Prof. Andrzej Nowak "Memory and Forgetfulness" - about russian assault on Poland

We meet on the occasion of the sad anniversary of September 17th, which we remember primarily in the context of 1939. russian aggression - this was the way of questioning Polish presence in east Europe. The Central European Empire - the 3rd Reich - was besides facing this. This was 1 way of questioning the Polish statehood. But I want to talk about the another way.

There's a memory that's not just passed on to families, but to a school that's made or killed by a school. There is simply a memory that the state creates or destroys. For many of us, 1989, Poland regained its independence, this was the minute we were waiting for. crucial due to the fact that we were able to reconstruct the memory, about the wonderful, tragic, binding us to the community, the Polish past. Many of us felt disillusioned erstwhile at the outset we heard the words about "Polish hell", the association referring to our past, especially to the most beautiful of its period ? Unfortunately, what raised the first fears then became a far more sad, depressing reality. It just so happens that a fewer days earlier, a letter was sent to Mrs. Minister Hall about defending past at school. The past of Poland has so far been compulsoryly taught, even erstwhile we were a semi-syphernical state. Now past teaching has practically been abolished in classes and second and 3rd advanced schools - through a regulation issued by Minister Hall in January 2008. The minister gave an explanation, which is radically lacking in reality, which I can confirm as 1 of the initiators of the protest of historians who submitted it to the ministry 2 and a half years ago. No results. Nevertheless, disregarding these protests, the minister defends her decision by saying that only those who scope the first class of LO will hear about the latest past of Poland thanks to the fresh regulation. It's like you can't teach about the latest past of Poland before. I would like to draw your attention to any of the reasoning in this argument. Namely, we gotta choose due to the fact that we don't have much time. I will show you, on the example of September 17, how deceptive this method and argument is. If we focus only on this date on September 17, we will not realize deeper, and possibly we will not realize at all what happened then.

People who are curious in past associate the next date, which is the consequence of September 17, 1939. Is this about April 1940? Of course, we do not request to remember everything that happened between September 17, 1939 and April 1940. We don't request to remember the hundreds of mass murders committed by the Red Army. The most celebrated case is the executions of civilian defenders of Grodna ? 300, most frequently young, people who for a day and a half tried to face the Red Army, having only bottles of gasoline. It was just 1 of many specified executions.

Katyn. What was Katyn's point? late a dispute broke out that could not be imagined in the worst dreams after 1989. A dispute in which any politicians, yet erstwhile members of Solidarity, began to talk - including Vladimir Putin's propaganda - that Katyn was not genocide. It is so crucial to callback the letter of the People's Commissioner Lavrentij Beria addressed to Józef Stalin, in which he motivated the proposed execution of 21,000 prisoners. Motivation was simple. 97% of the people on the list were Polish. It was for Polishness that they were killed, not for something else. Does this murder, execution in Katyn, neglect to meet the definition of genocide, determined on the basis of the proposal of the prominent Polish judaic lawyer of Rafał Lemkin's origin in 1948, adopted by the UN? There is no execution that would better meet the definition of genocide than the Katyn murder, due to the fact that this definition speaks of an effort to destruct part or all of the national group. And that's where we were going. And there is simply a discussion in 2010, in which the ruling party's MPs express outrage against attributing the word "genocide" to Katyn. This would not be of greater concern, at most the emotionality of the arms, if it were not for the data of the only public opinion survey carried out in this respect, namely the change in the historical awareness of Polish society about the Katyn crime. This survey revealed very sad fact ? that most Poles know nothing about the execution in Katyn. In the 19 - 29 - year - old age group, the results were frightening. This is the generation that succumbed to the force of "schooling" media. 40% of respondents in this group did not know who killed who in Katyn. The answers were: Germans of Poles, Germans of Jews and even Poles of Jews. This is the effect of building a policy of forgetting Polish history. Another communicative is placed in this place, where the center contains events and victims, which we besides have a work to remember. But this work cannot obscure the others. That's why we request to realize what happened on September 17th and later. We must pass this cognition on to younger generations.

What happened after Katyn? There were waves of deportation, a large deal of persecution, connected with Polishness.

The group for hard matters set up by Prime Minister Tusk published a large book "White Spots - Black Spots in Polish-Russian Relations". 1 Polish historian included in this book his text ? pathetic and compromising ? in which he completely tries to reduce Polish martyrdom in 1939 ? 1941. Without any evidence, he says "fact" that 110 1000 people were arrested in the areas occupied by Soviets in those years, of which only 40% were of Polish origin. And no origin for that. In the same volume is an article by the Russian historian, the most prominent investigator of Katyń's problem, Prof. Natalia Lebiedeva. She simply cites the data from the Beria study for Stalin on December 12, 1940. Beria states that only from September 1939 to December 1, 1940 410,000 people were arrested.

Subsequent events are related to June 22, erstwhile Beria issued an order to empty prisoners from political prisoners. It is estimated that about 30 1000 prisoners, mainly Polish, were killed. These were Grodna, Vilnius, Lviv and Smolensk prisons, Kiev. The victims of these murders are besides lying in a cemetery in Bykownia.

When we calculate all these crimes, the question is obvious: why? We request to look deeper. Earlier, before September 17, 1939, there was an even greater crime. We don't remember her at all due to the fact that this crime was done on people who didn't leave most of the heirs behind. They were exterminated effectively, along with their families. Separated from us by cordon, designated after the Riga Peace after the Polish-Bolshevik War. According to the census of 1925 there were 782,000 Poles. The next census, from 1939, showed 626,000 Poles. 160 grand gone? During this time, the largest single crime in the Poles was committed, which we do not remember. Her memory must be restored to Poland. This crime has its date that should be remembered: August 11, 1937. Order signed by the then chief of the NKVD? On the basis of this 1 order 144,000 were arrested, of which 111,000 were shot. The criterion was one, ethnic. This operation was called "Polish Operation": it was about eliminating Poles. At least 1 another man in Polish families was murdered. Women and children were sent to Kazakhstan. And here comes the contemporary context: for the first time this year the Polish Ministry of Education did not send a single teacher to Kazakhstan. For the first time, we failed to fulfil our work to keep Polish memory in this place, where hundreds of thousands of our compatriots, who survived actual hell, defending their Polishness. Very sad fact about the state of our country.

In total, no little than 200 000 people were murdered in all forms of persecution of the Polish population in the USSR. all 4th Pole in the area died. At the end of this chain of crimes were besides Polish communists ? and only this remained in historical consciousness. This was even taught in the Polish People's Republic.

We keep asking about the causes of these crimes. any historians are inactive talking about Stalin's individual failures. The subject of Stalin's participation in the Polish-bolshevik war, erstwhile he failed, is peculiarly raised here: he did not win Lvov. In fact, Stalin outlined his motives in an article, whose title can be translated as "The Laundering" (meaning a thin wall). Spent for Stalin is Poland, and only this overheating is an obstacle in connection with the German proletariat. Regardless of the ideology in Russia, Poland is always specified an obstacle to gaining influence in Europe. It's been happening for a long time. Wiaczesław Molotov called Poland a "bastard of the Treaty of Versailles" .

On September 17, 1980, Polish workers came to Gdańsk and made fundamental decisions. The ideals of Solidarity stay a wonderful consequence to 17 September 1939. Today, after the experience on April 10, we are again confronted with the fact that we can respond to the experiences of history.

[recorded Alicia S.]