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The Polish Anchor: A Symbol of Resistance
The Polish Anchor
The Cheka is the NKVD, which is the KGB, which is the current FSB, which still controls Moscow, where old and new Russian errors still dominate. The same Moscow, under new ideological veneer, whose genocidal intents in Ukraine would lead, if allowed to succeed, to the end of Catholics in that martyred nation. – from the New Catholic, Rorate Caeli
As the Russian war against Ukraine continues, Putin knows that Poland is the lynchpin of resistance to his imperial ambitions. Poland is as the Scots might say, the The Auld Enemy. The auld enemy of the old Czars, and of the new Czar.
The Polish Anchor was the symbol of the Polish Home Army during the resistance against Nazi Germany occupiers. Russian disinformation would have you believe that the Polish Anchor is a neo-Nazi symbol. Unfortunately, there are some in the EU and in North America that believe that as well.
Poland offends the sensibilities of the Left because the Catholic Church was the rock of resistance against the old totalitarians, and now the new totalitarians in the EU, the United States, Russia, and Canada.
The 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the German occupiers lasted for 63 days. It was the largest single military effort taken by a resistance group in Europe.
“The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland’s capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation could assume control.”
“Although the exact number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. Jews being harbored by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighborhoods. German casualties totaled over 2,000 to 17,000 soldiers killed and missing.”
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Published in History
Stalin’s forces could have easily reached Warsaw in time to relieve the Home Army. Instead he halted the offensive to give the Nazis time to crush the resistance.
I am so incredibly impressed by Poland. They have taken in 2.4 million Ukrainian refugees, without complaint, and they are the primary transshipment path for most of western munitions to go into Ukraine.
After Canada helped American escape from Iran in 1979, the United States formally waived all entrance fees into National Parks as a symbolic gesture. I would love to see a similar way of honoring Poland. Do they owe us any money? If so, let’s cancel that debt.
One of the consequences of the Ukraine War is that the United States should build a permanent base in Poland if they would like for us to do so.
Poles are, I think, the 9th largest ethnic group in the U.S. They are an incredible contribution to our country.
And they are an incredible contribution to the world, with John Paul, II, otherwise known as John Paul the Great.
And don’t forget the Katyn Massacre. After the 1939 joint Soviet/Nazi conquest of Poland, 22,000 Polish military officers, police officers landowners and various members of the Polish intelligencia were liquidated by the NKVD. When the mass graves were found the Soviets blamed the Nazis. It wasn’t until after the fall of the USSR that the truth came out.
A memorial t0 the murdered Poles in Jersey City NJ:
Remember the slurs directed at Polish Solidarity and the Catholic Church in the 1980’s by the American left?
A lot of people believed the Russians didn’t do it.
None of them had IQs above room temperature.
Well said.
The Poles kept fighting all the way through World War II.
My favorite part about that is when the Polish captain deals with the nonsensical order to remove all the ammunition from his destroyer by ignoring the order.
if Ukraine manages to hold off the anticipated Russia offensive in the east than the battle of Kiev will rank up with the “Miracle on the Vistula” of 1920 where the Polish army’s counter attack crushed a Soviet offensive that was on the outskirts of Warsaw.
Not true. FDR was well aware of the Katyn Massacres. The Poles, had investigated the atrocities in 1943 and knew who did it; the British and the Americans were very well aware of the massacres and pressured the Poles to keep their information secret to avoid a rupture in the Alliance. FDR intentionally misled the American people regarding the identity of the perpetrators, agreeing with the Soviet lies, so as not to “impair” the war effort–and American generals later held American troops back from the advance on Berlin to let the Red Army take the heavy casualties–and control eastern Europe. FDR suggested to Stalin and Churchill at the Tehran conference of the Big 3 that after the war the allies execute 50,000 Germans as the Soviets had done to the Poles, to control Germany; Churchill walked out of the discussion and refused to return until Roosevelt took back that suggestion. Perfidy on both sides. As much American as Soviet. It didn’t require the fall of the Soviet Union to reveal the truth. Just to add an admission of guilt by Gorbachev that was forthcoming in 1990. A verification of what was already known.
We have about as much chance of bringing Putin to justice as we had of bringing Stalin to justice. Not least because of feckless (and compromised) leadership in the White House.
I hardly think the current Pope is a bulwark of resistance against the old totalitarians, and now the new totalitarians in the EU, the United States, Russia, and Canada. He is much more of an enabler.
The Poles were also absolutely critical to the breaking of the NAZIs codes.
I do. Solidarity was inconvenient. The general sense was that the workers of Gdansk were ungrateful, and perhaps infected with false consciousness. At the college paper where I worked, there were liberal anti-Communists who ran the editorial page, and sided with Lech.
If Putin had shattered Ukraine and drawn up his plots against Poland, I wonder who’d take his side? Poland shouldn’t have joined NATO, there were strong historical ties, Russia has justified fears, Russian influence can keep out corrupting EU dictates, and so on. The Left would forget everything they had ever said about Poland, and lament the aggression.
And remember, part of the Obama “Russian Reset” was to scrap the plans for the missile defense shield in Poland
The Poles also broke the Soviet codes just before the “Miracle on the Vistula”- turns out they were good at it
We should reverse that Obama decision, and provide Poland with a missile defense shield.
Or, we could just let them pay us back with U.S. Dollars. That would be about the same thing as canceling their debt.
Your post inspired me to walk over for a visit with that great Polish American hero Tadeusz Kościuszko who guards the NE corner of Lafayette Square, in front of the White House.
Great grandpap’s middle name was Kościuszko. He didn’t have a drop of Polish blood in his veins. Great-great grandma read a lot of books.
I find it very odd that I’d never heard of this man.
At Saratoga, Gen. Horatio Gates asked Col. Kościuszko to figure out what terrain between the Americans and the British was easiest to defend. Kościuszko had the rebels dig in on Bemis Heights. The British couldn’t budge them. After that, he had various assignments, the biggest of which was the two years he spent improving the defenses of a place called West Point. Eventually, he was able to get Washington to send him to the South, where eventually he laid out the siege lines at Yorktown. Then he went back to Poland and got up in Catherine the Great’s face.
Actually, I don’t, though it doesn’t surprise me that the left would respond that way. I would have remembered if I had heard those slurs, but I must have missed them.
There used to be an obligatory list of prominent non-British ethnic leaders in the Continental army in every American history text (Lafayette, Kościuszko, Steuben). It went with the whole melting pot thing we used to be encouraged to celebrate. Lafayette Square has statues of all three of those and a statue of General Rochambeau who led French troops without whom Washington’s army could never have taken Yorktown, among other achievements. The statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback in the middle of the park kinda disturbs the Revolutionary War theme.
There are Indiana counties named Steuben and Kosciusko. I’ve done a lot of bicycle rides in the latter. (The name is not pronounced in a way that would be recognizable to Polish people, though.) Not only were they honored for their service in the American Revolution, but Polish freedom fighters were very much on the minds of Americans during their attempt to break free of Russian rule around 1831.
A lot of my riding in Kosciusko County is related to the 1832 Black Hawk War, and that topic has also led me to newspaper archives of the time. It is somewhat frustrating that the newspapers (the nearest to Kosciusko County was in South Bend) carried more news about the freedom fighters in Poland than they did about the local militias that went off to the Black Hawk War. But I suppose the editors figured that everybody knew what was going on locally, but had no other way of keeping up with the news from Europe.
From what I’ve been told Great Grandpap’s pronunciation was way off too.
I spent a couple of summers in Steuben Co NY as a summer camp counselor and Keuka Lake sailing instructor. Beautiful hilly country, sparsely populated back then. The Finger Lakes region has some wonderful scenery. The guy I worked for was also one of my high school teachers. The first summer was about building the facility from scratch on an 80-acre farm on a hill.
When Con Ed told him that it would be a couple of months to get an electricity hookup, he replied that the delay was illegal under the regs. (He was the kind of guy who would have looked that up first.) His farmer neighbors told him that was the norm up there. One was still without power after several months. So, my teacher/employer/mentor called the office of then-Senator Robert Kennedy. 48 hours later several trucks and an installation team showed up. He refused to allow them to do the hookup until his neighbors were all done–only fair–they had been waiting longer. Everybody made more phone calls. Soon, more trucks. All done within a couple of days. Whatever their personal failings, the Kennedy clan knew the value of using their ample clout for grassroots constituent service and they delivered.
Steuben himself was never in that area. In a similar vein, numerous places across the US are named for Richard Montgomery (killed in the failed Canadian invasion led by Benedict Arnold) including my home area of Montgomery County MD. Prior to the Civil War Montgomery was known and remembered. (His widow was a great promoter.) He was never in Maryland as far as I know.
In the town where I grew up, Rockville, CT, we had a large Polish population with a Polish Catholic Church and a Kosciuszko Club also known as TKB, short for Tadeusz Kosciuszko Benefit. We also had a Lafayette Square but ours was a shopping/office plaza. It was near the Lafayette Monument, a stone with plaque on it. Lafayette stopped there on his way from Worcester to Hartford.