Comments on: The Polish and the Holocaust: What Churchill Knew

By: Robert C.

Robert C. — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 03:18:47 +0000

The Teschen District was invaded by Chechoslovakia in 1919 when Poland was fighting the war with Soviet Union. According to Versailles Treaty that District was awarded to Poland based on majority of Polish inhabitants. Poland in '39 just retook what was belonging to Poland in the first place. - Not so. Teschen (Cieszyn) was divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia at Versailles. You can look it up. Both countries were signatories, both owed their post-1919 existence to Versailles, both agreed to settle border disputes peaceably, as many countries did between the World Wars. "Frisking up at the side of the German tiger with yelpings not only of appetite—that can be understood—but even of triumph..." Churchill said that of Mussolini, but it applies as well to Col. Beck's government snatching Czech victuals from the table in 1938, only to itself become the victuals less than a year later. A line of Churchill's in another context is apposite in my opinion: They had a choice between war and shame; they chose shame, and got war into the bargain. This is no reflection on the heroism of the Polish people in a grim century. Everyone makes mistakes. —RML

By: Mr Robin Brodhurst

Mr Robin Brodhurst — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 15:05:58 +0000

In 1988 I was visiting Poland helping to deliver aid to the Catholic church there. We were advised to take dollars with us and to change them on the street, rather than in a bank. In Warsaw my friend and I were approached by a local whom we assumed wanted to change our dollars for zlottys. Instead, after asking if we were British, he said “I would like to thank you for going to war for us in 1939.” It was remarkably moving.

By: Daniel Wybo

Daniel Wybo — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:59:23 +0000

The courage and character that Churchill pledged for Britain had already been demonstrated by Poland. It was the first country to experience the terror of the Nazi Blitzkrieg, the first to fight back, the first to say — and mean — “We shall never surrender.” Poland fell in October 1939, but its government and military refused then, and refused for the rest of the war, to capitulate. In a remarkable odyssey, scores of thousands of Polish pilots, soldiers, and sailors escaped Poland — some on foot; some in cars, trucks, and buses; some in airplanes; some in ships and submarines. They made their various ways first to France, thence to Britain to continue the fight. For the first full year of the war, Poland, whose government-in-exile operated from London, was Britain’s most important declared ally. Sadly promises made by Churchill to the Poles could not or would not be kept. Of all of Britain's allies in the early years of the war, the Poles have the most grievances for Churchill's failure to keep his promises. - "There are few virtues the Poles do not possess." -WSC. The Polish 303 Squadron, RAF, flying Hawker Hurricanes, claimed the largest number of aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain, even though it joined the fray two months late. As for grievances there are also the Balts, as I remember bicycling Latvia on VE-Day+50. When we said Churchill, they said Yalta. Still, rational consideration of circumstances is valuable. -RML