POLAND: HERE IS THE RECORD

By Ann Su Caldwell

Distributed by the Polonia Media Network

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II. This writing was published in 1945 by the Michigan Committee of Americans for Poland in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It not only presented an accurate picture of pre-war and wartime history, but an insightful prediction of the future. It was reintroduced in 1999 by Polonia Today as Polonians around the world commemorated the 60th anniversary of the invasion.

Part 3

A NATION IS BUILT: 1919-1939

Perhaps it would be well to pause at this point and briefly consider the history and achievements of this keystone of the arch of Central Europe from the time of its restoration in 1919 to its tragic fall in 1939.

Poland between two wars is a Poland I know. I went there in 1922, just after the Polish-Bolshevik war, and left September 17, 1939--the day the Red Armies, after the German invasion of Western Poland, invaded and occupied the eastern portion. I can therefore begin at the beginning. The story requires a book; here it is limited to a few paragraphs.

In 1919 the three partitioned parts of the Polish commonwealth united after more than a century of separation. Economically the new Poland was backward. The partitioning powers had not been interested in developing Polish agriculture or industry. The German-controlled area had been the most advanced, the Russian the least advanced. For example, the large peasant population in former Russian Poland was poor and seventy per cent illiterate. Furthermore, one part of Poland had lived under German law and administration, another under Austrian, the third under Russian. The same applies to school systems and currency. Imagine the confusion when the Poles threw off these foreign yokes.

War destruction in Poland exceeded that suffered in any other country. The withdrawing occupying powers had stripped factories and land of products and equipment. Some 1800,000 buildings had been destroyed. Poverty, devastation, and dilapidation characterized the Poland I saw in 1922.

Beggars were omnipresent, and that winter I saw people who were not beggars barefoot in the snow. My red-cheeked sons were stared at as if they were children from another world-as indeed they were.

Unification and Reconstruction

Yet with all the terrible price Poland had paid for freedom it got no reparations. On the contrary, certain liabilities were imposed on the new state in the liquidation of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. And while Germany, the defeated enemy, received huge British and American loans, Poland got very little.

With these brief references to the general situation, discouraging in every aspect, let us see what the Poles, rejoicing in their new-found freedom, accomplished in the twenty years fate allotted them.

The first achievement was unification. Proud of their Polish citizenship, in an amazingly short time the Poles had set up their national administrative, legislative, and judicial machinery. Experts were sent abroad to study educational systems, municipal government, housing, banking-everything. Many of the ablest college students studied in Western Europe or America, either on government scholarships or through such organizations as the Kosciusko Foundation. The Poles, laying foundations of national life, were eager to profit from the experience of other peoples.

Agricultural Reform Goes Forward

The rural problem was the first approached. A program was inaugurated, and by 1938, 6,560,000 acres of land had been parceled, by which action 153,600 new homesteads averaging 23 acres had been created and 503,000 dwarf holdings enlarged.

Equally important was consolidation of scattered strips. In former Russian Poland, division of land among heirs had resulted in the existence of "fields" in some instances only a few feet wide. A man might own several of them, widely separated. Obviously consolidation, through exchange, was beneficial to all concerned. By 1938 a total of 859,000 workable farms had been the result of consolidation.

Rural life practically had to start anew, for five-sixths of Poland had been a battlefield. Yet in a few years Poland was not only supplying the home market but exporting grain, livestock, meat, and dairy products in large quantities. Polish ham was well-known in America. Bacon, sausages, and a score of other items were figuring more and more on Polish export lists. Poland, famous for its horses, had state and privately owned stud farms, and exported horses to all parts of the world.

Industries Developed Despite War Devastation

Agriculture could not provide occupation and income for the large rural population. Immediate rehabilitation of damaged industries and establishment of new ones were a necessity.

Lodz, under the Russians a great textile center, quickly regaining its reputation as the "city of a thousand smokestacks," surpassed its earlier records in supplying the West with fine cottons and the East with exotic goods. Lodz and Bielsk were both noted for their woolens. In other centers plants producing railroad rolling-stock, machine tools, farm machinery, and armament arose, and Poland not only supplied her own needs in these respects but exported. Chemical and drug industries flourished, fertilizer being an extremely important item.

Hemp and flax thrive in Poland and almost every peasant cottage had its loom. How many lengths of homespun linen I have bought from the women who wove it! In the last years of free Poland factories were entering this field, and well I remember the flourishing and fascinating shop the Wilno producers opened in Warsaw. That was just one of thousands of newer and smaller industries over the country.

German's Industrial Record Bettered

Everybody has heard about Upper Silesian coal. But not all know that when the Germans had to relinquish this area in 1919 to the Poles they jeered at the idea that Poles could operate the. coal and ore mines, and not all know that the Poles even bettered production and kept it at a high level when coal-mining was termed a "contracting industry."

Polish forests had suffered severely during the war, but thanks to wise reforestation Polish lumber was a leading export.

Finally there was the great central industrial district project of the late '30s, comprising an area equal to one-fifth of Poland. Here heavy industries were being developed, away from the danger to which those in Upper Silesia were subjected through proximity to Germany. Cheap electric power was drawing all sorts of private industries. This project was destined to raise the level of life both of that depressed area and of the eastern provinces, to tie- all Poland together economically, and at the same time drain off the excess rural population into industry.

Production implied delivery, which in turn necessitated improvement in transportation and communication. Highways and streets were resurfaced, and what that means you cannot appreciate unless you have walked or ridden over the "cats' heads," as the Poles called the cobbles of Russian days.

River regulation was begun. Rivers, especially the Vistula, are important in freight transportation. A railroad was built, connecting the coal fields with Gdynia, Poland's one port which, a fisher hamlet in 1924, in 1938 had the largest turnover--9,173,438 tons-of all the Baltic ports; while that of Danzig [Gdansk], which had so feared Gdynia's rise, trebled its average during the three most prosperous years under Prussian rule.

Modern School System Instituted

The Poles had to establish a school system to serve millions demanding education, when every cabinet minister was with good reason asking that his field be given priority in the budget. The army had to be built up and maintained; defense of the state is the first principle when there is an uncertain neighbor on either side. The ministry of social welfare had to have funds; people could not be left to starve until work was found. Yet gradually classes moved from makeshift quarters into well-equipped modern school buildings, the adopted education system was put into effect, and by 1939 Poland had one of the most progressive school systems in Europe, with compulsory school laws and ninety-one per cent attendance.

Progressive Social Program Begun

The social program of Poland was far more progressive than the American. Take only the matter of health insurance. Membership was compulsory for all employed whose monthly salary was below 750 zloty (roughly seventy dollars). Domestic workers' assessments were paid by the employer. I know, having paid them for seventeen years. But when my cook was in a hospital for six weeks, neither she nor I paid anything.

As for the appearance of the country, the Poland of 1939 was very different from that gray, drab, poverty-stricken land of 1922. Peasant cottages had been repaired and new-roofed, and thousands of new ones built. Good modern business and apartment houses replaced ancient city structures; attractive residential suburbs appeared. Parks and playgrounds were a feature of every community. Splendid museums, built a wing at a time and housing patiently assembled collections, and small regional museums--for every Polish locality has historic associations in which it takes great pride--arose.

Long-Range Planning

The Poles made long-term plans, thinking in years and not in weeks, carrying out those plans by stages, as they had the means.

They wanted a beautiful as well as a prosperous Poland. In summer, for example, Warsaw was a mass of flowers. An English house guest with us one year was continually exclaiming over the cleanliness of Warsaw streets, the innumerable window-boxes of blossoms and trailing vines, the perfectly kept parks and flower- and tree-bordered avenues.

Dr. W. J. Rose, who had known Poland at its worst, after a summer tour of the country in 1938 came in exclaiming, "At last we have the Poland we dreamed about I" Perhaps he was a bit exuberant. There was still much room for improvement, of course. No one knew that so well as the Poles themselves.

"If only we could have had ten years more," they said sadly in September, 1939. But what they did achieve in twenty years was a convincing demonstration of their ability both to plan wisely and to execute those plans.