|
On
1 September 1939 Nazis invaded Poland. Hitler's excuse
for the invasion was the need to secure "that intolerable
Polish corridor." In response to the invasion of
Poland, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany.
World War II had begun.
Despite
gallant resistance there was no hope of withstanding
well - armed German forces but the Polish army, lacking
guns and equipment and desperately out-manned, managed
to hold off the German forces for over a month. On 17
September 1939 the Stalin's Red Army attacked Poland
crossing eastern frontiers. The Polish state was ground
to dust between the thrust of the two most despotic
regimes of the twentieth century.
The
Polish army fought bravely but soon succumbed to overwhelming
odds, and tens of thousands of Polish troops escaped
through Romania and Hungary to continue the fight side
to side with their western allies. Even though defeated,
Poland did not capitulate, and her spirit persisted
in the West in the form of an Emigre Government under
gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski.
In
1940 in France the Polish Army fought side by side with
French and English troops against Nazis. The French,
however barely managed to hold out a month. After conquering
France, Hitler decided to attack Britain. The Germans
launched wave after wave of air strikes but the British
air forces defended with great determination. Winston
Churchill immortalized this Battle of Britain as "England's
finest hour." Polish pilots fought alongside the
British in the aerial combat, and accounted for some
of the highest kill ratios during the course of the
campaign. An the end, Germany failed to gain control
of the airspace over Britain and put off the planned
invasion.
The
course of war changed radically when Hitler's forces
surprisingly attacked his former ally, the Soviet Union,
on 22 June 1941. The Germans threw the Soviets out of
Eastern Poland and extended their power deep into Russia.
All Poland belonged to Nazis and Hitler's policy was
to eliminate the Polish nation and germanize the whole
territory. However, Hitler's invasion of the Soviets
softened Stalin's hard-line attitude towards the Poles.
It's assessed that 2 million Poles were sent by the
Soviets to Siberia in 1939 - 1940. Most of them were
killed in concentration camps. There was one of the
most tragic moments in Poland history - massacre at
Katyn.The Soviets shot and killed there 22 000 Polish
prisoners, including Polish intellectualists and officers.
At last when Germans attacked the Soviets, Stalin turned
to Poland for help in the war against Germany and allowed
to build the Polish army on the Soviets territory. The
I Polish Corps under command of gen. Władysław Anders,
was moved to Middle East and joined British and American
forces fighting in the African theater. The Poles distinguished
themselves at Tobruk, Monte Cassino and in other Allied
campaigns. In 1943 Stalin began to organize a new Polish
army which was to fight with the Red Army against Nazis
in the end of the war.
Meantime,
the Polish nation continued to writhe under the Nazi
occupation. Polish intellectuals and clergy were persecuted
and millions of Poles were rounded up for forced labor.
The large Jewish population were forced to live in squalid
ghettos and deported to forced labor and concentration
camps, later to be annihilated in infamous death camps,
like Auschwitz - Birkenau. Jewish life, which had flourished
in Poland for centuries, was literally destroyed.
Poland
had the best organized guerilla resistance in Europe
during the WWII. The resistance grew in strength during
the war and burst out into the Warsaw Uprising. On 1
August 1944 Armia Krajowa (Home Army) national guerilla
army decided to attack German forces in Warsaw. 63 days
of heroic warfare against numerous and better armed
Nazis without tanks and artillery, passed to history
as the most patriotic but tragic uprising spurt. Having
suppressed the Uprising Hitler sent his rampage forces
to raze the city to the ground.
During
the Normandy Invasion in 1944 Polish forces played an
important role. General Maczek's 1st Armored Division
helped turn the tide of the Battle of Falaise, while
General Sosabowski's 1st Polish Airborne Brigade fought
heroically during the fateful operation Market Garden
in Holland. Polish troops of II Polish Corps captured
Monte Cassino monastery, which opened for the Allies
the road to Rome. At last Hitler's Third Reich collapsed
into disarray and, following the Fuhrer's suicide, surrendered
on May 8, 1945.
The
impact of the war in Poland was horrible. The country
had lost over six million people, about 20 % of its
prewar population. Only 80 000 Polish Jews of 3 million
managed to survive. Thousands of Polish cities were
devastated. Poland gained independence but not the sovereignty.
Poland became a part of Stalin's empire.
|
