Poland's Fighting Record: 1939-44
OAK, LISTON M.
Special New Leader Supplement Poland's Fighting Record: 1939-44 By Liston M. Oak "As long «/ one German remains on Polish sotl, MT cm think only of fighting the invader, oj maktngieriam that...
...Polish Government in London...
...In prewar Poland he was the vice-chairman of the powerful Peasant Party...
...4. THE UPRISING IN WARSAW, AUGUST, 1944 TllE Polish Underground was born in September, 1939, when Warsaw was swept by a hurrirans of fire...
...He organized a prison rebellion, escaped, was caught, and was removed to the notorioua Orel prison...
...But the leadership, in constant consultation with the Polish Government-in-Exile, derided that the time was not yet...
...that is a matter of political view...
...Warsaw lies in ruins...
...General Bor gave orders to bar their way, to aid the Red Army...
...German* on the tamY seal* in VOno, Novogrodsfc and Bialyatok regions...
...The Peasant Party boycotted the elections to the parliament together with the whole opposition...
...on August t. 1941, Beria, head of (he GPU, entered a cell in the l.ubianka prison in Moscow to in form Gen...
...And many individuals in the Underground agreed...
...Mikolajczyk had been told by Stalin that the Red Army wae only eix milet from Wareaw and that the capital would be taken on August 6. • * • The first small delivery of arms was on August 8 from 3 Polish planes flown from Italy—a round trip of 1,750 miles...
...This is felt the more keenly because ever since our struggle started Soviet and German forces have been deadlocked on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw...
...On the eve of August 1, Russian artillery was shelling Praga, the ,industrial suburb of Warsaw It was the assumption of most military experts that the Rod Army would concentrate all its colossal power against Warsaw, the last stronghold barring the way across the open plains straight to Berlin—the shortest route to the'Nasi capital...
...When the rising broke out we immediately informed competent Soviet authorities by wireless via London...
...We must do everything to avoid a repetition of these horrors in Warsaw...
...27, one day before Molotov •nd Ribbenthrop signed sn agreement for the fourth Partition of Poland...
...The record proves this Warsaw was forced by overwhelming German mill tary superiority to capitulate-—but Warsaw won the flrst of the moral victories in this war, which prepared the way far the Allied military victories now being won...
...Thkt jMgj*r- wn broken...
...Both bodies were based on the democratic opposition to the prewar dictatorship...
...Simultaneously Moscow stated that the Red Army was so busily engaged on other fronts that it was not expected that Warsaw would be captured soon...
...Four of them were to cross the Vistula River in Warsaw...
...A few days after the Nazis goose-stepped into smouldering Warsaw, a new Polish army began forming under General Wladyalaw Sikorski, under whose Premiership a new Government had been set up in Paris...
...On September 11 and 12 the Poles could hear the Red Army artillery shelling Praga once more, and on Sept...
...The attitude of the Sancja (discredited prewar reactionaries I Was given by Smigly-Rydz, "This workers' defense smacks of socialist revolution...
...Th* leaders of the Socialist and Peasant Partiea continue to fight their influence...
...The Underground thua organized supports and give* directions to the...
...August 18, 1944...
...Several thousand Polish officers had mysteriously disappeared, and to all requests from the Polish Government for information about them, Moscow gave evasive answers...
...The Germans launched a counterattack on the Red Army of General Kokossotsay...
...4 4 4 t. WHO'S WHO In the Polish Government in London...
...and the other 44.000 in August...
...Berlin found no Polish Quislings, no collaborationists, eeuld not set up a puppet government...
...For several days Red Army plsnes dropped food and ammunition into the smouldering city, and British and American planes could at last ferry from England and Italy and land on Russian fields, refuel and return...
...It must not he premature, nor too late...
...What we gained in August we lost in the second month which was the worst...
...led to the present war...
...Again, on May I, 1934, the two nations signed another protocol reaffirming their solemn pledge of friendship and renewing the Pact of N on-Aggression until December 31, 1945...
...Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Polish commander-in-chief in London, to impress Anglo-Americans with fictitius strength of-his followers...
...But, from the very first, the government of reconstructed Poland must be based on full democracy, local selfgovernment, and the absolute equality of all citizens, irrespective of creed and national origin...
...In this heroic effort to free our capital, we have been left to our fate...
...For S3 days thereafter the Warsaw patriots fought ferociously...
...His life reflects the revolutionary fight of Polish labor...
...The Old City was in total ruins...
...P^sf Premier Mikolajczyk declared: "The defensWf Warlaw will remain forever a testimony to the invincible Moral strength of the Polish nation and its unyielding will to independence...
...It is true that in the Polish Army-in-Exile there remain some officers of the old regime who are reactionary and anti-Semitic, even semi-fascist...
...Throughout July the Kosciuszko radio station in Moscow had broadcast thirteen ringing appeals to the people of Poland and especially of Warsaw not to wait any longer, but to start the uprising immediately...
...On August 11 the Germans sent an ultimatum demanding surrender and ordering the population to evacuate the capital, all ablebodied citizens to enroll in labor battalions...
...Too Little aad Too Lata . .. The uprising entered its final period—guerrilla warfare in the fight for survival...
...Aa they wnjreat, tha Nasi* sppiV.tae ae^hedrdaHh plan, and Uaty intensify the terror m a Anal farioas effort to exterminate all Underground ftghiei i By the end of July 1944, mass executions snd deportations had become s daily event The Gorman* alia ordered the dismantling of all factories ia Warsaw and evacuation of their workers, who war* the backbone of the resistance...
...But a Non-Aggression Part was signed by Ribbentrop for Nasi Germany and Molotov for Soviet Russia on August 23, 1939...
...On August 10, General Bor radioed to London that without immediate aid the Underground Army would be unable to hold out much longer...
...On July 30, Poland and Russia reached an agreement in which MosWw recognized that the Russian-German treaty partitioning Poland had lost its validity...
...2.000,000 have beeen deported to the Nazi Reich...
...They fought, and they are still fighting...
...Aid from Russia had ceased...
...Warsaw—and all of Polsnd—wss defended, primarily, net by the Polish Army under its corrupt and reaction sry oaVer caste, but by the people...
...The Underground had been driven back to the center of the city...
...We are fighting a strenuous battle...
...The Germans are murdering the wounded in hospitals...
...That was the beginning of the European Underground resistance to Hitlerism...
...But the Germans will never conquer Warsaw—only the ruins that are left...
...They were reviled by Wanda Wasiiewska over the radio as cowards...
...1 However, the new Cabinet could not legally change the Constitution during wartime, outside the country, and without parliamentary sanction...
...It is the...
...When the Germans are pushed out of Praga, they will attempt to hold Warsaw and will try to destroy everything...
...totalitarian Communists and their fellow-travelers, stooges, dupes, and innocents who are the main threat to democracy in Poland—more than the remnants of the aneien regime...
...19 (UP)—Prevo4m, offer is I Co*, munist party newspaper,' said today ia a front page dispatch that the Warsaw insurrection was doomed to failure from the beginning aad that the men who died fighting German mechanised troops in the Polish capital were "foully deceived by s group ef adventurous and political speculator* of the l^indon emigre government.'" The London Daily Mirror commented editorially on August 28: "It can now be revealed that the use of Russisa bases hss been refused to British or Americas planes attempting to supply the pstriols in Wsrssw with food and arms...
...Efforts of the British and French Governments to justify their new position on the grounds of their undertakings to Poland are, of course, obviously unsound...
...They come to ¦is to bring as liberation...
...This belated aid enabled General Bor to resume the offensive...
...5; thereafter resistance continued on a secret, underground basis Polish patriots of all political affiliations participated leyally in the relentless resistance to the Nazi invaders...
...These troops are now fighting on the Italian front winning victories at Cassino, Ancone and other battles...
...The Soviet armies are pushing forward and are near Praga...
...The common Labor and Peasant program for a People's Poland calls for agrarian reform, for thoroughgoing democracy, political and social, under which Poland can progress peacefully and gradually toward eltavination of all the evils and injustice* which have afflicted that land for so long...
...Fighting continued unceasingly...
...1, 1939, and the Red Army crossed the esstern frontier on September 17...
...In the following days the Germsns, increasing the ferocity of their attacks, recaptured one stronghold after another...
...The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry is Jan Kwapinski, member of the Polish Socialist Party and chairman of its representation abroad...
...What was Moscow's response...
...Hitler's first big mistake was to think that when the rotten and incompetent dictatorship crumbled before the onslaught of the gigantic German war machine, and Ha army demolished, Poland would surrender...
...It grew worse until in April, 1943, the Jews of Warsaw's ghetto organized one of the most amazing, magnificent, and dramatic battles in all history...
...Caught between the armies of powerful totalitarian nations, the Poles had no chance...
...Hear us—Holy Father, Vicar of Christ...
...The Red Army during its summer offensive had been making amazingly rapid advances all along the front for the previous six weeks...
...But legitimacy is not an end in itself...
...1943 TllE people of Warsaw have seized arms in defense of their capital many times—in 1794, in 1830, in 18<>3, in 1905, and in 1918...
...People of War taw—to arm...
...the second—an outstanding lawyer and labor leader in Poland, a leader of the Jew'lsh Socialist Bund...
...And so...
...Neither contains any representatives of the prewar fascist, anti-Semitic, ultra-nationalist Sanacja group...
...During the past two years Polish Russian relations have steadily deteriorated, despite the efforts of London and Washington, and due entirely to Moscow's stubborn insistence on unilateral action...
...Germany's efforts to break the fetters of the Versailles *reaty...
...Mikolaczyk was at the head of the party in the absence of its exiled leader, Wincenty Witos...
...As WRN, an Underground paper, stated it, "The first task of the postwar Parliament will be to carry out a far-reaching revision of the Constitution that was imposed upon Poland by the prewar regime, and of-all political and administrative laws and institutions...
...Wladyslaw Anders that he had been ap pointed Commander of the Polish Army in Russia Poles released from jails, forced labor camps, and from exile in Sil.eii.-i were recruited into this army...
...The Soviet Government agreed to the creation •« a Polish army on Soviet soil, and granted an amnesty *° all the thousands of Poles imprisoned in the USSR...
...1939: "We thank the British nation for their esteem, but we are waiting for efficacious aid...
...In Bialysuik they plundered for six days...
...Ike feerth Partition ef Poland TllKRK followed the fourth partition of Pola nd, \iolating all the solemn treaties which had been made between Poland and Russia, on the pretext that the Polish Government and State had ceased to exist...
...Zionists were sctive, snd aided by the whole Polish Underground from the outside, the Jews changed from regular military tactics to guerrilla warfare from beneath ruins, from cellars and aewers snd dugouts and barricades...
...And long careful preparations must be made—everything and everybody must be ready for the signal "Tempest...
...The Germans were forced to retreat beyond the walls of the ghetto several limes during the flrst week...
...But itietead of the expected reaction of approval, Moscow responded with a new attack on the Polish Government, sharper than ever, and on Bor as a "reactionary...
...These men, joined by Peles who lived in France and elsewhere abroad, were organized into an army-in-exile Polish brigades now fighting on eveiy front...
...The Peasant Party and ithe Polish Socialist Party have each three ministers in the Cabinet, the two other parties each two, and three members of the government are conservative* without party affiliation...
...Germany invaded Poland on Sept...
...The Germans, in order to secure channels for their troops, are burning the town and exterminating the population...
...Our sons sre perishing...
...The rest of the buildings were then dynamited and burned, until the ghetto was utterly destroyed...
...A few years before the war he became the Mayor of Lodz...
...At last (since Sept...
...Germany is in the position of a State that is striving for the earliest termination of the war and for peace, while Britain and France, which but yesterday were declaiming against aggression, are in favor of continuing the war and are opposed to the conclusion of peace...
...Thus on July 30, the judgment of the Warssw Underground, in agreement with the instructions of the Polish Government in London which gave the Underground leadership a free hand in choosing the right moment for an upriaing, and the appeal of the Moscow-sponsored Polish Committee, both coincided—both h-'^vcd that tha time for an uprising had come...
...On August 3, the Isst rumble of the hesvy artillery of the Red Army was heard—then silence...
...The Peasant Party had an excellently organized Youth Movement (Wici...
...He is an outstanding Polish scholar, a historian, and he is also known aa a stubborn enemy of the Polish prewar—Sanarja—dictatorship...
...Warsaw was an inferno of burning buildings...
...He is the son of a worker and was a metal worker himself...
...Second to Mikolajrzyk in influence ia another member of the Peasant Party, the Minister of Information, Professor Stanislaw Kot...
...He lost his chair at the University of Krakow because of his political activities, and was arrested but soon released under public pressure...
...Mikolajrzyk fought as a private in Warsaw during the siege and waa interned in Hungary...
...The direction of the paia JUssisa asTeasive was -hanged from the Wsrssrf sector te tha Balkans aad Eaat Prsmsia...
...Refusal brought intensified attack, from the air, from armored trains, from heavy artillery, from warships on the Vistula...
...he eacaped to France and became, in 1941, Minister of tha Interior, and after Sikorski> death, Prime Minister...
...One such In igade fought at Narvik, Norway, in May, 1940...
...Despite the tremendous odds against them, the resistance was surprisingly effective...
...Only a walled city of death and deatruetien remained aa a monument to a heroic dead...
...He and other Poles who ordered the "premature" uprising would be tried as war criminals if they fell into the hands of the Red or Polish Army, said Osubka-Morawski, chairman of the Lublin Committee...
...After acquainting myself with the general military situation, I came to the conclusion that, In spite of the heroism of the army and the entire Warsaw population, there are still needs which, if.made good, would permit a speedier victory over a common foe...
...If3« WORLD WAR II began Sept...
...The way was cleared for the advancing Red Army at Praga...
...There was also a Carpathian brigade organized in Syria in April, 1940, and it defended Tobruk fur four months in 1941...
...Mom execution...
...f> the Government and the General Staff oi eered the evacuation of Warsaw, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) took the leadership in organizing the peo pie's war for liberation...
...The Polish Government asked the International Red Gross to investigate, whereupon Moscow broke off diplomatic relations...
...Every important decision in London is taken only after consultation with th* Underground...
...Germany invaded Russia June 22, 1941...
...A sound agrarian reform ensuring a just partition of land among the peasant population...
...Has Poland earned the right to be a free, sovereign, independent nation...
...It is no use for Communists or Liberals to say that the rising was premature...
...A declertion signed by Lenin, ftUeherin...
...1, Bor reported that "The situation is very critical...
...But persons of all parties and classes have supported it loyally...
...Special New Leader Supplement Poland's Fighting Record: 1939-44 By Liston M. Oak "As long «/ one German remains on Polish sotl, MT cm think only of fighting the invader, oj maktngieriam that not one single Naxi murderer en apes ftirtbution...
...The Worse w upriaiag »•• rat off from sutssds aid- , % Despite their shortage of arms (mostly captured I the Warsaw patriots continued fop the next week to extend their control of the western and central sections of the cspital...
...The ghetto became an inferno, enveloped in clouds <>f smoke...
...It is given in a United Press dispatch, the accuracy of which is confirmed by editorials in the Daily Worker of both New York and I .¦ I in Ion : "Moscow, Aug, 8 (UP).—Soviet circles discount or are skeptical of claims by the Polish emigre government in London that the Polish underground is engaged in heavy fighting inside Warsaw...
...It is remarkable that the Government, first in Paris and then in London, could maintain the closest contact with the Underground in Poland—closer than the liaison between any other government-in-exile and its Underground at home...
...It is criminal to •age such « w»r as the war for 'the destruction of Hitmrism' camouflaged as 'a war for democracy...
...One of the underground papers was Armia Ludowa (Popular Army), a Communist organ, which said onAugust 15: "The armed uprising lias found the support of the broadest masses of Warsaw's people, quite independently of who started it and for what purpose...
...The Polish Government is a coalition government of four political parties: The Polish Peasant Party...
...Of this large number, 3,500,000 were executed or died in concentration ramps...
...are estimated at 900,000—killed, wounded, missing, and war prisoners...
...Finally, on April 18 the SS troops and the Gestapo again surrounded the ghetto, and a battle that lasted five weeks began, The entire population of the ghetto, man, women, and children, fought as one, knowing well the impoaaibility of victory, knowing that the outcome could only be death for them all...
...Since Moscow had long said that a chief obstacle to an understanding with the Polish Government was the fact that General Sosnkowski, a conservative of the prewar Sanacja regime, was Commander-inChief of Poland's armed forces, the Poles now made a conciliatory gesture by forcing the President to oust Sosnkowski and to appoint General Bor to this post...
...Europe is so near the brink that even (he most general appeal to rise will be answered...
...But even from the • tin- the struggle continued for a few day...
...they weie thereafter sent to the defense of Prance...
...The ruling circles of Britain end France have been attempting to depict themselves as cha mpious of the democratic rights of nstioae against Hitlerism...
...He I...
...But Poland is indestructible...
...1920, recognized «alireseiv«dly" the inviolsble principle of self di-tei ssinstion and the independence and sovereignty of Potted...
...The National Democratic Party, The Christian Democratic Labor Party...
...In the first few days the plans were carried out with 90 percent success...
...The Christian Labor Party represents largely the Democratic Catholic elements, cloae in character to the Christian Labor Unions in France...
...I/Osses within occupied Poland are approximately 5,700,000...
...On Oct...
...The party organized peasant-strikes with the outspoken political aim of restoration of political democracy...
...The Russian Revolution aet him free...
...If our bloody efforts are not to be in vain, if we are to be saved from total extermination, immediate help must be sent in the form of ammunition and weapons on a large scale and by bombardment of enemy positions...
...Thus Poland's total losses exceed 18 percent of her prewar population— a higher percentage of loss than has been suffered by any other country...
...It desires friendly cooperative relations with the US8R...
...Then began their use of heavy artillery, incendiary bombs, machine guns from planes, flame-throwers, and grenades in a systematic destruction of barricaded buildings, one after another...
...The Pilaudskists, the reactionaries of the Sanarja, the anti-Semitic officials of the one-party dictatorship, the clique of Colonel Back* and Smigfly-Rydz—these men did not become Quislings, but neither did they lead the heroic defense of Poland...
...2. THE POLISH ARMY-IN-EXILE ThE Underground struggle within Poland went on, but in addition many thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians escaped...
...On January 18 the Germans decided upon the finsl liquidation of the ghetto, from which nesrly 400,000 Jews hsd been deported to forced labor camps, or executed...
...We are beginning the third month of fighting...
...This Polish Government-in-Exile is Utterly different from the prewar dictatorships...
...Thus the legal continuity of the State was assured...
...The Treaty of Riga, signed on March 18, 1921, aadad war between Russia and Poland, and denned the frontlet A protocol of Feb...
...The next day Allied planes again dropped a few supplies...
...the specification of arms and ammunition follows) . . . German air force is destroying the city and killing the civilians...
...This is the position of Warsaw today...
...The best orgsnized Underground in Europe, its record of struggle exceeds that of any other.* Thoroughly democratic, popular, and progressive, its main strength lies in the Polish Socialist Party, the trade unions, and the Peasant Party...
...During five yeais of sacrifice the Underground prepared for the final uprising which would help to expsli the Nazi invaders from Polish soil...
...Every attempt to restore normal diplomatic relations on the part of the Polish Government has been frustrated...
...The timing was of supreme importance...
...Most of the families of these Polish soldiers remained in Russia...
...17,1»$9...
...Aroused public opinion plus pressure by Washington and London had forced this reluctant concession from Moscow...
...In Free Poland ha became a member of the Central Committee of the Polish Socialist Party...
...This program declared that: ". . . The Polish Republic will lie a democratic and republican State, strictly observing the principles of legal government responsible to a true national assembly . . . elected by the method of general, equal, direct and secret vote...
...The coalition was based on an outspoken democratic program proclaimed by the government headed by Sikorski and confirmed by the National Council on February 24, 1942...
...On Sept...
...Polish soldiers, the Red Army is coming to assist you...
...It may be that in a dozen other cities tomorrow...
...Kor five cruel jeers the Poles have carried on systematic sabotage, guerrilla warfare, rescue of prisoners, unceasing hairaasment of the German armies from the rear "If «*er a people hat by its heroitm rained the riyht tee oetee in its own mfmire, it it the people of Poland," wrote Edgar Anael Mowrer...
...The Nazis began the systematic mass deportations and subsequent slaughter of Jews jn Warsaw in August, 1942...
...He joined, as a young boy, the Polish Socialist Party In 1902 and fought against Tsarist rule...
...But as one of the numerous socialist leaders who were later •set by the Nazis, Mieczyslaw Niedzialkowski, declared, Better to die for freedom than to live in slavery...
...4. 1941, in a joint declarewon of Sikorski and Stalin in Moscow...
...Warsaw has shown that there is no price the Poles will not pay for freedom...
...Risings cannot be set like stop watches...
...Not one of these parties advocates a return to Mikolaczyk the prewar dictatorial Pilsudski-Sanacja regime...
...its General Staff had fled, with notable exceptions of many officers who took their places with the sew Underground Army of workers and peasants mid soldiers and patriots of other classes...
...Similar facilities had been readily granted for other missions...
...The Polish nation repudiates all systems of totalitarian government and forms of dictatorship...
...But the people, led by the anti-fascist demo eratir parties in the Underground and in the Palish Gevernment-in-Exile, said no...
...Help me to get in touch with General Rokossowsky...
...The following message was sent by Oneral Bor (o Marshal Rokossowsky on August 8: "Since August 1, 1944, 1 have been fighting the Germans in Warsaw with the help of the whole population and all military organizations, united within the Home Army, as well as such organizations as the Workers' Militia, People's Militia, Polish People's Army and others who join us in the fight...
...But the aid was far from adequate to the need...
...77 The first units of the Red Army have entered Praga...
...The Soviet Red Army invaded eastern Poland on Sept...
...The Germans had put a price of $1,500,000 on his head...
...Such is the Government described aa fascist by Moscow's propagandists...
...There are such officers also in the American and British armies...
...But they lost tha bridges ov« the Vistula • * • A red ARMY liaison ol&eer, Captain Kaiugm, was dropped by parachute into Warsaw and on August » he sent this message to "Marshal Comrade Stalin" "I am in personal contact with the Commander of Warsaw Garrison who ia loading the heroic partisan fight of the nation against Hitlerite bandits...
...The USSR broke off relations with Poland under the pretext of the Katyn affair...
...This party represented and represents now, in the Underground, the largest segment of the Polish population...
...Finally the Berlin radio reported that they had been murdered by the Red Army in the Katyn forest...
...Fr«m WRN Robotmk w WaLe, Polish Underground labor paper, Nov...
...The heroism of the Polish Home Army and the gallantry of the Warsaw population have been unsurpassed...
...But their cause was hopeless...
...SOS General Komorowski and what remained of 25,000 brave men were taken prisoners by the Germans on October 4. Berlin had agreed to treat them as prisoners T HE charge that the rising was provoked by the London Government is incorrect insofar as the Polish Patriots in Moscow also broadcast to the people of Warssw to rise and fight...
...One may accept the ideology of Hitlerism as well as any other ideological eytem...
...In vain the emigre leaders in London seek to profit by the heroism of Warsaw...
...200,000 are still imprisoned...
...All these maneuvers were taken with the intention of presenting to the world the Polish question as an internal dispute among two rival Polish groups—not as a dispute between Russia and Poland...
...In the absence of an elected Parliament, a National Council was formed to work with the Cabinet...
...Under orders from Lohdon as well as from General Bor, their guerrilla warfarrand ssbotage were coordinated as far as possible with the Russians, On July 11,1944, Polish Premier Stanislaw Mikolajcyk described the situation in the following public declaration : "The Underground commanders in the provinces of Volhynia, Tarnopol, Stalislawow, have for {several months been carrying out large-scale operations in connection with the Red Army's entry into these areas...
...on iileol*M cannot be destroyed by force...
...There can be little doubt that in future, postwar Poland the democratic liberal-labor-socialistpeasant forces will triumph unless they are defeated by Russia...
...This was reaffirmed by both Britain and Russia, as late as May 26, 1942, when the Treaty of Alliance between Great Britain and Russia was signed...
...i For the past three years the Moscow-organized Union of Polish Patriots had been continually urging, over the Kosriuszko radio station, an immediate launching on an uprising...
...Soviet planes were no longer seen over the city...
...Food supplies and ammunition were exhausted...
...Then for the third time the Polish Army was reorganized...
...The communique came through...
...The Nasi SS entered the ghetto, but met with desperate resistance from the 40,000 Jews still there— mostly workers...
...1944...
...On that day the Polish Government and Comnwnder-in-Chief withdrew across the Rumanian border...
...After Hitler broke his pact of friendship with Stalin, and invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, General Sikorski reached an agreement with Moscow, signed on July JO, 1941...
...Or will (he United Nations forget the debt we owe her...
...On August 19 the Lublin radio proclaimed: "The Warsaw uprising proves the fighting spirit of the democratic camp...
...This appeal was snswered...
...This contrasts with the ridicule of the uprising in which Communist papers in Moscow, New York, and London indulged during the early clays of August...
...The London ministers wanted to seize power and refuse help to the approaching Red Army...
...It hss grown under conditions of utmost terror...
...n the day the Soviet-Polish Agreement was signed, Anthony Eden, on behalf of the British Government, ¦mnded a note to General Sikorski, stating: that His Majesty's Government does not recognize »<iy territorial changes which have been effected in Poland since August 1939...
...All this was reaaaerted in a Convention at London oa July 3,1933, between signatories of the KelloggBriand Pact, including Russia and Poland...
...Caught by the surprise attack, the Germans retreated from most important positions—some of the chief buildings, power and railroad -stations, water works, gas works, the telephone building, and bridges spanning the Vistula River, were seized by the Underground forces...
...After Ave terrible weeks the Nazis drove 20,000 Jews from the ghetto and shipped them eastward...
...1942...
...The help thst has come from Britain is insufficient...
...In accordance with the Constitution of 1935 President Moacicki, before hi* internment in Rumania and resignation, appointed Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz as his successor, elections being impossible during the occupation of Poland...
...Warsaw has fallen after exbaaslinn all supplies in the sixty-third Jmmttf its struggle in the face of ni m<«r...
...When the revolt of 190S failed, he was arrested in 1906 and condemned to 16 years' hard labor...
...It should be stressed thst the same four parties form in Polsnd the underground Council of Nstlonsl Unity, supporting the Government Delegate in underground Poland (the Polish "Underground Parliament"), directing the underground administration (the Secret Polish State) and the Home Army...
...at the end of May the last of their ammunition, food, and water was gone, and the last fighters were murdered...
...In the next few days the Germans herded 70,980 civilians, including women and children and aid man, into tha Pruszkow concentration camp outside Warsaw, without food, in sn effort te break the resistance...
...thia gave the Nazis the green light, the go-ahead signal for World War 11...
...The two members of the National Democratic Party") Professor Wm law Komarnicki and Marian Seyda, belong to the moderate wing of this party, which accepted the democratic platform of the present government, in opposition to the reactionary elements of this party...
...0s August 29, 1918, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR abrogated the treaties ii>ttn Tsariet Russia and the governments of Prussia ami Habsburg Austria...
...Strengthened by now supplies tVaapi^ from Allied planes, the patriots captured the headquarters of the Nazi 8S (Elite Guard) troops on August 1», and recaptured other positions...
...Subsequently the Red Army reported that the Nazis had murdered these Polish officer...
...But the Jews had won what they fought for—a decent and honorable death...
...Warsaw would have been a deserted city...
...T I. rOUSM-SOVtlT RILATIONS POLAND has been partitioned four times—in 1772, ,a ifaf, and in 17M, among Russia, Prussia, and AusUi» and in 1989 between Russia and Germany...
...On July 31, 1941, Sumner Welles made a similar statement on behalf of the United States Government...
...and in August 1944...
...These quarters-said this was part of a campaign by Gen...
...Our (Polish) infantry burns with the desire to help Warsaw...
...They murdered thousands of our brothers...
...The American* applied to the Russians for landing and refueling facilities for this errand of mercy, but were refused...
...His special field of activity waa the organization of rural workers...
...7, I'M...
...At present we are still holding the pressure of a great force of armored units and infantry...
...A speedy relief, therefore, by your armies is necessary...
...Moscow's attitude had not changed, as is shown by this United Press story: "MOSCOW, Aug...
...It was total war waged against an entire people whose government and army had collapsed...
...Those strikes ended in bloody clashes, suppressed by the police, but did not diminish the aggressiveness of the movement...
...Subsequently another Polish Army Corps of 80,000 was organized in Russia and is now in action with the Red Army on the Eastern Front...
...Warsaw will be liberated...
...snd everything they stood for—dictstorship, anti-Semitism, th* misrule of the big landlords and induetrialiata, militarism, corruption and incompetence in government...
...From the liberal London Tribune...
...It did not compromise...
...aiue the President of the Farm Workers' Union and of the Polish Trade Union .Congress...
...Ludwik Grosfeld...
...Postwar Poland will endeavor to ensure work and a fair livelihood to the whole population...
...The government will have to eliminate the remnants of fascist cliques...
...Because of the shortage of supplies, 30,000 wert> transferred to Iran in April...
...During the period of the dictatorship, 1926-1939, the four parties which now form the Polish Government-inKxile struggled for democratic reforms, including a new Constitution...
...tt>'» was reaffirmed on Dec...
...When en Sept...
...9, 1929, between Soviet goasis, Estonis, Latvia, Rumania, and Poland, reaounred war as an inatrument of national policy...
...But the expected offensive against Warsaw by the Russians failed to come off...
...On Feb, 21,1940, and again on Ma/3, 1941, the Polish Government addressed notes to all governments with which it had diplomatic relations protesting against riolationa of international law by the Soviet Government—the forcing of Soviet citizenship upon Polish nationals, conscription into the Red Army, executions, arrests, mass deportations and religious persecution...
...of both civilians S soldier* at the infamous Oewiecint and Brzezmka 3bt»atratioR camps began on October 1. It ia estipated that ZM,OM to 800,000 persona lost their lives Aartnf the Warsaw uprising...
...26, 1938, repeated once more "the inviolability of peaceful relations between the two States...
...It I* composed in Urge degree of Ihe very element* who opposed Pilaudaki, Beck, Hmigly-Kydz...
...Six German panzer divisions started moving eastward to launch a counterattack against the approaching Red Army...
...During this war the Warsaw warriors have given proof of their indomitable heroism in three great battles: in September 1939...
...Hitler boasted that the Polish nation had vanished forever, that Poland's army had been forever destroyed...
...in Affnl-Mm 1943...
...We feel, however, already the scarcity of ammunition and heavy arms...
...They are driving women snd "children before their tanks ss screens...
...an, in .accordance with Um Geneva Convention...
...They had to democratize the Government by defining and limiting the powers of the President—to which he agreed—by making itself truly representative of the democratic forces within Poland, but with one minister of the political group which ruled in prewar days, and by establishing closs cooperation and consultation with the Underground...
...1. THE »E6C OF WARSAW...
...At the head of the government is Stanislaw Mikfilajczyk...
...and that is its strength...
...About SO,000 Polish troops escaped from Prance to Britain, m< hiding the airforce of 8,000...
...These were the plans of the . Sanacja leaders...
...Through all this time 30 Underground newspapers appeared daily on the streets, bolstering the morale of the fighters...
...A mass evacuation of civilians look place...
...Later, on Sept...
...Unfortunately we have not been able to coordinate our fighting with the Soviet military command...
...The Polish Army was quickly cut to pieces, its foxes disintegrated and scattered...
...He is a small farmer...
...Kor 36 daya the Poles fought against odds of 71 to I. The Polish Army was smashed at Koch on Oct...
...The Polish Socialist Party (PPS...
...Ettrsibody realize* that there eon be no question of restoring the old Poland...
...Finally Moscow organized the Union of Polish Patriots, and then the Home National Council, which in turn created another puppet organization, the Lublin Committee of National Liberation, which Russia desires to impose upon all of liberated Poland...
...For nine days heavy fighting for the liberation ul Warsaw has been going on...
...There is absolutely no justification for a war of this kind...
...Also the soldiers of the Red Army are hurrying to assist the capital...
...Still another Polish Army was organized in Russia After the German Russian partition nf Poland, about one million Poles were deported to Russian territory...
...He also said, "We prevented a compromise with Hitlei ; we, the people of Poland, preferred war to surrendei to the Nazi dictatorship...
...and Trotsky on Jan...
...Previously Moscow had denied the possibility of dropping supplies, in refusing the request of Britain for the use of Russian-held airfields near besieged Warsaw...
...Msrx commented on the Paris Commune that it was historically premature, but having broken out it was deserving of the fullest help...
...Poland will guarantee and respect the civil rights and liberties of all citizens . . . regardless at national, religious or racial differences...
...SEPTEMBER...
...Warsaw's Mayor, Stefan etsrxyneki, one of the few Sanarja leaders who remained at their posts, radioed London on Sept...
...On August 1, 1944, the Underground Army leader in Warsaw, General Komorowski, whose nom d< guerre was Bor (meaning "forest"), proclaimed the insurrection...
...A trade agreement was reached on February 19, 1939...
...enemy superiority...
...Numbers of attempts made with this end in view brought no positive result...
...Such an uprising, once tried and defeated, cannot be repeated...
...13) some little aid came from Russian planes...
...The two governments agreed to help each other against the common •oemy...
...He and his party represent the largest political power in Poland, cooperating closely with the Polish Labor Movement This cooperation found its outspoken expression in the common "People's Poland Program...
...In March, 194?, this brigade was shifted to the Middle Kast...
...This Polish Government-in-Exile includea individuals who, like Churchill and Roosevelt, are antiCommunist, hut not anti-Russian...
...In his report to the Supreme Soviet on October 31, 1919, Molotov aaid: "Instead of the enmity that was fostered in every way by certain European powers, we now have a rapprochement and the establishment of friendly relations between the USSR and Germany____ Out swift blow to Poland, first by the Germany Army end then by the Red Army, and nothing was left of thie offspring of the Versailles Treaty...
...The flrst is a mine worker, President of the Polish Mine Workers Union and Vice-President of the International Mine Workers Federation...
...During the Battle of Britain in IM these Polish pilots participated in every major engagement, accounting for one of every ft German planes shot down...
...On July 30 came the final call from the Soviet Kosciuszko ststion: "Warsaw trembles from the loar of guns...
...And as the Red Army advanced through eastern Poland, it was greatly aided by the Underground forces everywhere...
...1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland by the Germans...
...Warsaw held out until Sept...
...A Fact of Non-Aggression between Poland and Russia, consummated on July 26, 1932, again renounced war as a method*of settling disputes, and "guaranteed" th* territorial integrity and political independence of Poland...
...Polish casualties between September, 1939, and January...
...During this time, however, the Underground was constantly active, in guerrilla warfare and, in sabotage, harassing tho Nazis without ceasing...
...26 the Polish Government in London revealed that General Bor is Tadeusz Komorowski, 46, who had led the Underground Army within Poland for five years...
...The heroic population of Warsaw trusts that, in a few hours time, you will give them armed support...
...They are still waiting...
...Over a thousand Jews perished...
...The Germans battered the ruined city with everything they had...
...Led by the Jewish Fighting Organization, in which the Jewish Labor Bund as well as the Zionists and Poale (Socialist...
...A joint communique of Nov...
...Unless you surrender, we wiH wipe out every Pole in Warsaw,'' the Nssis threatened, The Catholic women of Warsaw aent a radio appeal to the Pope praying for Intercession on August 22: "We lack food and medical supplies...
...28, 11139, Russia snd Germany signed a treaty dividing Roland between them, "as a reliable foundation for the future development of friendly relations between their asoploa...
...Th« Polish Horn* Army unite are now Jsghting la tha •pen trains...
...The Workers' Volunteer Brigades fought stubbornly ties by aide with regular army soldiers in Warsaw for three weeks, until all ammunition was gone, anil there was no more bread, no water...
...On Sept...
...IK, Bor declared: "If we had not taken up arms on the first of August we should never have been able to fight at all, because the Germans were beginning to seize our men for digging trenches or for transference far from Polish soil...
...The two other Socialist member* of the Government are Minister of Labor Jan Stanczyk and the Minister of Finance, Dr...
...In Article 5 of that Treaty, both Governments stated that "they will act in accordance with the two principles of not seeking territorial aggrandizement for themselves and of non-interference in the internal affair of other States," in full accordance with the Atlantic Charter, adhered to by the United Nations, including the USSR (United Nations Declaration of January 2, 1942...
...This Polish army in Russia grew to about 74,000, under incredible difficulties...
...Tha antire Underground was in Jeopardy The eleventh hour had come...
...It has earned high political and moral influence by its fight against the Pilsudski regime in prewar Poland...
...On August 15 strong forces of the Underground Army from outside Warsaw marched on the capital in response to General Bor's cry for help...
...3. THE BATTLE OF THE WARSAW GHETTOAPRIL...
...15 the Russians raptured that suburb...
Vol. 27 • November 1944 • No. 47
