I started a new job last week, but I almost missed my first day – preoccupied as I was after remembering it was the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War.
It’s strange that I would be so suddenly distracted by the commemorations, as in recent months we’ve been bombarded by movies on the subject, including Quentin Tarantino’s latest ensemble blockbuster. I mention this one specifically because, although the movie is intended to be humorous, it simply shows the actions of those involved without needing to twist the truth to fit any particular agenda.
Everyone knows that on 1 September 1939, the Nazi army attacked Poland. But in our history books published after the fall of the Iron Curtain, there’s another entry – 17 September 1939, when the Red Army struck our eastern lands, fulfilling the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. During this time of liberation at the end of the 1980s, most of the truth was revealed and historians or witnesses of those days – whose works were published abroad or by the underground press during the communist years – finally received official recognition.
In this light, any unfair remark by Russian officials should be met with our government’s protest and nothing else. We know our history, and there are many resources to support it.
So why, then, did a popular internet portal recently play on its Polish users’ patience by making a stink of providing “true facts” and “evidence” against something said by President Putin that we should simply ignore?
Every Polish person should know that the Russian government tends to falsify our history. Even my generation had experienced this.
But I would worry that younger Poles just don’t care – the subject is boring to them, and the school textbooks can’t cover everything.
Although we do not have a Polish Tarantino to make our history interesting for Polish youth, some excellent home-grown TV productions will hopefully do some good. Polish parents would do well to let their children watch some TV after 8pm, and keep them away from the internet.
– Anna Paluch
