Poland: Historic Tragedy – Again

Sadly, the plane crash that claimed the lives of much of Poland’s military and political elite is not without historical precedents.

Not without reason has Poland – a deeply Catholic state both culturally and religiously – often referred to itself as the “Christ among nations.” Sadly the loss of much of Poland’s military and political elite due to a jet crash en route to Russia is not without historical precedents, one of which was about to be solemnly remembered.

For almost two centuries Poland was wiped off the map of Europe, divvied up among the Prussian, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Several romantically doomed 19th century insurrections failed to resurrect the state, but Poland nonetheless rose triumphantly from the ashes of World War I. Barely two decades later, the “Second Republic” was laid waste by Hitler’s Blitzkrieg and more than 20,000 members of the Polish officer corps were killed in 1940, mostly in the Katyń forest outside Smolensk.

The entire Soviet Politburo approved the massacre of such “nationalists and counterrevolutionaries.” “Katyń” has been shorthand ever since for the untimely and tragic destruction of the country’s elite, as well as Soviet duplicity in denying the crime. Not until April 13, 1990 did the USSR admit responsibility – until then it had blamed the massacre on the Nazis – and the subject was politically forbidden by Communist authorities throughout the Cold War.

Thus it is with especially tragic irony that Poland’s top leaders were on a commemorative journey to mark the International Day of the Katyn Victims (Światowy Dzień Pamięci Ofiar Katynia) at the memorial site. And now the post-Communist “Third Republic” has been dealt a severe blow, one that former president Lech Wałesa has called “the second disaster after Katyn.” One can only hope that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin take the only step appropriate under the current circumstances and offer a complete public apology for Katyn, and provide historians full access to all the still-classified documents.

Not only is the location of the crash historically fraught, but so many of those who lost their lives hold a special place in Polish national memory. The news reports have rightly focused on the loss of Polish president Lech Kaczcynski and his wife Maria, as well as the heads of all of Poland’s armed forces and literally dozens of members of parliament. However, many relatives of the Katyń victims were on board, and they have received considerably less attention.

Also among the victims was Anna Walentynowicz, a popular and feisty worker at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk whose firing in August, 1980 led to the creation of Solidarity – the first independent self-governing trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Solidarity was more than a union: the nation-wide social movement played a critical role in negotiating an end to communism and won the first free and fair elections in the region on June 4, 1989. Long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, average Poles – all too aware that, according to the Stalinist adage, “Communism fits Poland like a saddle fits a cow” – walked off their jobs to support the reinstatement of their beloved “Pani Ania.” They created their own alternative civil and political society – eventually almost a third of the Polish Republic belonged to Solidarity. Until her untimely death this past weekend, Walentynowicz remained a popular symbol of resistance to arbitrary authority.

Thus on this occasion, it should also be remembered and celebrated that Poland, so many times the site of conflict and violence, has also long been an international example of courage and resistance in difficult circumstances. Warsaw saw two of the bravest uprisings against Nazi domination – in the Jewish ghetto in 1943 and throughout the city in 1944. When Solidarity was crushed by the declaration of martial law in December, 1981, the organization went underground and survived, committed to non-violence regardless of the number of leaders imprisoned or interrogated. And when Solidarity emerged triumphantly to win the 1989 elections, it was on the same day as the Chinese government massacred its own pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square. Poland’s path to peaceful and evolutionary change rather than via the violent crushing of dissent powerfully demonstrates the extent to which Poles have risen above their bloody history and set a global example in the process. And Poland will continue to do so. As the lyrics to the Polish national anthem appropriately state, “Poland has not yet succumbed/As long as we remain….”