Greek version first published on 14 March 2015.
Poland is the answer to a lot of things.
As, for example, to the question, "Which country was simultaneously attacked by all its neighbours, along a frontier thousands of kilometres long in total?"
For what took place in 1939 was not just an attack to Danzig (today's Gdansk) by the western/northern neighbour, Hitler's Germany.
But a concerted invasion from the other two points of the horizon as well. The new, pro-German Slovakia from the south - and the Soviet Union from the east.
Proportionally to its population, Poland paid the highest toll compared to any other country in the Second World War. It is estimated that it lost 6 million people (out of a total of 35 million). Some of the most tragic cases of human carnage have to do with Poles (e.g. the officers murdered by Beria's NKVD at Katyn) or occurred on Polish ground (such as the large concentration camps).
For two years, the basic "Nazi collaborators" were the appliers of state socialism in Moscow. Only when they were attacked themselves did they denounce the alliance with the "bad" socialism, the national one (hence "nazi", from "Nationalsozialismus") and tried to lead the international antifascist struggle. After June 1941, spontaneous hammer-and-sickle rebel movements grew rapidly (e.g. Greece's EAM National Liberation Front didn't exist before September 1941).
And when the German defeat was imminent, Poles weren't at all discussed in Stalin and Churchill's "percentage agreements". Soviets kept the territories east of Brest (todays Belarus) and shifted Poland westwards, by handing over Pomerania and Silesia that were captured from the receding Germans. They controlled Poland for 45 years, as it was "too distant" for others to claim it - only the Pope might have been interested, but as Stalin wondered, "how many divisions did he have?"
But a concerted invasion from the other two points of the horizon as well. The new, pro-German Slovakia from the south - and the Soviet Union from the east.
Proportionally to its population, Poland paid the highest toll compared to any other country in the Second World War. It is estimated that it lost 6 million people (out of a total of 35 million). Some of the most tragic cases of human carnage have to do with Poles (e.g. the officers murdered by Beria's NKVD at Katyn) or occurred on Polish ground (such as the large concentration camps).
For two years, the basic "Nazi collaborators" were the appliers of state socialism in Moscow. Only when they were attacked themselves did they denounce the alliance with the "bad" socialism, the national one (hence "nazi", from "Nationalsozialismus") and tried to lead the international antifascist struggle. After June 1941, spontaneous hammer-and-sickle rebel movements grew rapidly (e.g. Greece's EAM National Liberation Front didn't exist before September 1941).
And when the German defeat was imminent, Poles weren't at all discussed in Stalin and Churchill's "percentage agreements". Soviets kept the territories east of Brest (todays Belarus) and shifted Poland westwards, by handing over Pomerania and Silesia that were captured from the receding Germans. They controlled Poland for 45 years, as it was "too distant" for others to claim it - only the Pope might have been interested, but as Stalin wondered, "how many divisions did he have?"
Nevertheless, when - following 35 rather quiet years of Soviet influence to Warsaw (a city that gave its name to the "Warsaw Pact" i.e. eastern bloc) - the first Polish Pope was elected at the Vatican, something did change. Shortly afterwards, Poles were cheered up when the Solidarity trade union came to the forefront at Gdansk (ex Danzig). Lech Walesa's popularity led to a repeat of Soviet interventions against skittish allies, which had occurred in near-perfect 12-year cycles (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 - the very last one on themselves, with the coup against Gorbachev in 1991, just before their collapse). This time, in 1981's Poland, martial law was declared under Jaruzelski, so that Solidarity would be crushed.
And here may be the answer to another question - why Pole seems to confuse so much some of our compatriots - such as the minister who "coordinates the government's work", while he should rather coordinate some mangled historical information inside his head (he recently said that Poles "cooperated" with Nazi Germany, in the framework of a paranoid and harmful anti-Germanism promoted by Greece's new leadership).
For at that time (1981) we had again a political change in our country. The first foreign-policy crisis of the new Andreas Papandreou government was our differentiation from the rest of the EEC (the other 9 countries back then), who wanted to apply sanctions against the Jaruzelski regime.
Asimakis Fotilas (father of a likeable young politician of today, by the way) was Deputy Foreign Minister when he took off after a European meeting - in which he had, "wrongly" as it turned out, supported the communiqué. Upon landing in Athens, he had already "placed himself" out of the cabinet.
Andreas Papandreou wanted the support of the anti-rightwing bloc, nurturing EAM's memories. For that reason, he had decided to adopt a stance that satisfied Soviets and pro-Soviets, under fire then by those who were both anti-American and democratic.
I remember a Greek Communist Party (KKE) wall writing saying that "Poland will not become Chile", implying that Jaruzelski thwarted a supposed capitalist "reactionary" takeover of Poland. This was a somewhat odd claim, though, at the time that Poland had a junta, a socialist one of course, but equally uniformed to that of Pinochet.
Plain folk, on the other hand, were so confused that I doubt whether any intended message was passed to the supposed target audience. The following summer, a relative of mine, in the broader left-wing camp, proudly praised Poles, for bravely daring to raise banners at Spain's football stadiums, in the 1982 World Cup, "against the junta" - meaning Solidarity's banners, which in essence said the same thing.
Years passed by, we met Poles for a while in their small, quiet immigrant community (before the Albanian influx), around Michail Voda Str. in Athens; and several years later as partners in the enhanced European Union. They joined the "club" later than we did, and yet their former Premier is now head of the European Council. I think we envy them for that too, as well as for their overall decent standing at the international stage, despite their having suffered more in total. Going a long way back, we would even owe them a little bit of gratitude for their king, who expelled the Ottomans and ended the Vienna siege. Coming back to the present day, it would suffice in my opinion if we could just admire them a bit, instead of envying them. And, in any case, respect them a little more, avoid offending them by claiming that they were "Nazi collaborators" at a time when we are about to turn Europe upside-down on the pretext of our own resistance.
Years passed by, we met Poles for a while in their small, quiet immigrant community (before the Albanian influx), around Michail Voda Str. in Athens; and several years later as partners in the enhanced European Union. They joined the "club" later than we did, and yet their former Premier is now head of the European Council. I think we envy them for that too, as well as for their overall decent standing at the international stage, despite their having suffered more in total. Going a long way back, we would even owe them a little bit of gratitude for their king, who expelled the Ottomans and ended the Vienna siege. Coming back to the present day, it would suffice in my opinion if we could just admire them a bit, instead of envying them. And, in any case, respect them a little more, avoid offending them by claiming that they were "Nazi collaborators" at a time when we are about to turn Europe upside-down on the pretext of our own resistance.
