crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes The structures of the Polish Underground State developed in the occupied country and remained in contact with the government in exile. The civil and armed units of the Underground State were organised in all regions, districts and communes of the country in order to be able to restore the country’s public administration immediately after the end of the occupation. Clandestine structures of education, the judiciary and civil services were built. The underground army (known as the Home Army) numbered over 350,000 soldiers and became part of the armed forces of the anti-German coalition. It was trained for attacks on the Nazi German occupying forces and in actively seeking to liberate Poland. After the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, the entire territory of Poland fell under Nazi German occupation. Stalin was forced to restore diplomatic relations with Poland. Moscow renewed its obligation to respect the sovereignty of Poland. The situation changed after Soviet victories on the Eastern Front. The Red Army began to approach the territory of pre-war Poland. The USSR wanted to decide freely about the future of Polish society, so it once again broke diplomatic relations with Poland, while at the same time preparing itself for the establishment of its own communist administration in the country. When returning within the pre-war borders of the Republic of Poland, Stalin knew that for the building of communism in Poland it would be necessary not only to get rid of the German administration, but also to destroy the legitimate administration of the Polish Underground State. He was determined to suppress Polish aspirations for independence at any cost. In 1944, most of the territory which was under Soviet occupation in the years 1939–41, was again incorporated into the Soviet Union. Stalin appointed the so-called Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) created by the communist regime in Moscow to take power in the territory of Poland which gradually fell under Soviet rule. Within a few months, the Committee protected by the Red Army, declared itself the government of Poland. The military and civil structures of the Polish Underground State, regardless of their substantial military and intelligence support to the Red Army in its struggle with the Germans, were ruthlessly eliminated by forces under the Soviet security and counter-intelligence command. At the conference of the “Big Three” in Yalta in 1945, Stalin achieved international recognition of his occupation of the Eastern territories of Poland, i.e. almost the entire area occupied by the Soviets in 1939 on the basis of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The USSR also succeeded in making the Western superpowers withdraw their diplomatic support of Poland’s government in exile, in exchange for the free election promised to be organised within Poland’s new borders. However, the retreat of the Red Army from Poland was not ensured. As a result of its continuing presence and reign of terror, free elections never took place in Poland under Communist rule. In 1947, the election was held in an atmosphere of terror and repression. The election results were rigged in the course of an operation supervised by a special group of Soviet Ministry of Interior apparatchiks who were sent to Poland from Moscow under the command of Colonel Aron Palkin. In the years that followed, opposition was ruthlessly destroyed and the public’s aspirations paralysed by successive waves of terror. The tragedy of Poland’s situation after 1944 was that Soviet repression was imposed on a country which had not been an ally of Nazi Germany. To suppress Polish aspirations for independence, hundreds of thousands of people who fought against the Nazis during World War Two were repressed, even though they could not have been accused of supporting the Nazis with any reasonable justification. Mass murders and acts of terror took place across the whole of post-war Soviet-occupied Poland. On top of that, deportations to labour camps in the USSR continued and many soldiers of the Resistance and civilians were arrested. That period is still known in Russia as “the liberation of Poland by the Red Army”, in which nearly 100,000 people were sent to Soviet labour camps or gulags as they are also known. In many cases, acts of communist terror even surpassed the bestiality and cruelty of those committed by the Nazis. The symbol of that time is the “Augustów round-up”, in which during a few days in July 1944 over 2,000 people from a small area were arrested, including women and children. Of them, more than 600 never returned to their homes. In this way any resistance against the communist authorities was suppressed, even though the authorities did not enjoy public support. Like the Nazi system, the communist system of terror needed a network of labour camps within the country. Former Nazi German camps were used and new camps were also built. The fact that German Konzentrazionslager Auschwitz did not cease to operate even after its liberation by the Red Army is symbolic. It remained in use for many months as a camp in which new inmates were kept in inhuman 102
Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes conditions – this time under the Soviet NKVD and communists. In nearby Jaworzno, a small former Nazi German concentration camp (part of KL Auschwitz), the Central Labour Camp was established, to become a place of torment and death of thousands of inmates of various nationalities, including members of Polish independence organisations, as well as Ukrainians and Germans. Years later, one of the authors associated with the communist authorities described the operational methods used by the Soviet secret police: “Specific methods involved secret arrests, kidnapping people from the streets or other places, with no witnesses and without informing anyone about the arrest. /…/ This NKVD method of arresting people was frequently practised. The society lived in fear and uncertainty as to what would happen the next day. When leaving home no one could be sure that he would return. If, as a result of torture during interrogation, a person secretly arrested died, he was buried at a randomly chosen place with no notice given to anyone, even the prosecution bodies. In this manner, many people disappeared without a trace. /…/ Anyone arrested was treated as an outlaw.” 1 Hundreds of thousands of people fell victims of terror during the Communist period, despite its motto “the struggle for peace and socialist democracy”, as ironic as it may sound. Every act of rebellion against the authorities from the end of World War Two to the period of the Solidarity movement in the 1980’s ended with a new period of repression and new victims. The entire machinery of the state, including the communist judicial system, formed new chains in the system of repression and enslavement. The leadership of the communist party shared the responsibility for all acts of the apparatus of terror, some of which fully deserve to be called crimes against humanity. The units of the Soviet Army stationed in Poland permanently from 1944 until their withdrawal in the early 1990’s served as an element of the system aimed to intimidate people. For Poland, the war, which began with the invasion of Nazi Germany and the communist USSR in September 1939, ended 50 years later – in 1989. Its social, demographic, economic and political effects are still to be seen. 1 H. Dominiczak, Organy bezpieczeństwa PRL 1944-1990, Warsaw 1997, p. 55. 103
Page 1 and 2:
CRIMES COMMITTED BY TOTALITARIAN RE
Page 3 and 4:
TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Lovro Št
Page 5 and 6:
IV. REMEMBRANCE, RECOGNITION AND PU
Page 7 and 8:
Crimes committed by totalitarian re
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52: Crimes committed by totalitarian re
Page 101: Crimes committed by totalitarian re
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
Page 247 and 248:
Page 249 and 250:
Page 251 and 252:
Page 253 and 254:
Page 255 and 256:
Page 257 and 258:
Page 259 and 260:
Page 261 and 262:
Page 263 and 264:
Page 265 and 266:
Page 267 and 268:
Page 269 and 270:
Page 271 and 272:
Page 273 and 274:
Page 275 and 276:
Page 277 and 278:
Page 279 and 280:
Page 281 and 282:
Page 283 and 284:
Page 285 and 286:
Page 287 and 288:
Page 289 and 290:
Page 291 and 292:
Page 293 and 294:
Page 295 and 296:
Page 297 and 298:
Page 299 and 300:
Page 301 and 302:
Page 303 and 304:
Page 305 and 306:
Page 307 and 308:
Page 309 and 310:
Page 311 and 312:
Page 313 and 314:
Page 315 and 316:
show all

crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?