polishhistory: In the spring of 1940, the Soviet secret police committed an unprecedented crime by secretly murdering nearly 22,000 Polish citizens. What place does this tragedy occupy in Polish national memory? Professor Tadeusz Wolsza: The Katyń massacre permanently, painfully, and deeply entered into our national history. Each subsequent anniversary is accompanied by new editions of…
On the morning of 10 April 2010, news spread around the world about the crash of the Polish government plane near the city of Smolensk in Russia. by Piotr Bejrowski Polish society still honors the memory of the victims of the unprecedented crime that the Soviets committed against Polish officers in the spring of 1940,…
On the morning of 15 March 1939, German troops entered the western parts of Czecho-Slovakia, beginning the country’ s occupation. The next day, Hitler arrived in Prague and announced the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia “under the protection” of the Third Reich. As a result of German pressure, Slovakia declared state sovereignty…
Recalling the Katyn Massacre was an important aspect of the activities of the democratic opposition in the Polish People’s Republic (PRL), one of the reasons being the subject’s high importance for society back then. by Grzegorz Majchrzak This is best exemplified by the fact that a booklet by Ryszard Zieliński entitled ‘Katyń’ was the…
The Roman Catholic Church in Poland was perceived by occupiers, and especially the Germans, as a synonym of Polishness, says Prof. Jan Żaryn, a historian from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. Polish Press Agency: What was the situation of Christian churches in Poland during the Second World War? Prof. Jan Żaryn: Most…
Rafał Lemkin (1900–59) was an outstanding criminal law expert of Polonised-Jewish descent. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the John Casimir University (Uniwersytet Jana Kazimierza) in Lwów. He contributed to the codification of the Polish penal law, and analysed criminal legislations of the totalitarian regimes of Italy and Soviet Russia. In 1933, he…
