|
National Journal, first published: 01/03/2010 |
|
|
|
http://polskaweb.eu/polens-mysterioese-bevoelkerungsexplosion-nach-dem-zweiten-weltkrieg-65373111118.html 03.11.2009 |
|
By the staff of Polskaweb.eu, posted Nov. 3, 2009 Translated by J M Damon
It is clear that official histories have been massively manipulated, especially as regards numbers of victims and ethnicities of both perpetrators and victims. The recent openings of archives in Eastern Europe have helped decisive in this development. East European politicians, eyewitnesses and courts of law are increasingly supportive of these developments, and they are now making sensational statements and delivering honest verdicts that throw the traditional falsifiers of history into a panic. [Let us hope that politicians, eyewitnesses and courts in the West will soon find the courage to follow their example!] General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland’s last Communist leader, who has metamorphosed into a champion of free speech and real history, made a spectacular revelation recently in the course of an extensive interview with the Moscow daily ISVESTIA. The controversial former general and president of Poland has metamorphosed into a champion of free speech and real history. The original subject of the interview concerned his reasons for declaring martial law in 1981, but he voluntarily expanded the discussion: "That (declaration of martial law) was a nightmare for me, but there was no time for a better alternative. If I had been a Soviet general observing what was happening in Poland, I would certainly have intervened. I understood very well what was threatening us if we did not declare martial law, because I was familiar with the realities of those days. I remember the words of Leonid Brezhnev, who definitively stated that he would never allow counterrevolutionary sentiment in Poland to jeopardize the peace of Europe. Martial law was bad, but it was less drastic than the looming catastrophe! There were good political reasons for my declaring a national emergency. In the Polish Communist Party there were dogmatists – Troglodytes – who would allow no reforms at all, and they were prepared to oppose reforms at all costs. They had secret contacts with the leaders of the Soviet Union and they were demanding military intervention. We must not forget that Brezhnev was surrounded by aging dogmatists. My imposition of martial law had an economic background as well: they were threatening Poland with a cutoff of gas deliveries. We experienced a curtailment of deliveries as early as December 1981." At this point the General, who speaks fluent Russian, digressed from the subject of martial law and spoke on various topics including the US rocket defense system, which he believes would not contribute to greater security in Europe. Out of a clear blue sky, he remarked that he has learned a great deal in his long life but is still puzzled by certain conundrums from the past, which include the population explosion in postwar Poland. Then the former president of Poland amazed the assembled journalists with the following: "To this day I still do not understand how, after the end of the War, we had a population of 24 million but at the time of the next census, in 1970, there were suddenly 14 million more Poles. Then this population explosion suddenly ended at 38 million, as though struck by lightning. The population has remained at around 38 million to this day. Apparently there was a powerful aphrodisiac in the land that led to 14 million new Poles, although the food markets in those days had nothing to sell but vinegar... Millions died of starvation in those days." Indeed, the official growth in the Polish population during the postwar period remains very mysterious. The official figures differ from those of Jaruzelski by around 6 million. The controversial ex-president, who is considered an honorable man despite his former Communist affiliation and declaration of martial law, points out that according to official statistics, only 24 million Poles were still alive in 1946, out of of 37 million in the late 1930s. According to official figures 13 million Poles were missing, of whom 5.9 million had died in the War (including 2.9 million Jews.) To this day, the fate of millions of missing Poles remains unknown. The official figures of the Polish Department of Vital Statistics (GUS) gave the 1946 Polish population as 23.5 million. In 1970 it was 32.7 million, 5.8 million fewer than in 1990 following the fall of Communism. Since then the population of Poland has consistently been given as 38 million, and the Polish birthrate has remained constant at 1.3 children per woman. 20 years after the fall of Communism, the population growth rate is still 0.00 percent. Jaruzelski points out that this rate has not changed since 1970. The GUS statistics must obviously be treated with reservations, since official Soviet doctrine cannot be ruled out. Now one of the most authoritative and influential surviving witnesses to the Second World War and half-century of Communism is sharing his insight and knowledge in this press interview. Jaruzelski learned to know the Soviets from their bad side. Both he and his father suffered in the Gulag before fighting against Germany in the Red Army; and he probably has more first hand knowledge of the USSR, the Second World War and the postwar period in Poland than all historians combined have ever put down on paper. He knows very well what did and did not happen in Auschwitz and Majdanek. He witnessed the genocide against the Germans in Danzig, Stettin and other areas that were "ethnically cleansed." Today he is on trial in Poland because of his fears that his nation too would suffer the wrath of the Soviets, with which he was all too familiar. He is an elegant elderly gentleman who is calmly reflecting and stating his case before the media and the courts. It would be a mistake to think that he does not know precisely what he is doing. In view of this unique population explosion between 1946 and 1970, various other circumstances seem notworthy, even though they may have no direct connection to that phenomenon. The fates of millions of infants and children during the Second World War and ensuing ethnic cleansing are still unknown. Officially we have been told that all the Jewish children who were reported missing were murdered by the National Socialists and that the missing Polish children were confiscated and transported to Germany or else killed by the SS and Wehrmacht. We have also been led to believe that the missing German children died of famine, disease and exposure as a result of "ethnic cleansing." The evidence does not support these assumptions, however. Many anecdotal events have been substantiated, but they do not solve the cumulative mystery of the fate of millions of missing children. Simply reading ordinary Polish telephone books tends to contradict official explanations, since dozens of Jewish and German family names (or their Polish variants) are found on every page ... We should keep in mind that officially, Jewish and German minorities comprise a very small fraction of the Polish population. Given our present understanding of the Cold War, writing a book on German-Polish history that included official statistics would deliver a powerful kick in the derriere to politicians and historians alike. Present day Russia, by contrast, is more amenable to historical correctness (as opposed to "political correctness.") Quite recently the President of Russia publicly stated that Stalin as well as Hitler "brought great suffering to the world." In the view of many Russian writers, Dictator Stalin was even worse than Dictator Hitler. In addition, a Russian court recently rehabilitated tens of thousands of Germans who were summarily shot or perished in Soviet labor camps.
This is little consolation for the victims and their
families, but it is a significant contribution to
reconciliation among European nations. Alas, Poland’s
power elite assigns little value to reconciliation. |
|
Commentary: The postwar Polish population statistics were clearly falsified. They listed around 14 million Poles as "disappeared," but these 14 million miraculously reappeared in subsequent statistics. Now the Polish news media are suggesting that the stories about heavy losses among the Polish and Jewish populations under the Generalgouvernement (German occupation government) should be scientifically investigated by authentic historians. In many areas, postwar and Cold War historians "swindled" the public or were themselves misled by the government. Millions of histories of the Second World War belong in the dustbin! This story is similar to the controversies surrounding the Jewish world population. According to Jewish statistics, it too stagnated between 1930 and 1950 at around 15 million but then showed a sudden drastic loss of around 6 million. Some historians refer to this as the "Statistical Holocaust." Perhaps, however, it can be simply explained by falsified statistics that, along with other Polish-Soviet falsifications, have provided such rich materials for conformist historians: "Obviously, statistics concerning numbers of victims as well as the ethnic origins of both culprits and victims have been manipulated." Is this perhaps the long-sought answer to the question of what became of the millions of missing persons? Obviously, falsifications of population statistics in amounts of tens of millions of "missing persons" were and are still not unusual – to the disadvantage of Germany with its massive reparations payments for these mysterious missing "victims." |
