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The Russian news agency PenzaNews invited a number of international commentators to comment on a few questions related to the upcoming 80 years anniversary of the German attack on Poland. Their introductory note goes:
This year, the Polish authorities for the first time refused to hold a traditional memorial ceremony at Westerplatte Peninsula near Gdansk, where in the early morning of September 1, 1939, shots were fired from the German cruiser Schleswig-Holstein, which opened fire on Polish military depots located on the coast. All central events will take place in Warsaw.
This decision, according to the media, may be related to the conflict over the plans to create a museum dedicated to the courage of Polish soldiers during the Second World War on the basis of barrack buildings on the peninsula. The authorities of Gdansk and representatives of the ruling conservative Law and Justice party cannot compromise on the concept of the museum, as they adhere to different approaches to history.
In general, the situation surrounding the preservation of historical memory in Poland seems extremely alarming. Since 2014, by decision and with the support of the authorities of Poland, about 100 monuments to Soviet soldiers who died for its liberation from Nazi invaders were demolished in the country.
Worshipping the ideas of Józef Piłsudski
Pal Steigan, Norwegian politician, publisher, writer, independent entrepreneur in the field of culture and information technology, shared the opinion that the present Polish leadership “worships the reactionary, imperialist ideas of Józef Piłsudski.”
“He dreamt of the re-creation of the Grand Duchy of Poland-Lithuania and created a plan for what was called the Intermarium, a Polish commonwealth from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In some versions the Intermarium even included Finland and the western Balkans. The present government push these ideas and they hope for US support for these ideas, creating a Polish-dominated East-Central Europe under US tutelage. This coincides with the US ambition of creating an alliance with the same countries as a counterweight to Germany and the Western-EU,” the politician explained his viewpoint.
“The Polish history in the Second World War is less than glorious, so the Polish reactionaries need some historic revisionism to make a better figure. But that is not the main point. They are deeply anti-communist of course, but even more important: this is not about history, it is about the present and the future. They need the re-writing of history for their own reactionary and imperialist schemes,” he added.
Pal Steigan suggested that the ‘battles’ about the facts and realities of the Second World War will probably go on for another hundred years.
“The role of German, British, US, French and Japanese imperialism include so many ugly facts, so they want to hide them. And the ruling imperialist class wants to slander and bury the glorious role of the Soviet Union and the communist parties in the war to keep the lessons of the war away for coming generations,” he said.
