COUNTERCLAIM Restitution 1939 Locals Got Polish Housing Assoc…

Stalin’s Ethnic Cleansing in Eastern Poland, by Association of the Families of Borderland Settlers. 2000

1939 Zydokomuna Massive. Abandoned or Confiscated Property (Not Only of Jews But Also of Poles) Naturally Becomes Squatter’s New Property: Invalidity of Holocaust Industry

This work is an anthology of over a hundred separate few-page testimonies of the experiences of mostly-military-family Poles deported into the interior of the USSR following the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland.

Much detail is presented on life in the prewar Kresy (Poland’s eastern half), interethnic relations before and during the war, the deportation process, the lives of those who stayed behind, the struggle to survive in the Soviet Union, the “amnesty”, travels to such places as Persia and Africa (and, eventually, to England, the USA, Canada, and Australia), etc. A helpful glossary is provided for reader-unfamiliar and Gulag-related terms.

THOSE MUCH-MALIGNED ETHNIC POLISH NEWCOMERS TO THE KRESY

The OSADY (Kresy settlements given to the 1918-1920 demobilized Polish military officials and their families as a reward for their services) have been greatly exaggerated, and misrepresented, by both Soviet Communist and Ukrainian nationalist propaganda. [The authors could have added that the numbers of OSADNIKS was too small to appreciably alter the ethnic composition of the Kresy. Their arrival was no more a substantive Polonization of the Kresy than the westward movement of some thousands of Ukrainians had been a substantial Ukrainization of places such as Krakow or Warsaw].

It is not true that the lands awarded the OSADNIKS (military settlers) had been confiscated from the non-Polish locals. Some of the OSADY farms were built from scratch out of the wilderness (p. 771), in a spirit and procedure reminiscent of the settling of the New World. Others had come from post-tsarist-Russian and post-Polish-estates. (p. 9). The OSADNIKS came from all social classes, and not, as trumpeted by Communist propaganda, only from the wealthy. (p. 760). The settlers introduced modern farming methods that were of direct benefit not only to the local Poles, but also to the local Ukrainians and Byelorussians. (p. 9, 158). The relations between the OSADNIKS and non-Polish locals had been generally amiable (e. g., p. 760) until the latter had become stirred up by anti-Polish propaganda. For instance, in 1939, some Ukrainians had engaged in separatist violence against the Poles, notably the OSADNIKS (e. g., p. 349), as did some Belorussians. (p. 731).

NUMBERS OF 1939-1941 POLISH DEPORTEES TO THE INTERIOR OF THE USSR

It is unfortunate that the editors of this work accept the revisionist figure of only about 350,000 (pp. 13-14) Polish-citizen deportees from eastern Poland–a figure which assumes that there were only 25 deportees per train car. In fact, there commonly were more than 50 per car. (Stobniak-Smogorzewska, p. 17), and this, along with other evidence, supports the traditional figure of over 1,000,000 deportees. (See the Peczkis analysis of the Chodakiewicz study in his review of Polish Poetry from the Soviet Gulags: Recovering a Lost Literature).

NOT ONLY OF JEWS: IT IS COMPLETELY NORMAL FOR ABANDONED PROPERTY TO ACQUIRE NEW OWNERS

In his FEAR, Jan T. Gross has selectively dwelt upon the Polish acquisitions of post-Jewish properties, making a profound issue of it. Actually, this was an all-around occurrence during and after the war. For instance, the locals (e. g. Belorussians) helped themselves to the belongings of the deported Poles. (e. g., p. 697, 731).

Following the logic of the Holocaust Industry, should the descendants of the Poles who lost property now demand property restitution from the descendants of the locals that had acquired the Polish property?

VARIED POLISH/NON-POLISH RELATIONS IN THE KRESY

Interethnic relations were mixed. This work includes some testimonies of Poles who experienced friendship from Ukrainians in the face of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland (e. g., p. 256, 322, 373, 787), of neighboring and deported Belorussians who were one with the Poles (p. 656, 731), and of local Jews being friendly and helpful to the persecuted Poles. (p. 656, 716). The latter refutes the supposition that Poles only noticed negative things about Jews, and that the Zydokomuna was merely a projection of this supposed unilateral attitude. (e. g., Jan T. Gross).

JEWISH DISLOYALTY TO POLAND: THE 1939 ZYDOKOMUNA IN ACTION

The Zydokomuna cannot be dismissed as marginal, or merely a reflexive manifestation of Jewish gratitude for not falling into the hands of the Nazis. Wawrzkowicz comments: “…as for Jews, it is better to keep silent–they were building numerous welcoming triumphal arches and without hiding their feelings joyfully embraced the units of the Soviet military as they thanked them for saving them from the Polish capitalists and bourgeoisie.” (p. 256). The Zydokomuna was actively anti-Polish in its actions. Wierzbicki writes: “Some Jews put red bands on their sleeves and, having been assimilated into the NKVD, denounced Polish patriots to the Soviets.” (p. 654). He adds: “…I had to be very careful because a large number of poor Jews were committed to Communism and in the towns the majority of commissars and cadres were Soviet Jews.” (p. 638). The newly-formed local Jewish militia played its role in the deportations of Poles. (e. g., Chumko, p. 199).

In time, some of the Byelorussian and Jewish collaborators got their just desserts. Wierzbicki comments: “However, later on the NKVD deported those Belorussian Communists who had denounced us and the same punishment was meted out to those Jews from Kleck who had built welcoming arches for the Red pests.” (p. 656).

THE UKRAINIAN OUN-UPA GENOCIDE OF POLES

Many of the Poles who remained in the Kresy eventually went through the post-1942 Ukrainian fascist-separatist genocide of the Poles. (e. g., pp. 120-122, 130, 306, 412). It is ironic that the Polish-Soviet cooperation (which developed late in the war, and then mostly in reaction to the OUN-UPA genocide) has been used as an excuse for this genocide. Ukrainians had been collaborating with the Soviets against the Poles since Day 1 of the Soviet occupation (e. g., p. 284), and also collaborating with the Nazis since Day 1 of the German occupation. (e. g., p. 108).