. The victims were those sentenced to die and also people tortured to death after their arrest. This is evidenced by the discovery of personal objects with their bodies, which in general are taken away from prisoners: glasses, belts.

How were the verdicts carried out?

After the proclamation of the death sentence people waited about 90 days for the execution in a multi-person cell. Up to 60 people stayed there. Soldiers from the Underground, felons, German criminals – everyone together. Prisoners sensed that they were going to die, so they tried to leave a sign for their families. Lieutenant Colonel Łukasz Ciepliński, chairman of the IV command of WiN (Wolność i Niezawisłość, Freedom and Independence), told his friends in the cell, if they survived, to tell his relatives that before his death he put a medallion of the Blessed Mother into his mouth. It left open the possibility of identifying his body after the years.

Did you find a medallion in one of the skulls?

We found five, six such medallions. Not only Ciepliński had this idea.

Arranging the remains of the victims

Let’s return to the death cells.

When that day arrived, several guards came to the condemned. They called the person “by the letter”. They led him to the place where the head of the prison, prosecutor and sometimes a priest were. The condemned learned that Bolesław Bierut  hadn’t granted a pardon. He was led down a hallway and in a side basement where he suddenly received a pistol shot in the back of his skull.

Who pulled the trigger?

In Warsaw the function of executioner was carried out by Aleksander Drej and Piotr Śmietański, old communists, former soldiers of the GL (Gwardia Ludowa, People’s Guard) and AL (Armia Ludowa, People’s Army). Primitive natures.

Poland regained independence 23 years ago. Why is exhumation work at the Meadow only being carried out now?

Since for many years our country was ruled by a climate of extreme animus towards similar endeavors. Settling accounts with Communist crimes wasn’t allowed. To say nothing of arresting and judging the criminals. After all, in the 1990s, the chief military prosecutor, Stanisław Zarakowski, was still alive, as was judge Mieczysław Widaj, who had several dozen verdicts on his account. Several dozen others were still alive, at their head being Helena Wolińska, to whom justice could have been measured out. This didn’t happen because of opposition from influential circles. It even turned out that a “Person of Honor” was a former general of the SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnętrznych, Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) who’s place should have been in prison. And people who researched Communist crimes were called the “dazed”. Thus, please don’t be surprised that with this type of situation it wasn’t possible to carry out exhumations.

When did the climate begin to change?

The break through was in 1999 and the establishment of the IPN. It was then that we started the “Sentenced to Death” research program. We tried to count the those murdered. Much time passed though before we could begin exhumations. Now, the second stage of work on the “Meadow” is before us, next year we’ll be excavating in Służewiec, where the Communists also buried their victims. We’re positively surprised by the huge response of the local community. People are calling us from every part of the country and requesting that we also conduct searches there. All of Poland is sown with mass graves in which rest the victims of the Red Terror.

Dr. Szwagrzyk at the press conference in the Polonia House in Warsaw, announcing the results of the first stage of exhumations, August 20, 2012

Why are you leading this excavation?

Because I believe that this is my duty. The people whose bodies we’re recovering are the greatest heroes of the Republic, it’s impossible to think that the Polish nation wouldn’t make every possible effort to recover their bodies and give them a proper burial.

Krzysztof Szwagrzyk is the head of the Departmental Bureau of Public Education of IPN in Wrocław. An investigator of Communist crimes. Author. Among others, “Crimes in the Realm of Law”, “Lawyers in the Time of Lawlessness”. He directs the exhumations of victims of Communist crimes on the “Meadow” in Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery.

Rzeczpospolita (The Republic)

Recommended Reading:

-Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Coverup of the Katyń Massacre

-Freedom Betrayed (review part 1)

 

Filed Under: Communism, Poland, Translations, World War II Tagged With: , ,

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War (review part 2)

September 14, 2012 by 1 Comment

“The Big Three”, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at the Teheran Conference, December, 1943

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, edited by Dr. George H. Nash

Book Review Part 2:

Of particular interest to those interested in Polish history is Herbert Hoover’s lengthy case study entitled “A Step-by-Step History of Poland”, which went through at least seven drafts. Hoover’s interest in Poland stretched back to his undergraduate days at Stanford University when he met Ignacy Paderewski and continued through his initial humanitarian endeavors for Poland after World War I and in the first two years of World War II.  In this case study, Hoover chronicles the fate of Poland from the beginning of World War II, through his humanitarian visit in 1946, at the behest of President Truman.

Hoover’s emphasis is on the diplomatic interactions of American and British officials with their Polish counterparts. He quotes numerous conversations, declarations and promises that were made to fight for Poland’s territorial integrity and independence, but which were gradually abandoned. Hoover presents his case by highlighting the statements of Allied leaders and comparing them to their actions, making a strong case that the Americans and British engaged in a deliberate policy of appeasement towards the Soviet Union. The result is a strong indictment of many senior leaders and President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in particular. Of all the Allied conferences Hoover puts the greatest focus on the Teheran Conference and pinpoints it as the definitive moment of the Allies’ betrayal of Eastern Europe to the Soviets and the clearest example that the Atlantic Charter of 1940 would not apply to Stalin’s expanding empire.

The length of Hoover’s case study on Poland and the extensive references to and descriptions of matters related to Poland throughout the book, attests to the special place that Poland had in Hoover’s heart. Hoover’s sympathetic, but objective and factual analysis, presents a stark contrast to the apparent callousness of Allied leaders towards Poland’s fate. No American has taken a greater interest in and done more on Poland’s behalf than Herbert Hoover.

Buy Freedom Betrayed

Hoover’s criticism of Allied leadership extends to the Pacific theater as well. He chronicles the numerous attempts by then Prime Minister Konoye to meet to President Roosevelt to negotiate peace between Japan and the United States. Though the question of whether war with Japan could have been avoided is another unanswerable “what if”, Hoover clearly shows that Roosevelt never reciprocated Konoye’s advances and following the fall of his cabinet, the rise of militarist leaders and ongoing sanctions against Japan, a showdown became a fait accompli.

Hoover relies primarily on published memoirs and government documents that were released in the years after the war. Though his sources were limited compared to what we have today, Hoover makes a compelling case for a thorough re-examination of the narrative of World War II that has been commonly accepted in the West. Hoover’s rationale for not publishing the book during his lifetime was to avoid generating controversy and bad blood between him and living participants in wartime events. Hoover’s reputation, which had been severely tarnished by the Great Depression, had largely been rehabilitated in the eyes of the public in his 30 years as an ex-President.

Now that nearly half a century has passed since the book was completed, and over seventy years since the war began, Hoover’s epic history presents us with an opportunity to reexamine some of the most momentous events in modern history. Hoover doesn’t presume to have the answers, but the greatest asset of the book is the volume of questions that it poses. Why did the United States recognize the Soviet Union in 1933, despite unceasing Communist subversion? What was the advantage to Allied interests to strongly support the Soviet Union through Lend Lease, even when Germany’s defeat was certain? To what degree did Soviet agents influence Allied policy at the highest levels and why weren’t they dealt with when they were exposed?

I recently came across a photo of Soviet troops in 1946, standing next to an American, Willys jeep, amidst the ruins of Warsaw on the Aleje Jerozolimskie, which run through the heart of the city. How much did the billions of dollars in American aid to the Soviet Union help to facilitate the subjugation of Poland? Why should the cost of defeating Hitler have been the enslavement of Eastern Europe? Did Roosevelt and Churchill even make these calculations?

These and other questions deserve more complete answers.

Buy Freedom Betrayed

Filed Under: Communism, Herbert Hoover, Poland, U.S. History, World War II Tagged With: , , ,

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Coverup of the Katyń Massacre

September 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The bound hands of a Polish officer exhumed at Katyń in 1943. The prisoners were shot throught the base of the skull, at point blank range and thrown into mass graves.

Yesterday the U.S. National Archives released a cache of 1,000 documents relating to the Katyń massacre, the collective term for a series of executions of 22,000 Polish Army officers, conducted by the Soviet NKVD in spring, 1940.

The most explosive revelation from these documents is that U.S. POWs, who were taken by their Nazi captors to inspect the graves, sent coded messages back to Washington through U.S. military intelligence channels, stating their belief that the Soviets were in fact responsible for the atrocity. The follow-up report given by one of the POWs, Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet Jr.,  in 1945, confirming his prior assertion, is missing and was likely destroyed.

The weight of evidence confirming Soviet guilt for Katyń has been overwhelming since before the war even ended, so it is truly a sad revelation that the Roosevelt Administration chose to suppress the facts from America and the world. This knowledge could have dramatically affected U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union and may have changed or averted the Cold War, had the U.S. Government dealt with the obvious Communist threat appropriately. At this time the United States was seen as the beacon of freedom and justice to the occupied nations of Europe, and especially the Poles, who ultimately passed from Nazi to Soviet tyranny, two sides of the same coin. Not only did the Roosevelt administration betray America’s allies by acquiescing to Soviet terror, it betrayed the values that America stood for. It’s further troubling that the U.S. Government didn’t acknowledge Soviet guilt for the crime until 1990! What a tremendous shame that these materials have only been released now, decades after having outlived their usefulness.

The rationale for witholding the information that the U.S. Government possessed was that Soviet cooperation was necessary to defeat Hitler. While cooperation with the Soviets surely helped to shorten the war, by mid 1943 the tide had turned decisively against the Third Reich. Within a couple months of the revelation of the Katyń graves, the Nazis were defeated at the Battle of Kursk and their downfall became only a matter of time. The imperial ambitions of Joseph Stalin were well known as Poland had initially been divided between the Nazis and Soviets in September 1939, as a fulfillment of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. By 1945 Stalin would re-conquer all the territory he had lost to Hitler, and gained the rest of Poland and Eastern Europe, East Germany and the Balkans.

In reading Herbert Hoover’s Freedom Betrayed, I have learned that in fact President Roosevelt sought an alliance with Stalin in order to cooperate in a post-war arrangement in which the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., led by Roosevelt and Stalin, would dominate the United Nations as partnered superpowers. The implications of such a vision for the world will send shudders down the spines of freedom-loving and democratically-minded individuals, especially now that we know that Soviet barbarism was responsible for genocide on a scale that Hitler could never accomplish. The man-made, terror famine in the Ukraine in 1931-1932 alone may have claimed more lives than the Holocaust of the Jews in Europe.

Returning to Herbert Hoover’s poignant history/memoir, here is a damning excerpt that sums up the failure of leadership, the “freedom betrayed” by FDR and his cohorts:

…Years later, Earle [George H., former governor of Pennsylvania and FDR's special ambassador to the Balkans during WWII] testified before a Congressional Committee that he had received proof (in the form of affidavits and pictures) of Russian guilt in the Katyn Forest massacre. He stated that when he presented the evidence to Mr. Roosevelt, he was told that it was all a German plot. Roosevelt said:

I am absolutely certain the Russians didn’t do this.

    Earle further testified:

The love, respect and belief in the Russians in the White House and other places in Washington was simply unbelievable.
(New York Times, Nov. 14, 1952)

The legacy of President Roosevelt has been spared close scrutiny since his death, other than by niche academics. Herbert Hoover’s recently published book is a great place to start reassessing the consequences of Roosevelt’s actions and inaction on matters of grave consequence. The just-released documents that verify Roosevelt’s inaction should be the first major shot across history’s bow that  our wartime president was not the champion of justice we’ve been led to believe he was.
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Filed Under: Communism, Herbert Hoover, Poland, U.S. History, World War II Tagged With: , , , , ,

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War (review part 1)

September 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, edited by Dr. George H. Nash

Book Review Part 1:

Referred to as the “Magnum Opus” in Hoover’s lifetime, Freedom Betrayed is both a memoir and a diplomatic history of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Meticulously researched, written and revised over a period of 20 years, Hoover’s most labor intensive literary achievement has finally been published after nearly fifty years in storage at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University.

After his failed attempt to secure the Republican nomination for president in 1940, Hoover recognized that his last chance in political office had passed. He turned to writing his memoirs, though his zeal to influence public opinion hadn’t waned. The years following his presidency saw him emerge as a vociferous opponent of FDR and his domestic policies which reached their pinnacle in the New Deal, and in the late 30’s Hoover’s attention turned toward the ominous developments in Europe, when he made every effort to keep America out of war.

In 1938 Hoover toured Europe as a visiting dignitary and was warmly received all over the continent, where the memory remained of his work as chairman of the A.R.A. (American Relief Administration) overseeing humanitarian relief and reconstruction of post-war Europe. Hoover met with Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain and numerous other leaders including President Moscicki in Poland. He also visited Poland’s senior statesman, his old friend, Ignacy Paderewski in Morges, Switzerland. Hoover could see firsthand that Europe was quickly advancing towards war, with German militarization as the prime facilitator. Hoover’s notes from his conversations with European leaders would serve as the basis for Freedom Betrayed and are summarized in the early portion of the book.

Buy Freedom Betrayed

Originally conceived as separate books, Freedom Betrayed consists of three parts. In the first “volume” Hoover traces the rise of Communism and other international developments that culminate in the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland and the Baltic states and closes with America’s formal entry into the war after Pearl Harbor. The second volume is a diplomatic history of the war, focusing on the series of Allied conferences from 1941-1945, through the end of the war and Hoover’s assessment of Communist progress up to 1946. The third volume consists of four case histories of countries that had fallen to Communism, those being Poland, China, Korea and Germany. A lengthy appendix supplies additional documents relevant to Freedom Betrayed. It is appropriate to give Dr. George H. Nash, Hoover’s biographer, great credit for the tremendous task of editing the book, tracing it’s evolution over the two decades that Hoover wrote it and compiling it into the finished form that Hoover intended.

Herbert Hoover contends that freedom was betrayed by both American and British leaders through their deceitful maneuvering of America into war, thus supplanting the legal role of the U.S. Congress, and through their acquiescence to Communism, resulting in the enslavement of Eastern Europe and China. Hoover made numerous statements in print, public speeches and radio addresses discouraging American involvement in the war in Europe soon after it started in 1939. Hoover’s opposition continued when Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June,1941. In what he considered to be the most important speech of his life, he addressed the nation by radio imploring his fellow Americans not to allow themselves to be drawn into war on the side of the Soviets. In his view the two sides were equally despicable and that the two “devils” (as he sometimes called them) should be allowed to fight one another to exhaustion. Hoover speculated that even if the Soviet Union were defeated, the Nazis would never be able to consolidate their gains and the vast territory and disparate peoples under their control would be in a constant state of rebellion. Though opposed to American military participation in the war, Hoover did not stand idly by, but organized and led a significant effort to aid the suffering people in Poland, the Commission for Polish Relief, which operated until early December 1941.

In Hoover’s view the United States should have built up its defenses and prepared itself to enter Europe as a great stabilizing force, as it had after World War I. Only once the Nazis and Soviets had bludgeoned one another to near collapse would it be wise for America to play a role. Hoover’s view at the time fails to account for the genocidal plans of the Nazis against the Jewish and Slavic peoples, though he was correct in his contention that to that point Stalin already had the blood of millions on his hands, as a result of the “Holodomor“, the forced famine in the Ukraine in the  early 1930’s, the numerous purges and (as has been recently learned) the murder of perhaps as many as 200,000 Poles by the NKVD as part of the “Polish Operation” in the late 30’s, a brutal example of ethnic cleansing. Ultimately, Hoover’s opinion is relegated to a historical “what if” as we’ll never know what might have been. What we do know is that President Roosevelt’s energetic support of Stalin helped to speed the defeat of Hitler, though at the price of the enslavement of tens of millions, a result that the Allied leadership seemed, at best, reluctant to protest, at worst assented to and facilitated.

Buy Freedom Betrayed 

Recommended Reading:

-Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War (review part 2)

Filed Under: Communism, Herbert Hoover, Poland, U.S. History, World War II Tagged With: , , ,

They Bombed Civilians, Wieluń and the Outbreak of World War II

September 1, 2012 by 4 Comments

The center of Wieluń after the first wave of bombings, September 1, 1939.

Below is my translation of most of the article: “Bombardowali cywilów. Obchody rocznicy w Wieluniu.” (They Bombed Civilians, Commemorations of the Anniversary in Wieluń). 

Siren alarms sounded at 4:40am in Wieluń (Poland). This is how the ceremonies started, commemorating the 73rd anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

Seventy-three years ago at dawn, above the sleepy, defenseless town located 21 kilometers from the border with the Third Riech, came flying the German Stukas, dropping 380 bombs in total. As a result of the bombings, over 1200 residents of Wieluń were killed and 90% of the city center was destroyed.

The ceremonies in Wieluń commemorating the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II and Veteran’s Day started at 4:40am in front of the General Education High School on Pilsudski Street, the site where the hospital stood in September, 1939.

The alarm sirens sounded, and  footage of the German bombardment was projected on the wall of the building. Representatives of the city and county leadership as well as combatants, laid flowers and lit votive candles at the monument to the victims of the bombings. Letters from President Bronisłam Komorowski and Premier Donald Tusk were also read.

…

Before the war, Wieluń had about 16,000 residents and was 21 kilometers from the German border. September 1, 1939 the city was attacked by formations of the Luftwaffe under the control of the aerial commander for special operations, General Wolfram von Richthofen. Among them was the 1st division of the 76th dive bomber regiment under the command of Captain Walter Siegel. Members of his unit were pilots in the Condor Legion, who bombed Guernica (Spain) in 1937.

Overall, 380 bombs fell on Wieluń, weighing a total of 46 tons. The first ones hit the All-Saints Hospital. 32 people died there – patients and staff. These were the first victims of the German air raids during World War II. The next targe was the oldest, parish church in Wieluń, St. Michael the Archangel, built in the beginning of the 14th Century. The Piarist building was the only surviving structure on the old square.

In total, as a result of the attack on Wieluń by the German air force , which lasted until 2pm, over 1200 people died. Certain sources note as many as 2,000 victims. Bombs dropped by the Stukas (Junkers Ju 87) destroyed 75% of the city. 90% of the city center was destroyed.

…

At the time of the German attack, no units of the Polish Army were stationed in the city, nor were there any anti-aircraft positions. Not only from a military perspective but from an economic one, the city didn’t present any essential target for the Luftwaffe. There weren’t any industrial plants there, nor did any important transportation routes run through it. Thus, in the opinion of historians, the target of the German attack on Wieluń was the civilian population.

Filed Under: Poland, Translations, World War II Tagged With: ,

Getting a PhD

July 13, 2012 by 1 Comment

The statue of Nicolaus Copernicus in front of the headquarters of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw

I’ve decided to get my PhD in history. It’s been a dream of mine for many years, and now with over a decade of experience under my belt working at one of the premier research libraries in the world, I’m ready to focus on my own research. I’ll be working on my doctorate through the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. I intend to finish writing my dissertation in roughly two years. Though this is an ambitious goal, with patience, perseverance and hard work, I know I can achieve it.

The many years working in the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford have familiarized me with the amazing story of Herbert Hoover. Unfortunately, Hoover is most commonly associated with the Great Depression which doomed his presidency. I think time will show that the story is a bit more complex and Hoover will get the proper credit he deserves for his many achievements both in public and private life.

Hoover built his reputation during World War I as a peerless humanitarian who coordinated the relief of millions of Belgians who faced starvation during the German occupation and the British naval blockade. After the war, Hoover organized relief for tens of millions of Europeans across more than twenty countries as head of the American Relief Administration (A.R.A.). It’s one aspect of this endeavor that I’ve chosen to focus on for my dissertation. Herbert Hoover had a special relationship with Poland, stretching back to his undergraduate days at Stanford when he met and befriended Poland’s future prime minister and renowned concert pianist, Jan Paderewski. Hoover accompanied President Wilson to the Versailles Conference where the 13th of Wilson’s famous “Fourteen Points” declared: “An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.”

Hoover visited Poland in August, 1919 and was received with great fanfare and praise for the critical relief supplies that the A.R.A. had begun to provide. Hoover’s motives for assisting the wartorn regions of Europe, particularly Poland, were more than humanitarian in nature. Hoover recognized the destabilizing potential of Bolshevik Russia and saw the newly independent states, Poland chief among them, as the bulwark against a Communist push to the west. A year after Hoover’s visit to Poland, the Poles thwarted the main offensive of the Red Army at the Battle of Warsaw, also known as the “Miracle at the Vistula”, Poland’s longest and most important river. The significance of the A.R.A.’s efforts in strengthening Poland’s ability to defend itself through material aid and the rebuilding of infrastructure, will be one of my areas of study.

Herbert Hoover (6), with Jan Paderewski (5), Jozef Piłsudski (9) and Hugh Gibson (11), in front of Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, August, 1920

I know that writing a dissertation is an immense undertaking, I’m essentially writing a book. It’ll be a rewarding experience, and I’m sure that the people I meet and the things I learn along this path will change me in ways I can’t anticipate. I know that simply earning my PhD won’t automatically make me a historian, any more than turning 18 made me an adult and a man. Becoming a historian is a lifelong process and never a stationary target. I’m humbled to have this opportunity and blessed to be able to study the history of my ancestral homeland as it relates to the history of the land of my birth, in one of the great shining examples of the best impulses of American generosity.

Publicly declaring a goal is the first big step towards realizing its completion. Though it’s one small step for this man, it’ll be one giant leap towards a better understanding of the past.

 

Filed Under: Herbert Hoover, Nick, Poland Tagged With: , , ,
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