| MEMORY AND HISTORY |
|
In the post-war Poland run by the Communists, Warsaw insurgents, along with other AK soldiers, are accused of collaboration with the Germans and are called fascists. According to official propaganda, it was first and foremost the People’s Army that fought against the Germans, while the “London underground stood with their arms at their sides.” Propaganda attacks from the first years after the war change in Stalinist times into attempts to erase the Rising from social memory. It is forbidden to pay homage to the Rising. Anniversaries are not to be celebrated nor statues erected. It is not allowed to include military ranks or insurgent unit names in obituaries of those who pass away.
The mere fact of having taken part in the Rising may become a reason for arrest by the Security Office. Such was the fate of many soldiers from the „Zośka” battalion or the „Radosław” group with its commander Col. Jan Mazurkiewicz, who was sentenced to many years of prison. Insurgents are frequently put in the same cells as German war criminals.
After 1956, Communist authorities change their attitude towards the AK soldiers. Their conspirational activity is no longer an excuse for direct persecution. However, the press, history textbooks, novels and films are still full of lies and concealments concerning the Rising. It remains prohibited to erect statues of the Rising or commemorate its commanders. The first plaques commemorating insurgent units and their commanders are placed in churches. A spontaneous form of paying homage is born – every year on August 1 crowds of Varsovians meet at the Powązki Cemetery to visit the insurgents’ graves. In their propaganda, the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) will continue to distinguish until 1989 between heroic, ordinary soldiers and their cynical, irresponsible and clumsy commanders, who ignited the Rising only to defend the interests of the “London Government” and the “proprietary classes.”
An entry in the “Encyclopedia of the Second World War” published in 1975 is a perfect illustration of such way of thinking. It says: “The AK was an organization with a structure inappropriate for the needs of the ongoing fight against the German occupant, but instead intended to ensure that the Government-in-Exile could take over power in the country through a popular uprising /…/ Its command /…/ gathered a significant part of the patriotic forces and especially youngsters unware of this organization’s political aims. The AK command slowed down the armed struggle in accordance with the Allies’ policy of ‘the two enemies’ (Germany and the USSR) /…/. During the occupation, they conducted a policy of protection of the interests of the bourgeoisie and landowners.”
|
