Every post-war generation

learns about parents' war from two sources - the public (that is, books, school, TV) and the private: the parents themselves. As the daughter of Polish parents, born and educated in Britain it was strange that my parents' own reticence about what they went through during the Second World War was matched by a curious editing out of most of the Polish experience from the history I was taught. Only towards the end of his life, badgered by his children, did our father tell us his story. My first introduction to the experiences of Poles during the war came from the novel The Silver Sward by Ian Serraillier, which appeared to me simply to be an exciting story of children struggling to survive in German-occupied Warsaw. Through Soldier Bear by Geoffrey Morgan and Wieslaw Lasocki, I was also introduced to Wojtek, the Syrian bear cub adopted by the Polish 22nd Artillery Supply Company during their time in the Middle East, who enlisted as a private in the Polish II Corps and served alongside it in Italy, carrying ammunition cases and shells in return for beer and lit cigarettes.
Later on my interest in military history led me to examine the Second World War in detail and I soon realised that there were numerous 'histories' of the war. The most prevalent was the Anglo-Anerican view that the Second World War was a 'good' war, fought to liberate Europe from the evil forces of Nazi Germany. The emphasis given to this commonly held assumption is that the Second World War was somehow a justifiable conflict, in contrast to the First World War, which was nothing more than a dynastic struggle that blighted the lives of a generation. Hence there has been an emphasis on using the liberation of German concentration camps by the western allies, such as Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald, to justify the entire war as expunging Nazism and re-establishing Europe as normal, liberated place.

"It is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a people capable of every heroic virtue, gifted, valiant, charming, as individuals, should repeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life" - WINSTON CHURCHILL

Poland just does not fit into this almost 'comfortable" picture of the Second World War. The German occupation of Poland from September 1939 to January 1945 demonstrates the application of Nazi policies at their most extreme. The Poles, as Untermenschen, had value to the Germans only to the extent to which their labour could be exploited. They had no place in the grandiose Nazi schemes for the creation of German Lebensraum in the east and, once their labour ceased to be of value, they were to be exterminated through starvation. The Polish Jews were considered to have no value at all and thus became the first category of Untermenshen to be exterminated, rapidly and with industrial efficiency, at the killing centres of Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Treblinka on the pre-war territory of the Second Polish Republic. The facts of the German occupation of Poland are known and widely accepted. But it is less generally known, or indeed accepted, that the Poles also suffered greatly at the hands of the Soviets, both during the first occupation from September 1939 to June 1941, and again when they re-entered Poland at the beginning of 1944 and in the years to follow.
Despite the huge historiography of the Second World War, the history of Poland and the Poles during the period remains largely unknown. The whole history of the Polish experience continues to be obscure and is often misunderstood largely because it has been treated in parts, and not as a whole. There are studies of Poland under German occupation, and of Poland under Soviet occupation, both in 1939-1941, and from 1944 onwards. There are also many personal narratives of experiences of deportation, exile and escape from the Soviet Union. The participation of the Poles in the allied war effort has also been written about - notably the Polish contribution to the breaking of the Enigma code, Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain and the Polish capture of the monastery at Monte Cassino - but there is no study in English of the communist 1-st Polish Army and its contribution to the German defeat on the Eastern Front. Then, of course, there is the vast literature of the Holocaust. Many of these studies have much to commend them, but they all suffer from one fundamental weakness: by treating one aspect of the Polish experience of the Second World War, misconceptions abound precisely because the whole experience is not under examination.

"This difference of view between the Poles and their allies was natural, for Poland is situated next door to the jungle where the gorillas and rattlesnakes live, and the Poles thought they knew much more about the nature and behaviour of these animals than Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt" - OWEN O'MALLEY (the British ambassador to the Polish Government)

When the Poles do appear in much of the historiography of the Second World War, myths, misconceptions and subtle distortions tend to abound. Perhaps the most pervasive myth is that of Polish cavalry charging at Germans tanks during the September 1939 campaign: an image born of a single incident when a successful Polish cavalry charge at a German infantry unit turned to carnage on the arrival of a German armoured unit. Perfect material for the German minister of propaganda, Jozef Goebbels, to use to demonstrate the backwardness of the Poles, but material that has become disseminated and accepted through the use of German newsreel footage in programmes such as the iconic series The World at War, produced in the 1970s when German film footage was the only material available to the producers.  There has been a tendency to view the Poles as a brave people ruled by fools, an opinion voiced by Winston Churchill in the first volume of his The Second World War: 'It is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a people capable of every heroic virtue, gifted, valiant, charming, as individuals, should repeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life.' Poland probably had no more than the average number of bad politicians and generals, and the extremely challenging strategic situation in 1939 and lack of options once the country had been devoured by its neighbours suggest that the actions of Polish politicians should be considered more fairly.
The Poles are also viewed without sympathy because of their attitude towards the Soviet leader Josef Stalin. During the war the British and American public had been subjected to s skilful propaganda campaign designed to cultivate the image of Stalin as 'Uncle Joe': the man whose armies were bearing the brunt of the fighting in the war, thereby saving British and American casualties. But for the Poles Stalin was the man who stole their homes, deported them deep into the Soviet Union and murdered the Polish officer corps and intelligentsia. To reward Stalin for the efforts of his armies, Churchill and Roosevelt effectively gave away half of pre-war Poland to Stalin and did little to prevent him from imposing communism. This is the crux of the Polish belief that Poland was betrayed. As the British ambassador to the Polish Government, Owen O'Malley, wrote: 'This difference of view between the Poles and their allies was natural, for Poland is situated next door to the jungle where the gorillas and rattlesnakes live, and the Poles thought they knew much more about the nature and behaviour of these animals than Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt. To add insult to injury, this betrayal continued into the Cold War years as the Soviet crime at Katyn in 1940 was covered up by successive British and American governments (Halik Kochanski, "The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War", PENGUIN BOOKS, London 2013).

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Jak wstalem rano to pomyslalem, ze dzis bede pisal o marihuanie. Temat odlozylem, a tu juz mamy nowy rok 2018. Nasz Ksiaze Zlotoustny obiecal zlegalizowac marihuane do celow medycznych (niby jest, a nie) i rekreacyjnych na Swieto Kanady (Canada Day) 1 lipca. Ja jestem za legalizacja, ale z powodow ideologicznych (polski libertarianizm szlachecki), a nie politycznych, wizerunkowych i markietylnych (rzad liczy na krocie z podatkow).

Zaspalem temat maryski, za to media glownego nurtu, jak i inne male plotki rozpisuja sie wszedzie o marihuanie. Mam kupe wycinkow i chcialbym je zamiescic na blogu. Wszystko powoli. Jak czlowiek jest na emeryturze, to podstawowa rzecza jest nie spieszyc sie. Ale redaktor naszego polonijnego "Gonca", pan Andrzej Kumor tez zabral sie za temat. Dlatego wiecej artykulow mozna znalezc o marysce w jego gazecie + nawet wypowiedzial sie na swoim vlogu: "Marihuana lepsza od tytoniu".

Weterynarze z Nowej Szkocji mowia, ze spotykaja sie z coraz wieksza liczba przypadkow psow, ktore choruja po zjedzeniu marihuany. Ostrzegaja wlascicieli, by lepiej zabezpieczali nartkotyki, zwlaszcza ze zbliza sie termin legalizacji rekreacyjnego zazywania marihuany. Psy moga sie zainteresowac ciastkiem czy batonikiem "z wkladka". Dr Jeff Goodall z Sunnyview Animal Centre w Bedford, N.S., mowi, ze tetrahydrokanabinol zawarty w marihuanie wplywa na uklad nerwowy zwierzecia, psy maja drgawki, najpierw sa rozkojarzone, placza, wyja, dalej na krotki czas staja sie nadpobudliwe, oddaja mocz w sposob niekontrolowany i w nadmiernej ilosci, po czym zaczynaja sie zataczac i moga zapasc w spiaczke, a nawet zdechnac. Podsumowuje, ze w 2017 roku mial do czynienia z piecioma przypadkami, w 2016 - z trzema, w 2015 - z zadnym ("Na marginesie", GONIEC, 5 - 11 stycznia 2018).

00:52 Hrs. Jem garstke (10) migdalkow z rodzynkami + "I'm a little red rooster" - unosi sie w CBC radio + zrywam kartke z kalendarza: "Na sw. Wincenty szczypie mroz w piety".

01:15 Hrs. Siusiu (slomkowe + puszyste) + 1-sza szklanka wody + na vlogu Esy.