Hi Koledzy
 
Interesting.  I knew that tghe germans could not develop weapons beyond what
was neded forf self-defence,berut you know how long that lasted.  By the mid
30s,  they were already very well armed.  I never heard that the russians gave
any developmental help, and from wha I remember, thay were not that far advanced
to  aid the germans.  I could be wrong, and I'll see what I can find out.  I
remember my dad saying how so many russian were amazed by the watches the Poles
wore.
 
                                        \
                                 Rysiek

--- On Fri, 7/10/09, Zbigniew Bob Styrna <styrna@...> wrote:


From: Zbigniew Bob Styrna <styrna@...>
Subject: RE: [Kresy-Siberia] Re: Behind Closed Doors etc...
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, July 10, 2009, 1:05 PM








John,

I was reading your post about how the Russians supplied German troops in early
part of WWII.

I remembered that I read somewhere that Russia way before WWII started in the
1930’s was training German soldiers. Russia was supplying equipment, and
Russia was helping Germany to design and test weapons inside Russia.

As I recall, the WWI treaty forbade Germany to “ arm� itself
“ except was “allowed�.

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Treaty_of_ Versailles

Anyway, I searched for this on Google but found another interesting site about
Russia:

<http://www.collectr ussia.com/> http://www.collectr ussia.com/

Pozdrawiam Serdecznie
Zbigniew
Vancouver, BC Canada
Kresy: Osowica, Ryków, Trosćianiec Mały, Różowola, Biały
Kamień, Skwarzawa, Złoczów, Stadnia, Dmytrów
Gulags: Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kurgystan, Auswitchz, Zabrze-Hindenburg, Kudymkar,
Komi-Permskaya, Jurli, Adamovka, Dzurun, Aktyubinsk, Vizyay, Perm,
Permegorje-Archange lsk Oblast,

_____

From: Kresy-Siberia@ yahoogroups. com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@ yahoogroups. com]
On Behalf Of John Halucha
Sent: July 10, 2009 6:52 AM
To: Kresy-Siberia@ yahoogroups. com
Subject: [Kresy-Siberia] Re: Behind Closed Doors etc...

Your eloquence has not abandoned you, Zdzis. You are expressing how I feel, too.
As I understand Rees's final paragraph, he has got it right -- what we have to
let go is not interest in the period, but rather the illusion that the Allies
were moral good guys fighting evil. There was evil on both sides. Poland
suffered not only at the hands of its enemies, but also its "friends".
Despite the "Cold War" the myth has persisted that the Soviets were good guys in
the Second World War. In fact, they were as bad if not worse than the Nazi
Germans. Almost certainly, they killed and tortured more people. And there is no
doubt that their crimes started before Hitler went into action, and lasted long
after Hitler was gone -- almost a half century longer, in the virtual occupation
of Poland. What also has been forgotten by many people is that Hitler never
could have launched the war without Stalin being there with him, hand in hand.
Not only did Stalin take up arms as Hitler's ally against Poland, the Soviets
supplied food, fuel and resources that gave Hitler the ability to attack the
West. Now there is some effort to excuse Stalin as just trying to buy time,
contending that Stalin had every intention of attacking Germany eventually.
That's debatable, but what we do know for sure is that Stalin was shocked that
his partner in crime turned
on him and refused to believe early reports of the German attacks.
The myth of the Soviets being in the "alliance of good people" has been
maintained because the "Allies" of the Poles, principally the US under Roosevelt
and UK under Churchill, stabbed Poland in the back rooms of Yalta, Tehran and
Potsdam when they let Stalin keep the eastern half of Poland that he had invaded
and occupied in September 1939 while he was still allied with Hitler, who was
busy invading and occupying the western half at the same time. It is not
sufficient to claim that the Red Army was so strong that the Allies could not
have done anything in a practical sense: to claim a moral stance, they had to
tell Stalin that they would not support his claims. Instead, they acted as his
willing co-conspirators to hand over half of Poland outright and give the
Soviets control over what was left. A measure of their perfidy was that they did
not even consult Poland while they were giving it away, although Polish troops
were still putting their lives on
the line to defeat Hitler -- and continued to do so in spite of the betrayal, to
their everlasting honour.
This history is known, but not by many ordinary people in the West because of
official propaganda augmented by the Hollywood treatment of the "noble Allied
cause." You can't blame people of our parents' generation for declining to push
the truth down the throats of an unwilling Western public. Consider their
situation, trying to rebuild shattered lives in new lands, speaking a new
language and learning new customs. Also, you can't blame them for being wary
after the betrayal they had witnessed: Soviet Russia stabbing them in the back
as they single-handedly fought off a massive German invasion; failure of the
British and especially the French to pounce on Germany's weak western borders
while the Poles tied them down in the east; the US and UK secretly giving away
Poland's Kresy to the Soviets who had taken it by force as Nazi allies; post-war
efforts to push displaced Poles to go to a distorted Poland that was under
Soviet control -- where the Soviets
and their puppets hunted down and murdered Polish heroes who had fought the
Germans.
It's up to our generation to tell the story that our parents could not. Rees has
helped open up eyes (a learned friend of mine expressed surprise at how much he
learned from the series).
I share your feelings of awe about what my parents and so many other Polish
people survived, Zdzis.. How could people who lived through that terror have
held on to their decency and hope, and given us such a wholesome upbringing? If
we fail to pick up the torch, it's not their fault -- it's our own.
John Halucha
Sault Ste Marie, Canada
Poland - Mlodow/Lubaczow, Januszewice/ Opoczno
USSR - Brygytka/Starobiels k/Pechorlag (Pieczorlag) /Abez’ (Abiez)
Army - 1 Dywizja Pancerna 10.Komp.Zaop. 10.Bryg.Kaw (1st Pol Armd Div, 10th
Supply Co, 10th Armd Cav Brig) / 2 Korpus 10 Baon Saperow (2nd Corps 10
Pol.Corps Tps Engs)

____________ _________ _________ __
From: Zdzislaw Nowicki <znowicki@hotmail. <mailto:znowicki% 40hotmail. com> com>
To: Kresy-Siberia@ <mailto:Kresy- Siberia%40yahoog roups.com> yahoogroups. com
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2009 11:30:02 PM
Subject: [Kresy-Siberia] Behind Closed Doors etc...

I have just read the book and will watch the DVD soon. What a heart-rending
tale. I am normally quite eloquent and can describe my feelings and attitudes
very well but in this case, words fail me. I can only begin to guess at the
sorrow and despair my parents felt but never showed.

I never fully understood their silence on the subject of Poland, I just assumed
that they both wanted to forget a horrible past and wanted make a new life for
us all in England. I remember the looks of pride they had whenever I told them
that I would not anglicise my name as I was, and still am, proud of my Polish
heritage.

Now I can appreciate more fully the distrust they felt towards Roosevelt and
Churchill and their unbridled loathing of Stalin. I suppose that in modern
terms, we would be classed as a dysfunctional family. Given their experiences
and pardon my French but, Hell, I'm amazed that they were able to even raise a
family!!!!

Combined with Anne Applebaum's "Gulag", Jan T Gross' "Revolution from abroad",
my own research into my parents' lives before the war, their experiences of
deportation and my experience of their lives in post-war England, I have gained
a new insight into their psyche.

I'm not quite sure about Laurence Rees' final paragraph:

"The central popular myth that surrounds the war, a kind of Hollywood version of
the history, is that it is a simple story of an alliance of good people who
fought an alliance of bad people. It's an immensely consoling way of looking at
the past, and it's sad to let it go. But let it go we must."

Maybe I can let it go. But only after I have discovered my ancestors and as many
extant relations as possible, however distant. If that means rabbiting on about
Poland and World War 2, so be it. I may not be able to change the past but I
sure can affect the future and in my future, there will not be any sugar-coated
version of events.

Jeszcze Polska nie zginela kiedy my zyjemy...

Zdzis
Runaway Bay
Australia

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _
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