Tag: Russian

Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Urgent Prayer Needed!!!

By Barbara Miller

A number of commentators are comparing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Hitler’s invasion of European countries in World War 11 and wondering how far Putin will go to re-establish the USSR. People are also asking is the west having its Neville Chamberlain moment of appeasement?

You can support the people of Ukraine by donating to Christians For Israel who are sending food parcels and emergency shelter – https://c4israel.com.au. For readers outside Australia, go to your local networks who are helping Ukraine.

Poland was not part of USSR, as was Ukraine till 1991, but Poland will have bad memories of how it was treated by the Russians during and after World War 11. Surprisingly, perhaps, my book If I Survive covers some of that story. The reason for this is that I needed to piece together the information from Lena Goldstein, whose story it is, by doing a lot of background research to put it in context. So I will include some extracts here:

Excerpt of horrific story from If I Survive

The Nazis fought their way into Warsaw. Dead bodies were everywhere. They closed the schools, shut down the newspapers and concerts. The people loved music, but the city fell silent.

The Siege of Warsaw by the Germans began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion of Poland commenced on 17 September. The Polish Warsaw Army (Armia Warszawa) defended Warsaw, the capital of Poland, as substantial aerial bombardments by the Luftwaffe rained down.

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To offer what support she could (to her brothers who were sent to the east to fight), Lena went undercover as an actress with a troop of actors who happened to be going to Brest. She says:

“We were already on the Russian side, and people were coming back from the Russian side, saying, ‘Go back, go back because they’re killing people,’ especially Jews because they know the Jews are escaping from the Germans. They’re killing Jews because they know that everybody is selling all that they possess to run away from the Germans to the Russian side. It was dangerous.”

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Lena’s sister Fela and her husband did not want to accept Russian citizenship. They were Polish citizens, and they wanted to go back to Poland. Angered, the Russians sent them to Siberia instead, as punishment. Russia had already been sent many dissidents to this remote place. Lena longed to find her sister, hold her in her arms, share sisterly stories, even to know she was alive and not suffering. But there was no word from her. It was as if a chapter of her life had closed.

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(Because of the Warsaw Uprising Aug-Oct 1944 led by the Polish home army or resistance timed for the retreat of the Germans and advance of the Soviets) The Germans reduced Warsaw to smoking ruins, the skeletons of burnt blocks of apartments surrounded by rubble and destroyed bridges sunk into the river. It was like a ghost town.

The Soviets paid the highest price to defeat the Nazis in Europe, losing more than 26 million troops, so the Allies didn’t want to upset them, and this accounted for their low-level support for their ally Poland. This lack of support was despite the fact that Polish pilots helped win the Battle of Britain in 1940, 115,000 Poles fought in Italy under British command, and after D-Day Poles fought on the western front. They also fought for Britain in the Middle East.

Tehran Conference

The Tehran Conference sealed the fate of Poland. It was a meeting between US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Iran, between 28 November and 1 December 1943. It is reported that:
Stalin pressed for a revision of Poland’s eastern border with the Soviet Union to match the line set by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in 1920. To compensate Poland for the resulting loss of territory, the three leaders agreed to move the German–Polish border to the Oder and Neisse rivers. This decision was not formally ratified, however, until the Potsdam Conference of 1945. (Office of the Historian n.d.)
It seems the president of the Polish government-in-exile, Władysław Raczkiewicz, was not aware of this. Also, the Americans were keen to get Soviet support for the war against Japan. At the Yalta conference between the Americans, British and Soviets from 4 to 11 February 1945, the Allies withdrew support for the Polish government-in-exile and Poland was allowed to become a Soviet satellite. Other decisions were made that enabled a Soviet sphere of influence in Europe that led to the Cold War. Stalin said:
For the Russian people, the question of Poland is not only a question of honor but also a question of security. Throughout history, Poland has been the corridor through which the enemy has passed into Russia. Poland is a question of life and death for Russia. (The Latin Library n.d.)
After the war, Poland became a communist state and remained so until 1989. One occupying force was replaced by another. The Soviets persecuted the soldiers of the Home Army and the resistance fighters of the Warsaw Uprising as being anti-Soviet. Instead of being honoured as brave fighters, they were maligned. A monument to the Home Army was not built until 1989 when the Soviets lost control of Poland. Instead, the Soviet-backed People’s Army was glorified. the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), Stalin’s secret police, or the Office of Security (UB), the Polish political police, captured many Home Army fighters, eradicating opposition to post-war communist Poland. The UB operated from 1945 to 1954. They imprisoned the soldiers on charges such as fascism and sent many to Gulags. However, memories of the uprising and lack of Soviet support for them motivated the Polish labour movement, Solidarity, which led to peaceful opposition against the Polish communist government in the 1980s.
In Poland now, 1 August is a celebrated anniversary. On the fiftieth anniversary of the (Warsaw) uprising, in 1994, Poland held a ceremony and invited the German and Russian presidents. Russian President Boris Yeltsin didn’t attend but German President Roman Herzog visited and was the first German statesman to apologise for German atrocities against Poland during the uprising. “

For more information on If I Survive.