Russia at war 1941-1945

Moreover, we are four brothers, all priests in the United States.

After this pleasant introduction. Father Orlemanski, the parish priest from Springfield, Mass., said that as soon as he had heard of the formation of the Kosciuszko Division on Soviet soil, he decided to help, and in November 1943, formed the Kosciuszko League at Detroit. This, he said, was a great success. He continued: "Having achieved all this, I felt that I must inform myself more completely on the plans and aims of the Polish emigrants in the USSR." He said he had come with Cordell Hull's personal okay.

First of all I went to Zagorsk where there are Polish children. At the school there I attended the lessons in Polish history. May I, as a neutral observer and practical

American, say that the present conditions could not be better. We Poles must be grateful to the Soviet Government for their kindness, and we must try to preserve these

institutions. I was told that there are such institutions in the whole of Russia.

All this sounded somewhat naïve. Then he described his visit to the Polish Army: Here he felt "quite at home". While he was there, 8,000 new soldiers from Ternopol and from other liberated parts had joined. "I told the soldiers that I considered the arms in their hands as the key to a free Poland."

Finally came his statement on his first two-hour meeting with Stalin and Molotov:

I cannot repeat all that was said. But I must say that Stalin is a' friend of the Poles.

He wants to see a strong, powerful, independent and democratic Poland which

would effectively defend her frontiers. Stalin does not intend to interfere in internal Polish affairs. He wants Poland to be friendly and to co-operate harmoniously with the Soviet Republics...

We are Slavs. Allied, Poland and the Soviet Union will be the mightiest power in the east. It will be of the greatest benefit to both. It will guarantee peace for hundreds of years. Long live the United, States of America. Long live the Soviet Union. Long live a free, strong, independent and democratic Poland!

All this was reported verbatim, and in all seriousness, in the Soviet press, as was also his statement on the following day:

I want to make the historic statement {sic) that the future will prove that Stalin is a friend of the Roman Catholic Church. Our religion will be the religion of our

ancestors, and Marshal Stalin will not tolerate any violation of this.

He went on to say that there were five chaplains in the new Polish Army and that the Bishop of newly-liberated Luck (in the Western Ukraine) had promised to send several more priests into the army.

I had another meeting with Stalin and Molotov (he continued), and the result has

exceeded all my expectations. Marshal Stalin and Mr Molotov are two great men: I

am most grateful to both these gentlemen for the democratic reception that was

given me during my stay in Moscow.

Perhaps the Soviet press had its tongue in its cheek when it used the English word

"gentleman" in quoting Orlemanski's broadcast.

But less than a fortnight later Orlemanski was back in the States— and in the soup. For it turned out that Orlemanski represented nobody, and was either a well-meaning simpleton or else a practical joker, in which case his visit to Stalin was the biggest hoax ever played on the Kremlin. In any case, Father Orlemanski's immediate superior, Bishop O'Leary, reprimanded and repudiated the Kremlin visitor on his return to the USA, and Orlemanski had to "repent" before being reinstated. After that Stalin came to the conclusion, either that he had been fooled, or else that Cardinal Spellman and the rest of the hierarchy but not Orlemanski, were the people who really mattered among the Catholics in the USA.