WWII “history is repeating itself” in Ukraine, warns Poland on anniversary of Nazi German invasion

Poland has marked the anniversary of the German invasion of 1 September 1939 that began World War Two by warning that the world is allowing another such tragedy to unfold in Ukraine.

President Andrzej Duda attended the annual ceremony at Westerplatte in Gdańsk on Thursday morning. There, the first battle of the war took place, in which a small contingent of Polish soldiers valiantly held off the invading German forces for six days.

“In 1939, the Germans treacherously attacked, going hand in hand with the Soviets… [in] a vile brotherhood in arms,” said Duda, referring to the pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that saw the Red Army also invade Poland on 17 September.

As a consequence of the subsequent occupation, “six million [Polish] citizens died, including three million of Jewish ethnicity, brutally murdered in camps and places of mass extermination”, added Duda, quoted by TVN. Around 17% of Poland’s prewar population were killed in the war, a higher proportion than any other country.

The Polish president noted that, as well as the Germans’ desire to kill and enslave Poles, “the Russian Soviets wanted the same”. As evidence, he pointed to the 1940 Katyn massacres of 22,000 Polish military officers and the 1945 Augustów roundup, in which hundreds were killed.

After the war, many believed that such an event could not happen again, declared Duda. But now, “across our eastern border, we observe Russian returning to its imperialist desires to dominate other nations, to subjugate them, to hold them by the throat and, if they refuse to surrender, to destroy them”.

In Ukraine “artillery and planes are brutally destroying buildings inhabited by ordinary people, civilians of a sovereign state [are] murdered in cellars and in the streets”, he noted. “We Poles know this and understand it perfectly. That is why we are doing everything to help our Ukrainian neighbours.”

“That is why today we are calling on all our allies and the whole world to help Ukraine and stop Russian imperialism,” he continued. And it is also why we are “providing Polish soldiers with equipment to defend their homeland…We owe it to those who fought for a free and sovereign Poland”.

Speaking at the same ceremony in Westerplatte, Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak likewise likened the situation in Ukraine today to the horrors of the Second World War, and the outside world’s reaction to both.

“In the past, Europe did not want to die for Gdańsk; today many do not want to understand that the defence of Ukraine is the most important investment in our own security,” said Błazczak, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“Russia is killing thousands of people in a barbaric way, ruining towns and villages,” he continued. “Imperial evil has been reborn. History is repeating itself. And part of Europe still does not draw conclusions from the tragedy of the war.”

Germany’s ambassador to Poland, Thomas Bagger, also marked today’s anniversary of the invasion of Poland by declaring that his country “recognises its historical responsibility and is committed to preserving the memory of the crimes committed by the Germans – without any ‘buts'”.

“I bow my head to all the victims of Germany’s attack on Poland,” he declared, quoted by Onet. “To this day, it is difficult for me to understand how most Germans, my ancestors, could allow these terrible crimes.”

“For my country, the memory of these crimes is inextricably linked with the obligation to do everything so that something like this never happens again,” Bagger added. “We are guided by this goal when today we jointly support Ukraine in the fight for freedom and self-determination in the face of the brutal attack by Russia.”

Main image credit: Marek Borawski/KPRP

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.