‘A storm in a glass of water’
On a warm Saturday evening, 29 July 1944, an different gathering took place in Warsaw. Gen. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski saw an emissary of the Polish Government from London, Zdzisław Jezioranski, “Jan Nowak”. "Kurier from Warsaw" then realized the geopolitical situation that followed the Tehran conference, i.e. the division of influence zones and carte blanche for Stalin in east Europe. He besides presented hard facts that no aid from the Allies in the event of a "warszawa battle" could be counted. The assistance of General Stanisław Sosabowski's Independent Parade Brigade was besides excluded. He besides said crucial words: the “Burza” action will have no influence on the decision of the Allies, and for the public of the Western planet it will be a storm in a glass of water.
A day earlier, a visit to Gen. Bór-Komorowski was made by 2 high-ranking officers: Colonel Emil Fieldorf-Nil and Colonel Louis Muzyczka, who in writing opposed the initiation of the uprising in the capital. Their attitude was argued by external factors – the reluctance of the USSR leader and the Red Army command to any assistance of the AK – and interior ones – of human resources, organizational weaknesses, weapons and military equipment.
All the politicians and officers of the Home Army who made the decision to launch the uprising were full aware of how the “Burza” action in the Kresach ended. They knew what happened to the soldiers who occupied Vilnius or the Lions and exposed themselves to the Red Army.
29 and 30 July 1944.T. Kościuszko Radio and Radio Station (Polish communists) broadcast provocative broadcasts with an appeal to start fighting in the capital?
The Chief Leader, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, wrote on 3 July 1944: the uprising without prior agreement with the USSR on a fair basis would be politically unwarranted, and without honest and genuine cooperation with the Red Army would be in military terms nothing another than an act of despair.
In the face of the above facts, any effort to justify (an argument of ignorance about the external situation) the perpetrators of the uprising, specified as generals Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, Leopold Okulicki, Antoni Chruściel, Tadeusz Pełczyński, or the Government Delegate to the Country Jan Stanisław Jankowski, is either a manifestation of ignorance or simply bad will.
No happy ending
A separate substance that goes into the shadows erstwhile discussing the legitimacy of the decision to emergence up is the question, why has this slaughter not been interrupted? A fewer days after the start of the fighting – in the absence of any aid – it was already known that the uprising did not have the least chance of success. The AK office was besides aware that the Red Army's aid had nothing to number on. The bleeding out of Polish troops was simply in Stalin's hand. Fighting from a military point of view and from a political point of view has become completely unfounded. She became irrational.
The only sensible decision he could get – wrongly forgotten present – was Colonel Antoni Żurowski, commanding the fights in Prague. On the sixth day of the uprising, in the absence of weapons, ammunition, seeing unnecessary suffering of the civilian population, he signed an act of surrender. This saved thousands of lives and saved Prague from large destruction.
Instead of following in the footsteps of the Prague command and ending the unnecessary slaughter of civilians, on 12 August 1944 General Bór-Komorowski signed an order to come to the capital with help, directed to troops outside Warsaw. He thus sentenced his soldiers. Not a single AK unit reached the capital, but it led thousands of people to deconspiration before the NKVD.
Over 200,000 victims in 63 days. More than in all Polish uprisings from 1794 to 1863. More than the atomic bomb victims dropped on Hiroshima. More regular than the victims of the planet Trade Center attack...
Celebrating Disaster
For respective years we have been dealing in our country with a specific, areflexive cult of the Warsaw Uprising. Worse still, an institutionalized cult. The place of the desired reflection and reflection, besides – and possibly above all – political, replaces emotional and sentimental propaganda. Among the slogans “Let’s leave the evaluation to the historians” are the commercial blooms of a tacky mass culture in the form of “stand-up gadgets”. Sometimes you can get the impression that all these T-shirts, cups, keyrings, pins, sold in accompaniment of hip-hop melorecitation, are not just a mass-cultural complement to each anniversary, but easy become a inexpensive substitute for a respected debate. By the way, is it worth asking the question whether the anniversary of our national disasters should be celebrated so loudly and solemnly, or alternatively quietly and reflectively?
No 1 refuses the insurgents heroism. It's obvious. However, it is not about assessing the scale of sacrifice of insurgents, but about a deep assessment of the political decision taken by the politicians and the commanders of the AK. Each nation has not only the right, but besides the work to learn from failed decisions and disasters. However, this law is grossly violated in modern Poland. This is due to the fact that we are dealing with a situation where any political and intellectual environments want not only to seize the memory of those events, but besides to impose a moral muzzle on those who think differently. Anyone who tries to start a debate in the public space on the political meaning of this insurrection is immediately accused of "refuting the uprising", or "refuting the sense of heroic revelry".
It is worth remembering that among the critics of the political decision, which lay in the genesis of the uprising, were and are the participants themselves. To mention only Jan Ciechanowski, Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny, or Jan Kurdwanowski, fighting with a pen for a fair assessment of those events. How is the effort to gag the mouth of the opponents of the uprising, utilizing the argument about "repeating propaganda of the Polish People's Republic", towards the work of specified characters as Władysław Pobóg-Malinowski, Jerzy Łojek, or Paweł Wieczorkiewicz?
Towards a myth
A separate substance is the effort by any intellectual circles to make a image of “a victorious standing”. "And this is not only morally but materially and politically" – as 1 of the leading mythologists wrote. The treatment is dangerous, escaping from the real world, in place of facts putting simulcasts. A twisted philosophical argument, referring to collective emotions, playing on national sentiments gradually blurs the boundary between the real planet and its performances. Imagination and story become real. At this point, any honest debate becomes unfounded. The mythology of collective memory, which is done before our eyes, replaces the request for national reflection on our own past, which is essential for making the right decisions in the future. The story becomes a blockade not only in relation to the future, but besides stops allowing it to draw from the wealth of the past. And the point is to give the completed tradition the last word and keep the keys to the burnt houses, paraphrasing Reinhold Schneider.
Finally, it is besides hard not to rise the question of the circumstantial orthographic dictatorship that has spread in most media. The name of the Warsaw Insurrection must be written in obligatory May. End of story. Otherwise, it is simply a “image of memory”. But the principles of Polish language are clear on this issue. The names of the uprising are written in a lower letter. In exceptional situations, in order to give the written form a peculiar pathos, they can be written in capital letters. The problem is that in Poland pathos becomes omnipresent?
Reason for discussion
A discussion on the meaning of the Warsaw Uprising is needed. A fair discussion. Rejecting easy sentimentalism and false ultramoralism. Only specified an attitude, which strives for a sound assessment of the rise, including the sense of its explosion, can become the real key to real policy. Otherwise, we will be able to get at least a lock and not a real policy, but a want policy.
Dr Leszek Sykulski
