I believe the Polish are among the strongest people ever to live. They
are a people tempered by the fires of war and a true testament to human
resilience. In the inferno of World War II, Poland endured,
not only surviving occupation by two ruthless juggernauts but making crucial contributions to
the Allied victory and holding on to what it means to be Polish despite unspeakable risk.
To understand just how tough the Polish were throughout the war,
it helps to understand just what calibre of atrocities they endured. To empathise with the
poor souls subjected to such atrocities, it helps to see through their eyes,
so after summarising Polish suffering, resilience, and resistance throughout
World War II, we will behold it through the stories of two brave Polish partisans.
What happened in Poland after both the Nazis and Soviets invaded in September 1939 makes all
depictions of hell look like a summertime theme park. And it's not as if the atrocities inflicted
on the Poles were inflicted solely by the Nazis. The Soviets were almost equally as diabolical,
sharing in the Nazi opinion that Poland should be obliterated politically, economically, socially,
culturally, and, to a certain extent, physically. Both Hitler and Stalin wished for Poland to
no longer exist, for it to be eradicated from history, and for the persisting space to be a
part of the Reich and the USSR. Though, of course, Hitler never intended to let Stalin keep "his
share," nor for a square centimetre of the land designated future "Lebensraum" to become a part
of the USSR. Nevertheless, before Hitler stabbed Stalin in the face and invaded the Soviet Union,
the two of them assailed Poland night and day, trying to turn their evil wish into a reality.
In Soviet-annexed Poland, the Soviets enforced communist ideology by burning books, seizing
control of schools and universities, ripping down all Polish monuments,
banning the word "Poland," generally spreading pro-Soviet propaganda,
and much more. If they thought anyone was or could be a threat to their rule, they arrested
them and then deported them to Gulags, often in Siberia. Other "undesirables" they just executed,
like in the infamous Katyn massacre, in which the Soviets executed around 22,000 Poles,
military and civilian. They weren't above massacring the patients and staff of
hospitals either, nor torturing people. The NKVD was almost synonymous with the
Nazi Gestapo and was the cold iron tool with which the Soviets tried to prise Poland apart.
The Nazis made the Poles suffer in every way the Soviets did, and more. On top of enforcing Nazi
ideology; arresting, deporting, enslaving, and massacring "undesirables," of which many
were women and children; murdering hospital patients and staff; and torturing people,
in some instances just to trial methods of torture, Poland's German occupiers also subjected
Polish Jews to the Holocaust, right in there very own country. If anyone was caught "assisting" the
Jews, the Nazis would kill them and their entire family. They also took Polish civilian hostages,
and if a German soldier was killed, they would murder up to one hundred hostages in retaliation.
No "undesirables" were safe. They Nazis raped women and then either forced them into brothels or
just murdered them, in mass. As well as trialling methods of torture on Polish prisoners, the Nazis
subjected them to "medical experiments," basically using human beings as guinea pigs. If all that
wasn't enough, the Germans responded to the 1944 Uprising in Warsaw by pulverising the city.
Throughout both Nazi and Soviet occupation, the Poles suffered
from a lack of supplies and food. They either sourced supplies through the black market,
or succumbed to starvation, sickness, or cold.
Overall, Poland was a war zone, trampled by the Germans and Soviets as Hitler and
Stalin played tug-of-war with the Eastern Front,
and it's estimated that between 16 and 22% of its population perished in the Second World War.
Looking at Polish suffering in isolation is a massive injustice to the strength
and resilience of the Poles. They not only challenged the September
1939 invasions like cornered lions but also resisted enemy occupation
and fought alongside the Allies in other countries and on other fronts.
After the invasion of Poland, a Polish government-in-exile was formed in France,
and after the Fall of France, its HQ was relocated to Britain. The Polish government-in-exile oversaw
the Polish Underground State and many of the Polish military forces contributing to the
Allied effort. It's never so simple, however. Some Polish resistance and military forces
opposed the Polish government-in-exile, aligning themselves with communism and the Soviet Union,
and some even fought in the Wehrmacht, by their own will or the Nazi's
The Polish Underground State was the collective title of all the Polish resistance organisations
aligned with the Polish government-in-exile, and one of the largest resistance organisations
the world has ever seen. It not only sabotaged Poland's Nazi and Soviet occupiers, delivered
vital intelligence to the Allies, and rescued many Jews from the Holocaust, but also contested Nazi
and Soviet plans to obliterate Polish society and culture. To do so, the Underground State
chopped Nazi and Soviet ideology at the root, educating young partisans in underground schools
and sustaining society and culture through underground radio, print, music, and theatre.
On fighting forces, the Armia Krajowa, the Home Army, was the Underground State's largest,
numbering around 400,000 in its prime. There were a number of smaller resistance groups allied with
the Home Army, such as the Peasants' Battalion, though there were also resistance groups which
refused to join the Home Army, such as the ultra-nationalist group the National Armed Forces,
as well as underground groups who strived for communism with the Soviets, such as Armia Ludowa,
the People's Army. The relationship between all of these resistance groups was complicated,
to say the least, and they sometimes got into violent confrontations.
Before we move on to the Polish military in the West and East, it's important to note that,
despite the threat of death to one's self and one's family, Poland was the only German-occupied
country to set up an organisation to help the Jews in the Holocaust, and, overall,
the Underground State saved more Jews than any of the Western Allies in World War II.
After the invasion of Poland, the Polish government-in-exile mustered over 80,000
men in France to defend against the Germans. By the time France had fallen, many of these Poles
had become casualties, and the remainder, some 19,000, were evacuated to Britain; these became
the Polish I Corps. Originally constituting the bulk of the Polish Armed Forces in the East,
a 75,000-strong Polish army called Anders' Army joined the West under British command,
becoming the Polish II Corps. By the end of the war, Polish Armed Forces in the West numbered
around 195,000, and throughout it, the Poles fought with skill and ferocity on land, sea,
and sky, claiming vengeance on the Nazis in the Atlantic, the North Africa Campaign,
the Italian campaign, the Battle of Britain, and in many other operations on the Western Front,
including the Allied invasion of Germany. Especially consequential
were Polish contributions to the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Sir Hugh C.T. Dowding described the Polish Air Force in the Battle of Britain: "[...] [A]ll
three Squadrons swung in the fight with a dash of enthusiasm which is beyond praise.
They were inspired by a burning hatred for the Germans which made them very deadly opponents."
In the Battle of Monte Cassino, General Anders oxygenated his men's "burning hatred for the
Germans," saying: "[...] [G]o and take revenge for all the suffering in our land, for what you
have suffered for many years in Russia and for years of separation from your families!"
After Hitler stabbed Stalin in the face with Operation Barbarossa, Stalin made an agreement
with the Polish government-in-exile to recruit an army from the Poles deported
to and held captive in the Soviet Union at the start of the war. This was Anders' Army,
which, after serving in the Soviet Union, was later transferred to the West and into British
command. After Anders' Army left, however, there were still thousands of Poles in the Soviet Union.
Stalin moulded them into the Polish People's Army, a communist-led formation some 200,000 strong,
which was squashed into the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukranian Fronts. Overall, the Polish Armed
Forces in the East bled all along the Eastern Front, and the Polish People's Army — later
bolstered by Armia Ludowa — became the military in communist-ruled Poland after the war.
Now that we've briefly summarised Polish suffering, resilience,
and resistance throughout the Second World War,
let's try and imagine all that from the perspectives of two Polish partisans.
Jan Roman Bytnar was born in Kolbuszowa, Poland in 1921 and joined a resistance group a month
after the German's invaded his country. This group, the Polish People's Independent Action,
was infiltrated and disbanded just a few months later, though that wasn't enough to frighten
Bytnar. He returned from Warsaw to where he was born and joined the anti-Nazi resistance
group called the Union of Armed Struggle, later renamed the Home Army. In March 1941, Bytnar
joined the Gray Ranks, an organisation dedicated to scouting and sabotage. Serving the Gray Ranks,
he removed a Nazi flag from an art gallery and graffitied the symbol of the Polish Underground
State on a monument, among other minor sabotage operations punishable by death. Two years in,
he was captured, held, and tortured by the Gestapo in Pawiak prison. In his three days there, Bytnar
endured such excruciating, crippling torture that he died four days after being rescued. This brave
Pole's story is remarkable because he joined a new resistance organisation right after his
former organisation was torn apart by the Gestapo. He knew the risk, but he fought for Poland anyway.
Everyone knows Witold Pilecki as the man who volunteered for Auschwitz, and that's exactly what
this Polish officer and resistance leader did. After fighting the Germans in the invasion of his
country, Pilecki co-founded the Secret Polish Army and then joined the Home Army. In September 1940,
he let himself get captured, and he was soon after in Auschwitz, where he was tasked with gathering
information and sparking resistance from the inside. Pilecki organised the Union of Military
Organisations, ZOW, and ZOW shared outside news with the prisoners, helped distribute supplies
through the camp, bolstered prisoner morale, and established intelligence networks which provided
the Polish Underground State and the Western Allies insight into the atrocious conditions
in the camp. Pilecki managed to escape in April 1943 and reach Warsaw in August that year, where
he gave a comprehensive report to the Home Army. After the war, Pilecki was arrested, tortured,
and then sentenced to death for espionage and planning the assassinations of members of the
Soviet-controlled Ministry of Public Security of Poland, among other charges. He denied the
espionage and assassination charges but pleaded guilty to some lesser charges. Regardless of
the calibre of his charges, he was shot in the back of the head in May 1948. After receiving
his sentence, Pilecki famously said: "I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of
my death I would rather feel joy, than fear." Imagine being so devout to your country that
you volunteer for Auschwitz, and then imagine your patriotism and bravery being rewarded with death.
World War II may have ended in 1945, though Polish suffering did not. The Soviet Union permanently
annexed the territory it took in September 1939, expelling most of the Poles living there,
and these people went on to inhabit the Free City of Danzig and the former-German territory east
of the rivers Oder and Neisse. Stalin ignored the Polish government-in-exile and essentially closed
his communist fist on all that he hadn't directly annexed. It was not until 1989 that what remained
of pre-World-War-II Poland shed communism and became the modern democratic Republic of Poland.
While our pasts may not define our future, they certainly shape our present. History
shapes our world, and the history of Poland — particularly as it endured the inferno of
World War II and the ashes of its fiery wake — tempered the Poles into some of the strongest,
most resilient humans ever to walk on our world. In this context, however,
strength and resilience don't just come down to the physical endurance and survival of the Poles
but also the endurance and survival of what the Nazis and Soviets failed to obliterate — Polish
identity. I do think that was largely due to the lion-like courage of the Polish Underground
State and men and women like Jan Bytnar and Witold Pilecki who served in it, and also the
ferocious and ceaseless toils of the Poles who fought for their home abreast foreign allies.
Poland may never "soften up" after the hell it endured, and I think there's no better way
to end this video than saying that Poland never officially capitulated in the Second World War.