Topic: 63 years since the uprising of 63 days

[Maciek]

Actually, I was going to say more about the Warsaw Uprising but got a bit sidetracked...

One of the great tragedies of the Warsaw Uprising was a purely cultural one. Most of the insurgents were extremely young men (and women!), either in their teens or early twenties.



Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, perhaps the finest Polish poet of the 20th century, died a soldier's death in the uprising on August 4th. He was only 23 years old but had already managed to produce poems of astounding depth, originality and beauty. It would impossible to imagine Polish 20th century literature without him.

As for musical losses, it might be worth pointing out that since the entire city was burned down, all of the manuscripts that were there perished. This includes the full text of Karol Szymanowski's only novel, a piece for piano and orchestra by Juliusz Zarębski, and countless other priceless compositions.

[Maciek]

This had been bugging me since I logged off yesterday, so today I went back and edited one of my previous posts (I've left the previous version in, crossed out): one can't really say that Hitler was trying to exterminate the entire Polish nation. That would be equalling the plight of the Jews (including Polish Jews, of course) to that of Poles, and there's no way those can be equalled. A Jew coming to Auschwitz had ABSOLUTELY no chance of surviving more than a couple of days (say 3-5). A Pole, though constantly threatened by death, had the chance of staying alive much longer, in fact for years. Of course, both groups were in life-threatening situations but the difference, figuratively speaking, is that Jews were on death row, while Poles had life sentences in life-threatening conditions. Gypsies were in a similar situation to Jews.

It might also be worth pointing out that we are not talking only about "real" Jews but also about everyone else that the Nazis called "Jews" - which is definitely not the same thing.

[carlos]

...and talking of probabilities...

[Florestan]

Still, re Florestan's suggestion, I'm sure most Poles would much rather remain in the British "domain". However, during the Tehran conference Stalin managed to secure that prerogative, and apparently without much difficulty.

That's exactly what most Romanians would have chosen back then but, alas!, it was Stalin who chose...

[Maciek]

...and talking of probabilities...

Carlos, this is the second time I see you posting that photo on GMG. Though I understand that an image is worth a thousand words, I think some sort of commentary would be nice. Exchange of thought is difficult when you don't know what exactly the other person is thinking. Why are you posting this? What does this photo mean to you? What do you know about it, the people who took it, the people who are on it? Etc. etc. There's a strange sort of connection between that photo and the main subject of this thread in that the picture was taken in 1944........

[Maciek]

That's exactly what most Romanians would have chosen back then but, alas!, it was Stalin who chose...

The Polish tradition is to blame Roosevelt and Churchill as well (after all, they weren't very insistent). Though not to the same extent as Stalin, of course.

[orbital]

That's exactly what most Romanians would have chosen back then but, alas!, it was Stalin who chose...

My grandmother (father's side) escaped from Romania, I think just in time, to Turkey. In the long run, was it for the better or worse is still yet to be seen 

[Maciek]

Continuing the "Polish casualties of Soviet atrocities" subject: I've found an excellent article on the Polish wikipedia: Represje ZSRR wobec Polaków i obywateli polskich 1939-1946. Unfortunately, no English translation is available and I don't have the time for that sort of thing (besides, I don't think I've contributed to the English wikipedia more than twice, so doing this would be out of character ). Well, at least Chris can read it. For the rest, below is a short selection:

It is extremely difficult to estimate human losses that Poland suffered as a result of stalinist extermination policies. It is a bit easier to estimate the number of survivors. (...) The estimated total number of survivors is around 431 thousand. This includes both people deported in the years 1939-1941 and 1944-1946 as well as their children. Based on the available sources, we are unable to distinguish between the people who were subject to repressions and their children born after deportation. Therefore we are unable to assess the exact number of human casualties (...). Another difficulty is that we do not have documents pertaining to the fate of the tens of thousands of people arrested, conscripted into the Red Army and into labour battalions. We do not have death toll records from labour camps and deportation sites. (...) Of the 10,000 Poles sent to Kolyma and Chukotka only 171 survived. Of the 3,000 sent to the Chukotka camp no one survived. And Poles are known to have been sent to approx. 130 different labour camps.(...)

According to Soviet data the fatality rate in the transports was not 10% (as estimated by the Polish side) but a mere 0,7%. However, these data concern only 4 deportation transports. We do not have Soviet data pertaining to the mortality in other transports. This is extremely important, as the deported themselves called the deportation railroad cars "white crematoria" because, as opposed to classic crematoria, here the victims were frozen alive.(...)

According to the 1931 census the population of the 8 Kresy voivodeships was 13,021,300, of which 5,597,600 spoke Polish. In 1943 the population of the area previously occupied by the Soviet Union was estimated to be 11,976,000, including approx. 6 million Poles. After taking into account population growth, repatriations and the evacuation of some Poles with the Anders Army, anything between 500,000 and 1.5 million Poles were still missing. Some of them might have been ascribed a new nationality by the Soviet authorities but the majority must have perished as a result of repressions.

[carlos]

Well,Maciek. That was a picture of one of the "selections" made
by the nazis and was taken by one of them, no doubt to proudly
show later to family. With a simple movement of one hand, the
doctor in charge (Mengele or any other) send thousends of people
to the left (immediate gassing) or right (forced labor, to died later).
Those condemned were not only jews (polish mainly,but also of
many other origins from all Europe), but also gypsies, political
enemies,priests,homosexuals,etc. There were more or less 3 million
jews in Poland before the war. About 70% of them were killed.
Heydrich was put on charge of a plan to get rid of 11 million jews,
 so "clearing" all Europe,including Russia of course. On non jews
in Poland,  Himmler said clearly that they should be teach to
count only to 500, to be submissive and considerer every german
as his master. All the upper class, intellectuals, priests, journalists etc, should disappear. And to Papa Joseph. if polish people live or died was of no importance. If he have to kill half of them, as he did with the officers in Katyn, it was OK to him. Adolf and Joseph, two of the greatest genocides the world had.But it can be made a
distintion between them: Adolf killed most of all, foreigners; Joseph
killed most of all russians. 

[PSmith08]

Adolf and Joseph, two of the greatest genocides the world had. But it can be made a distinction between them: Adolf killed most of all, foreigners; Joseph killed most of all Russians. 

I'm sure that the Ukrainian survivors of the Holodomor would be interested in that assertion.

[Maciek]

Carlos, thanks for those thoughts.

As for photographs, I've always found this one deeply disturbing. It's from 1943:



It was taken in the Warsaw Ghetto in April, during the Ghetto Uprising. Jürgen Stroop (SS and Police Leader of the Warsaw area) used this photo as an attachment to a report he sent to Himmler.

Incidentally, anyone interested in the complicated history of this country should read the book by Kazimierz Moczarski Conversations with an Executioner. Moczarski was a Home Army officer who was arrested in August 1945 by the communist authorities (as most soldiers of the Home Army were). He was tortured etc. And here's the irony: he actually shared a cell with Stroop - they were considered criminals of a similar calibre! (As if the fact that Moczarski was considered a criminal wasn't ironic enough!) In 1945 Moczarski was sentenced to 10 years of prison but in 1948 his case was reopened. It was during this second trial, between March and November 1949, that he was put in a cell together with Stroop. Conversations with an Executioner is a detailed report of their conversations (Moczarski was trying to probe the soul of a mass murder, trying to understand it). As a result of the new trial Moczarski was sentenced to death in 1952. In 1953 the sentence was changed to life in prison - but Moczarski was not informed about this, and remained on death row until 1955 (!) when he was finally told of the change. In 1956 he was finally cleared of all charges and released - he wrote his book shortly after that, though it was published (in a censored version) only in the 1970s. The full, uncensored version appeared in 1992.

Of course, for anyone interested in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Hanna Krall's absolutely shattering To Outwit God is essential (even more so than Moczarski's report) - it's a short book (around a hundred pages), and I guarantee you will not be able to put it down once you start reading.

[orbital]

Thanks for the info Maciek. Just checked amazon. They only seem to have used copies of earlier editions (1980's). I wonder if the unabridged version has ever been printed here.

[Maciek]

I wanted first to write that Western editions were probably full earlier than 1992. But I checked my Polish one and it seems unlikely - they make it quite clear that this is the first time the full unabridged text is being printed. Quite amazing that the book has no recent re-edition - the used prices are pretty high. (And you won't find a really cheap copy with bookfinder.com either.)

BTW, I should also mention some Warsaw Uprising literature. The definitive monograph is Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw by Norman Davies - a meticulously researched and brilliantly written book, extremely readable!

For a civilian's point of view Miron Bialoszewski's A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising is compulsory reading. Bialoszewski was one of the major poets and writers of the 20th century in Poland. His attitude towards the uprising was often criticised (he was young, healthy, able - why didn't he fight, like Baczynski and others?) but the book is a very valuable (and fantastically well-written) account of the plight of civilians (around 150,000 civilians were killed during the uprising).

[Florestan]

My grandmother (father's side) escaped from Romania, I think just in time, to Turkey. In the long run, was it for the better or worse is still yet to be seen

Mark my words: it was absolutely for better! You wouldn't like to know how daily life in a Communist country was, trust me!

[Florestan]

The Polish tradition is to blame Roosevelt and Churchill as well

That's the Romanian tradition, too: US and England sold us (meaning the whole Central and Eastern Europe) to Stalin in exchange for him letting them alone.

Despite this, Romanians are today among the very few staunchly pro-US nations in Europe.

[carlos]

It was FDR who sold Europe to Stalin. At the end of
the war, FDR was THE boss, and WC a very secondary
partner. And that was done IMO for 2 reasons:
1) because FDR couldn't do anything at all to stop
the advance of the Red Army through Europe,and
2) because Japan was still in the war and Russia was
needed to fight them ( at least FDR thought so)

[Scriptavolant]

Despite this, Romanians are today among the very few staunchly pro-US nations in Europe.

I wouldn't be proud of that, of course. And most of all, where are the non-staunchly pro-US nations in Europe?

[Maciek]

It was FDR who sold Europe to Stalin. At the end of
the war, FDR was THE boss, and WC a very secondary
partner. And that was done IMO for 2 reasons:
1) because FDR couldn't do anything at all to stop
the advance of the Red Army through Europe,and
2) because Japan was still in the war and Russia was
needed to fight them ( at least FDR thought so)

Yes, it seem that's how it was (at least to some extent). During the Warsaw Uprising Churchill suggested to Roosevelt that they should assist the insurgents regardless of what Stalin says. Roosevelt said no.

[Maciek]

Despite this, Romanians are today among the very few staunchly pro-US nations in Europe.

And so are Poles. The reason, it seems to me, is more or less the same as the one that made Roosevelt forsake East and Central Europe: political realism. All of Eastern Europe is stuck in a very uncomfortable position between Russia and the rest of the world. Unless they want to be sucked in, they'd better secure some sort of sympathy from the US (of course, there's no guarantee the method will work).

[Maciek]

The normal person in me (OK, arguably, that's just a figment of my imagination...) says I should leave it alone and let the thread sink. But the Polish teacher in me, ah, the Polish teacher! The Polish teacher says I cannot possibly let that happen until I've posted a comprehensive reading list on the subject for all my dutiful students to peruse... Oh dear, what shall I do?

(Actually, if my limited teaching experience is anything to go by, Moczarski is the book students most enjoy... But there are two or three recommendable others.)