For my grandparents and parents as well as for all Poles belonging to the social elites and residing in the east Borders of the erstwhile Republic, the entrance of the Red Army was not liberation, nor was it in 44 or in 39.
For them, the momentary breath was even on 22 June 1941, which at my home was mentioned as the only little grim day during the war. My grandpa could have stopped hiding and returned to his home. My grandfather's brother was little fortunate and died in Siberia, my mother's cousin survived the transport and emigrated from there to Ancona where he lost his hand, and then stayed permanently in Manchester, for a change my father's brother died at the hands of the Germans breaking through from Vilnius to the Warsaw Uprising, another relatives fought in Major Szendejor's ward.
In the cattle car, leaving their homeland, beloved Vilnius and the property gathered through generations, my ancestors set out to wander until they landed in Gliwice, Silesia. "The stinking hole," that's how they defined the fresh place of residence. To make it more dramatic, they lived respective tens of meters from the cemetery of russian soldiers
It's got 18 and 19-year-old boys on it, a fewer 1000 dead in 1945. Grandparents and parents have never accepted this fate, and I realize that today.
They did not lay flowers on this cemetery, but they would never think of destroying, desecrating, profaning the cemetery, I don't even remember that someway they were outraged. They were people of actual religion – even though the judaic neighbors helped to catch members of the Polish elite for export, after the Germans entered the Soviets the grandparents kept the kid of a judaic communist who was at the time in a guerrilla.
In specified assessments of historical events, I am reminded of the message by Chou en Laja, who, erstwhile asked about the attitude towards the French Revolution almost 200 years after the fact, replied that it was besides early for a clear assessment.
Today I surely no longer have specified a individual attitude towards Vilnius, although who knows, due to the fact that only now I have time to take an interest in it, much better, most likely even nostalgic is my attitude towards Gliwice, I think about the result of the war whenever I am on vacation on the beloved Baltic and wandering along the beach I come from the erstwhile German side to the border on Piaśnica (near is the mausoleum of thousands of Poles who were tormented there). To cultivate an ancestral position would not be reasonable or emotionally sincere would mean a low inferno. There has been no USSR for more than 30 years now and this has become an effort of the Russians themselves, who have somewhat naively believed that the planet will appreciate them for this, and the planet does not appreciate either voluntary weakness or naivety.
From today's point of view, the presentation of flowers is, first, an expression of protest against the barbarism of Poland and Poles, where the motion of respect for soldier's death is treated as insulting and treason. No, it's not betrayal, it's defence, it's defence of our humanity, what separates people of our civilization from barbaries from the ancient beginnings.
Secondly, it is an expression of sovereignty and dissension that customs in Poland dictate the hatred-blind foreigners putting statues to Poles' genocidal killers, who have been saved in many cases by the Red Army since their death by Ukrainian neighbours.
Thirdly, it is besides an opposition to racist rusophobia, which engulfs them not only, but, above all, makes them stupid. Fourthly, I think that specified a motion towards the Russians is in the Polish national interest today, and 1 day, erstwhile we emergence from the current fall, it can aid us re-establish our relations with Russia in a rational and beneficial way for both sides.
Olaf Swolkień
