Belarusian propaganda convinces that Poles were to kill more Belarusians than Germans, and the National Army is presented as a close formation to the Nazis. The government of Alexander Lukashenka uses past to fight Poland, its own opposition and memory of the Polish minority. The fact about business and the safety of Poles in Belarus is at stake.
History converted to a government tool
The authoritative transmission of the Belarusian state is increasingly linking 3 different orders: the tragedy of civilians on the Polish-Belarusian border, the activity of the National Army during the German business and protests against Alexander Lukashenko after the 2020 election. As OKO.press describes, in this communicative thesis appears that Poles killed more Belarusians than Germans. The AK is set in 1 line with the Nazis.
This is not an honest historical dispute. This is simply a political operation aimed at building the image of Poland as an eternal aggressor, and all independent environment referring to Polish memory as a threat to the Belarusian state. The complex borderline past is flattened to a comfortable accusation. The German occupation, the Polish underground and the contemporary opposition are to merge into 1 expected front against Belarus.
The liability of individuals does not burden the full AK
The past of the Polish-Belarusian border besides contains painful cards. Civilians were killed, reprisals, national conflicts, and actions requiring reliable research. The Polish State cannot escape these facts. The fact does not weaken the community, but protects it from story and another manipulation.
However, it is different to analyse circumstantial crimes, to point out perpetrators and to give dignity to victims, and what is different is the collective alignment of the National Army with the Nazi business apparatus. The Home Army was an armed force of the Polish Underground State, fighting to regain independency after the German and russian Union attacks on Poland. The German 3rd Reich conducted a planned policy of terror, extermination and conquest. It is not for past to cover up this basic difference. He serves the power.
Propaganda works through these shortcuts. He chooses a real wound, takes it from the context, extends the blame to the full formation and the full nation, and then uses it for the current fight. The recipient is not to ask for documents, scale, command or work of circumstantial persons. It is to remember a simple message: Poland was the enemy and remains the enemy today.
Andrzej Poczobut Under the Fight of Memory Politics
The victim of this mechanics was Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish writer and activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities detained him in March 2021, and in 2023 sentenced him to 8 years of penal colony. The allegations included, among another things, alleged hatred. His texts on russian aggression against Poland, Polish underground in Grodayszczyz and 2020 protests were utilized in the case.
Pochobut was released on 28 April 2026 as part of the prisoner exchange and transferred to Poland. However, his many years of imprisonment showed that the dispute over past in Belarus is not an academic discussion. It may be the basis of repression against a man who defends Polish memory and the right to independent assessment of the regime.
The power in Minsk strikes what it cannot full control: the memory of the Second Republic, the National Army, russian aggression of September 17, 1939 and the surviving Polishness of Grodzieżczyzna. Therefore, past is subject to the regime's security. Compliance with papers is not important. What matters is the usefulness of the prosecution.
Poland needs fact and hard politics
The answer of Warsaw must not be either silence or mindless whitening of all character from the Polish underground. Both approaches give the field propaganda. Archive research, protection of memorial sites, support for the Polish number and consistent correction of falseness in languages understood by the public abroad are needed.
There's a circumstantial stake. Counterfeiting the image of the AK is to justify repression against Poles in Belarus, break the ties between nations and present modern Poland as an aggressive state. specified a message coincides with the interest of Moscow, which has been utilizing accusations of Nazism for years to justify its own imperial policy.
Poland's right state requires calm, precision and firmness. The suffering of the innocent Belarusians must be recognized where the sources confirm them, and the collective accusation against the National Army and the Polish people rejected. National memory cannot be a legend without shadows or a defenseless field for Lukashenko's propaganda. It should be based on truth. Only then does he service freedom.
Source: OKO.press
