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 5

INSIDE POLAND 1945

In late July, 1944, the USSR recognized the Lublin Committee of National Liberation, which arose at the call of the "Polish Patriots" in Moscow. Six months later this group was replaced by a "provisional government of Poland." To clothe this body with a semblance of decency and legality, mass meetings attended through compulsion and managed by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police) were reported to have demanded such a government.

From the character of the men in that "government" it is evident that the voice of the people was faked. To mention only the leaders--Bierut, the President, had been a Soviet citizen since 1921; Osobka, the Prime Minister, a onetime employee of cooperative societies in prewar Poland, had had no experience whatever in international affairs or diplomacy.

From Lublin and Moscow broadcasts, from American journalists, from reports of the Polish underground--admitted by Americans who know Europe under the Nazis to be the world's most efficient-and from a few persons who have come out of Poland, it is possible to know what has been happening and what are the conditions of life in Poland.

"EVIDENCE" ON POLISH UNDERGROUND LEADERS

As Germans are driven out of a district the Polish "government," which is in all its aspects controlled by the

NKVD, sends representatives to that area to set up local administration and, most important of all, organize tribunals to try immediately "traitors, fascists, and all collaborators."

Under these heads come members of the underground and all who have given them the slightest assistance; the Polish Home Army, whose one occupation was opposition to the Germans; priests, professors, teachers, peasants who had been "friendly" to the Home Army; professional people of all categories and all others suspected of being "enemies of the people," which means disapproving of Soviet ideology and methods. NKVD agents themselves collected the evidence.

MANY DEPORTED TO ASIATIC RUSSIA

Arrests and mock trials result in execution or deportation to Asiatic Russia.

All reports coming from the various parts of Poland, whether brought out by individuals or contained in dispatches from the underground to the Polish Government in London, show that what has happened and is happening in Poland since its so-called liberation is a repetition of Soviet procedure in Eastern Poland in 1939-1940. Trainloads of human cattle again are moving across Polish plains to unknown destinations. Tens of thousands have thus disappeared already. From the little town of Tarnow alone some 800 schoolchildren have been deported.

No one is above suspicion; during the first two months sixty employees of the ministry of the interior were arrested and disappeared. But the Home Army is first on the list.

It has been declared fascist and its complete extermination demanded. Yet it was not loose guerilla bands but an integral part of the Polish Armed Forces, a national army and so recognized by America and Britain.

STORY OF THE WARSAW UPRISING

In a Red Army commander's order (August 24, 1944) that fell into Polish hands, General Bor is called the "commander of the Nationalist Polish Army." That Russian order, let me say in passing, concerned the strict prevention of any aid reaching the Poles in the Warsaw uprising, although during the latter part of July the Moscow radio had continually incited the Poles to rise and on July 30 called Warsaw to arms. On August 1, the Red Army being at the doors, the Polish Home Army with the co-operation of the entire Warsaw population rose against the Germans. The outlook was excellent.

Immediately Russian fighting on that sector ceased, and Moscow and Lublin began accusing the Polish Government-in-Exile and General Bor of ordering a premature uprising and of collaboration with the Germans. Red armies waited at the Vistula--its waters very low that August--while the Germans made rubble of the Polish capital and killed or took prisoner its people. Calumniation of General Bor, President Raczkiewicz, and General Sosnkowski, then commander-in-chief of the Polish army, filled the Moscow and Lublin press and broadcasts. It happens that I know President Raczkiewicz and General Sosnkowski personally, men of the highest character, long public service, and a credit to any nation.

FREEDOM DENIED IN "LIBERATED" POLAND

In Poland today there is no freedom of speech, press, or assembly. No radios carrying foreign broadcasts are permitted. No organizations except those strictly NKVD-controlled exist: They may bear familiar names-but with that, similarity to earlier days ceases. The Lublin radio has announced that the Krakow YMCA is functioning normally again; he is indeed naive who believes it. Trade unions have been reorganized on a Soviet basis. The Polish Red Cross has been liquidated. Stringent regulations apply to all correspondence.

Economic conditions are worse than under German occupation. Soviet-promised food has not been delivered. Red soldiers may send eleven-pound food packages from Poland to Russia. Pillaging and robbing by soldiers are not interfered with. Requisitioning of food for the Red Armies has stripped the land-requisitions being from 20% to 300% higher than the heavy German toll.

State and private property is being systematically shipped to the USSR. Soviet troops, plentifully supplied with Lublin zlotys printed in Moscow, have brought on inflation. October 10, 1944, prices were from 500% to 1,000% higher than August 1.

Ration cards are obtainable only by persons employed and members of their family recognized as unfit for labor. January 12, 1945, Lublin-Committee cabinet member Osobka publicly admitted: "Our rationing system is only partially functioning ... It hardly operates at all in some parts of the country."

From all sides come reports of impending famine. Permission to exchange no more than 500 of the German zlotys for the new currency has practically ruined private business and paved the way for the introduction of "state enterprise."

"REFORMS" UNDER MOSCOW'S PUPPET REGIME

Schools function, but the teaching is communist. Announcement is made that eight universities are open in Lwow, where there was one university and one engineering school before the war. Libraries, laboratories, and shops were plundered, buildings damaged or destroyed. The 1939 population (320,000) is much reduced, professors and students have been killed or deported. The idea of eight universities and twelve technical schools in that war-ravaged community is fantastic.

Rural reform is a major theme with the Lublin group. September 6, 1944, it confiscated without compensation all holdings larger than 125 acres and everything on them; likewise smaller properties belonging to "enemies of the people," some of these peasants, and divided among the landless. Statistics given by the official in charge show an average of 4.5 acres to a man, in certain instances as little as one acre.

Dissatisfaction is general among the recipients. In some districts peasants have refused to share in the parceling, disapproving both of the method and the results. Agrarian reform implies more than giving a man a few acres. In Poland it should mean parceling with compensation, consolidation of scattered holdings so prevalent in eastern Poland under the czars, credit, insurance, price stabilization, agricultural education, and a lot of other things.

POLAND'S SUBSTANTIAL LAND REFORMS PRIOR TO 1939

The prewar Polish Government had made an excellent beginning, having created between 1919-1938, 153,600 new homesteads averaging 23 acres and enlarged 503,000 others by an average of 4.9 acres. Consolidation had produced 859,000 profitable holdings. A total of 225,000 ,acres had been used for model farms and scientific purposes. The work was continuing in 1939; but by 1938 only about 14% of Poland's arable land was in holdings exceeding 125 acres. Great landowners played a wholly insignificant part in prewar Poland, having practically disappeared from the political scene when Poland was restored in 1919.