70th Anniversary of the Invasion of Poland and the Outbreak of World War II

Why Remember?

Many places in Poland were reduced to rubble in the devastating aftermath of World War II as is illustrated in the photo above.

Why reflect on the past when some say it’s best to forget and move on? Sometimes the past is too important to ignore, especially when it involves unspeakable crimes of unimaginable destruction, crimes of cold, calculated genocide, and crimes that have not been accurately or fully reported for posterity. Crimes that can never be repeated again.

Such importance surrounds the events of the outbreak of World War II and the ruthless onslaught of Hitler and his Nazi regime into Poland on September 1, 1939. No country can claim greater suffering under Nazism than Poland, the land where six million innocent civilians were methodically, viciously exterminated in camps and during raids on villages and towns across the country. Half of these victims were Christians and half were Jews, all were Polish citizens. Few know that, in Poland, Christians were the first to be imprisoned and executed in the name of ethnic purity. Later in the war, Hitler launched his “Final Solution” to eradicate Jews both in Poland and throughout Europe.

Hitler’s German Nazi Troops attack Poland on September 1, 1939. Cities are bombed in air attacks, seaports are blockaded and hundreds of thousands of Nazi troops invade cities throughout Poland.

Poles have reason to feel betrayed by the lack of recognition of their heroic resistance efforts and their own immense suffering at the hands of both Hitler’s Nazi troops and Stalin’s Soviet Communists. To add insult to injury, some have even accused Poland of failure to do more in the face of Nazi terror to assist Polish Jews, part of Polish society for 800 years. Casting judgment upon previous generations serves no purpose except to aggravate the very attitudes and feelings that made Nazi success possible in the first place, namely, prejudice, hatred and refusal to appreciate another’s heritage or point of view. What is more important is to acknowledge past victimization and focus on political, diplomatic and military vigilance to prevent future holocausts.

It is especially important for Polish Americans to recognize the torments endured by Poles both during the war years and after agreements like Yalta and Potsdam. It is a little-known fact that, after Poland’s invasion by Hitler’s Nazi forces, the Polish people were singled out to be enslaved and killed and their cities and towns were threatened with destruction. Hitler’s purpose was to annihilate Poland and its people. Although he did not achieve his ultimate goal, Poland’s invasion ushered in a period of foreign oppression that altered the lives and fortunes of Poles for over half- a-century.

Hitler’s German Nazi Troops attack Poland on September 1, 1939.

“On August 22, 1939, (Hitler) authorized the killing ‘without pity or mercy of all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language.’ On September 1, 1939 the Poles became the first people to experience the systematic terror of the Holocaust.” (William A. Donohue, President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, in The New York Times, April 23, 1999)

During the war, six million Polish citizens were killed. Three million were Polish Christians, three million were Polish Jews. Without question, the Jews were specifically singled out for total extermination, but in Hitler’s plan to establish additional fertile “living space” (Lebensraum), the Poles were also in line to die, many after a period of enslavement. No one, neither Jew nor Christian, deserved the immense hardship they were subjected to. We must remember their loss equally, because every life is precious.

“The Poles experienced an enormous tragedy during the German occupation of their country. The genocidal policies of the Nazis resulted in the deaths of about as many Polish Gentiles as Polish Jews, thus making them co-victims in a ‘Forgotten Holocaust.” (Richard C. Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, Hippocrene Books, 1990.)

This historic photo pictures Hitler’s Nazi German troops demolishing the Polish Customs Station as they entered Poland for the initial attack on September 1, 1939.

Unfortunately, because of Poland’s geographical centrality and large Jewish population, Hitler’s Nazi forces established within Poland’s borders several concentration camps where millions were brutally gathered to suffer and die. Victims, especially political prisoners, were gathered from all over Europe. Majdanek concentration camp revealed records of prisoners from fifty countries. Due to the camps’ locations, the Polish people are often implicated in Hitler’s murderous purposes, even to the point of being regarded, by some, as collaborators. Regrettably, we hear little about the fact that the law in Nazi-occupied Poland, and nowhere else, required the immediate execution of any Pole who protected or assisted Jews in any way, even by offering a glass of water. This death sentence was extended to entire families and sometimes even villages, whether or not all participated in assisting Jews. To decide between the life of a family member and a neighbor is truly a terrible choice, for which there was and is no simple solution. We must be careful about passing judgment on previous generations, whose individual circumstances we simply cannot know or understand completely. For our part, we must honor the Polish people who fought so valiantly to resist the unscrupulous Nazi oppressors and those who risked their lives by harboring Jewish friends and neighbors secretly in their homes. More Jews were saved in Poland than in any other occupied country.

Hitler instructs his troops as they leave for the invasion of Poland with the following words: “Be hard, be ruthless. Act more quickly and brutally than others... This is the most humanitarian method of warfare because it frightens people... And now forward - against the enemy!”

To make matters even worse, despite extensive Polish underground efforts to stop the Nazi war machine, the Poles were further betrayed, after the War, by being handed over to continued oppression for the next forty five years under Soviet Communist domination. While the rest of the world rejoiced in victory over the Nazi reign of terror, Poland and other Eastern European and Balkan nations were pawned off to appease the Soviet hunger for territory in compensation for Communist collaboration in Hitler’s defeat. Except for survivors and their families, few are aware of the Russian Communists’ brutal deportation of 1.7 million Poles to Siberian concentration camps during the War. Nevertheless, the indomitable Polish spirit remained unshaken and, through the Solidarity movement, provided the moral and political leadership required to overthrow Communism in Eastern Europe. It has been extremely gratifying over the past two decades to observe Poland’s emergence from oppression, first political and now economic, and to assume its rightful stature among the industrialized nations of Europe.