Russia at war 1941-1945

Russians to come to a lasting understanding with the Poles. But we Poles have been

kicked around so much that the idea of a Russo-Polish bloc takes time to sink in. And now there are plenty of poisonous stories going around about Warsaw. Quite unjustified, I think. I have talked to many Russian officers; they are very fed-up at having so far failed to take Warsaw... And there are other things, too. Our people want Vilno and

Lwow to be included in Poland. I know we can't have Vilno, which has been promised to the Lithuanians, but the Russians are being sticky even about Lwow..."

[Incorporated into the Soviet Union at the partition in 1940 and kept by her after the war.]

He then talked about Maidanek, where over one-and-a-half million people had been

murdered in the last two years—many Poles amongst them, and people of all kinds of

nationalities, but, above all, Jews.

"What," I asked, "has been the attitude of the Polish people to the massacre of the millions of Jews?"

"This is a very tricky subject; let's face it," said the Professor. "Owing to a number of historical processes, such as the Tsarist government's Jewish policy of confining most of the Jews in the Russian Empire to Poland, we have had far too many Jews here. Our retail trade was entirely in Jewish hands. They also played an unduly large part in other walks of life. There's no doubt that the Polish people wanted the number of Jews in Poland reduced. They wanted part of them to emigrate to America, to Palestine, or perhaps to Madagascar; there was such a scheme before the war. But that was one thing," he added a little glibly. "What the Germans did is quite another thing; and this, I can tell you, genuinely revolted every one of our people... "

During the next few days I spent several hours in the streets of Lublin talking to all kinds of people. Despite some bomb damage here and there, the city had preserved some of its old-time charm. On Sunday, all the churches—and there were said to be more churches

per square mile in Lublin than in any other Polish city— were crowded. Among the

faithful, kneeling and praying, there were many Polish soldiers. People were rather better dressed than in Russia, though many looked distinctly worn out and undernourished, and under great nervous strain. The shops were almost empty, though there was a good deal of food in the market place. But the food was dear, and there was much animosity against the peasants who were described as "a lot of bloodsuckers"; there were also many stories of how the peasants "crawled" to the Germans; a German soldier only had to appear in a Polish village, and the peasants were so scared they'd bring out roast chickens, and butter and eggs and sour cream... On the other hand, the Russian soldiers had been given strict orders to pay for everything and the peasants were not keen at all to give anything away for roubles.

[ This polite Russian behaviour was to change in time; but at first the Russians behaved in a very disciplined and "correct" way to the Polish peasants.]

People—many of them very humble-looking working people, talked freely about the

German occupation; many had lost friends and relatives at Maidanek; many more had

had members of their families deported as slave labour to Germany; they also talked

about that terrible first winter of 1939-40, when there was a regular trade in children: whole trainloads of children—whose parents had been killed or arrested— children from Poznan and other places taken over by the Germans would arrive in Lublin, and a child—

often starved and half-dead— could be bought for thirty zloty from German soldiers.

They talked of people who were publicly hanged in the main square of Lublin and of the torture chambers of the Lublin Gestapo. "Anyone," said an elderly woman looking like a schoolmistress, "could be taken there: if a German thought, as he passed you in the street, that you had given him a dirty look, that was enough. To kill a human being —it was as easy as stepping on a worm and squashing it." During the German occupation, most people in Lublin had gone hungry, and the peasants had not been helpful; and now there was no certainty that things were going to be much better. Still, to many it had been a pleasant surprise to see real Polish soldiers in Polish uniforms arrive here from Russia; the Germans had always denied that there was a Polish Army in Russia. On the other

hand, there were— especially among the better-dressed people—grave misgivings about

the Russians, and strong AK sympathies; and there was also much talk of 2,000 AK men having been arrested by the Russians in the Lublin area alone. Many questions were, of course, also asked about the Polish troops in Italy and France, and, on many Poles, the arrival of British and American correspondents in Lublin made a particularly strong

impression: dozens of people, with a suggestive look in their eyes, would give us flowers.