Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Oblawa Augustowska, by Teresa Kaczorowska. 2015. Bellona, Warszawa

The Soviet Boot at First Fails to Stomp Out Polish Freedom Fighters in Augustow and Environs

THE AUGUSTOW ROUNDUP is the title of this Polish-language book. Augustow is part of the region of NE Poland as defined by her post-WWII boundaries, and the scene of this Soviet Communist criminal operation that took place in July 1945, which was two months after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Soviets turned against Poland, on a massive scale, in what has become known as the Augustow roundup (also called the “successive Katyn.”)

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST NAZI GERMAN AND SOVIET COMMUNIST REPRESSION

Let us go back to the beginnings of WWII. Kaczorowska figures 800,000 to 2,000,000 Polish deportees to Siberia in 1939-1941. (p. 67). One member of the 1941 deportation did not return, from Irkutsk, until 1994. (pp. 73-74).

No sooner had Poland been defeated in 1939, by the Soviet-German aggression, than an Underground conspiracy began to develop in the Augustow and Suwalki areas of Poland. The actions involved intelligence, propaganda, sabotage, and even combat. (pp. 16-17). Witold Pilecki was involved in a group that disarmed a functionary of the GRENSCHUTZ that was transporting weapons, ammunition, and uniforms. (p. 17).

The BCh (Bataliony Chlopskie) were active. They fought back against the German confiscation of Polish agricultural produce, punished those Poles who obeyed the Germans too diligently, and assassinated collaborators and members of bandit bands. (p. 127). The BCh conducted over 3,000 combat actions against the German administration. (pp. 127-128).

COMMUNIST SUBJUGATION OF POLAND: THE SOVIET “ALLY” SHOWS ITS TRUE COLORS

Nazi Germany suddenly attacked her erstwhile Soviet partner in 1941. This technically put the USSR and Poland on the same side. Think again.

As the Red Army was driving the Nazi Germans out of Poland in 1944, the Polish guerrillas (Armia Krajowa) made contact with the Soviets and came out in open combat against the Germans, on the side of the Red Army, as part of Operation Burza (Operation Tempest). This caused the structure of the A. K. to be exposed to the Soviets, and they soon disarmed the Polish guerillas, murdered or exiled many of the officers, and conscripted the soldiers into the Soviet-serving Berling’s army. (p. 18, 91). The Churchill-Roosevelt sellout of faithful ally Poland, notably at Teheran and Yalta, had begun to bear fruit.

The remaining Polish guerrillas got the message: As long as one enemy soldier remains on Polish soil, the war continues. (p. 93). With the passage of the Soviet-German front, the Red Army moved on in January 1945, leaving behind a Soviet-imposed Communist administration that was thinly spread out. (pp. 232-233). The Polish Communist stooges of the Soviets, including the UB and MO, started arresting many people.

The Zolnierze Wykleci (Cursed Soldiers; Indomitable Soldiers) then swung into action. The unit of Wladyslaw Stefanski “Grom” broke up a UB and MO unit, freeing the arrested Poles. (pp. 178-179). The disarming of other Communist militia posts also took place. By mid-May 1945, the Polish freedom fighters had largely freed the entire Augustow area from the Soviet-imposed Communist administration. (p. 179).

RAW SOVIET MURDEROUS AGGRESSION

The Soviet response was draconian. It involved no less than 45,000 highly-armed Soviet attackers from the Red Army and NKVD, alongside a small group of Polish Communists from the UB and MO. (p. 7). SMERSH was involved. (p. 59, 245). They arrested 7,000 Poles and interrogated them in whatever facilities–barns, pigsties, and shops. The Stalinist terror apparatus went into full bloom, using tortures that included tying-up with wire and placing victims into water-filled pits under the bare sky.

Only some of the interrogated ever went home. The official number of Poles murdered is given as 952, but the actual number is as high as 2,000. (p. 8, 29, 62). The IPN has long been studying the Augustow Roundup. All evidence points to the fact that the actual toll may be as high as 2,000. (p. 163). They were all murdered without as much as the formality of a trial. (p. 242).

A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

The Soviet crime was no war crime: It was an act of aggression of one nation (the USSR) against another nation (Poland) that took place in peacetime. (p. 246). It was not merely one that repressed the freedom fighters. It indiscriminately targeted all Poles, and qualifies as a crime against humanity that has no statute of limitations. (p. 242). A large fraction of those arrested were not in the Polish Underground. (p. 245). Among those arrested were teenagers, old men, and pregnant women. (p. 245).

The Communist terror did not fully achieve its goals. Polish resistance against Soviet-imposed Communism, in the forests of Augustow, persisted until fall 1954. (p. 246).

THE SECRET SITES OF THE MURDERED POLES

What happened to the 2,000 Polish victims? Author Kaczorowska (pp. 55-56) lists some theories. One has them taken to an area near Grodno and murdered; another one has them murdered at the lakes near Goldap; still another has them murdered in some secret Soviet camp.

A petition, started by the Political Division of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, and directed to Marshall of the Sejm Radoslaw Sikorski, and supported by 14,000 signatures, calls for the intensification of attempts to determine the burial sites of the 2,000 victims of the Augustow Roundup. (p. 62). The signees included 386 scholars, 219 priests, and many others. (p. 64).

The Russian historian and human rights activist, Nikita Vasilevich Pietrov (born 1957), has studied the Soviet NKVD operation in Poland. He also has investigated the falsified referendum and sham elections of 1946-1947, the Katyn massacre, and the Augustow Roundup. (p. 50). According to Pietrov, the Augustow Roundup took place in accordance with the personal orders of Stalin. (p. 54). Pietrov believes that the operation coincided with Stalin’s passage on the Moscow-Berlin railroad, across Poland in July 1945, for the upcoming Potsdam Conference near Berlin. (p. 54).

RUSSIA CONTINUES STALLING ON THIS CRIME EVEN TODAY

There is no Russian information about the sites of the murdered. (p. 59). They just cynically say that the victims suffered an “unknown fate”. (p. 241). In some ways, the Augustow crime is an improvement over the Katyn crime. (It makes me think of Stalin saying that the missing Polish officers “must have all escaped to Manchuria.”)

REMEMBERING THE POLISH FREEDOM FIGHT AND THE SOVIET COMMUNIST TERROR

This book includes the text of the Polish Underground Hymn, which features a verse that says, “Do broni Jezus Maria.” (p. 19). It also features many photographs. It has descriptions of plaques and monuments to the victims of the Augustow roundup. The Bialystok division of the IPN organized an exhibit to the victims in 2013. (p. 110).