Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Poland and World War II
I’ve always had a fascination with geography. Perhaps it was the result of hours long road trips we’d take as a family, of which were spent fielding various trivia questions from my father. One of the more popular categories centered around geography. As a ten year old, I took great pride in knowing all fifty US state capitals, topographical elements and major cities of various European countries.
Only in the last decade have I come to recognize and appreciate geography in a new light. While the general knowledge thereof still affords me a sense of satisfaction that the ten year old inside me still carries proudly, I now more resolutely understand the intangibles that come with geography, or as was the unfortunate case of Poland during World War II, appreciate the perils that geography sews.
When one looks through history’s lens at Poland circa 1939-1945, it is likely that the formal start of World War II via Germany’s invasion on September 1, 1939 comes to mind. In a little over a month, the Third Reich and Soviet Union swept through Poland and had its territory divvied up to both in early October of 1939.
Sandwiched between Germany and Russia, Poland serves a perfect example of the curses geography has on a country and a population. When you consider that both Germany and Russia represented a lack of constitutional republican government, it was inevitable that their tumult and instability would find its way across Polish borders. And in the case of World War II, it did so in a very violent way.
By the end of the war, Poland would suffer the highest percentage of fatalities of a prewar population of any participant in World War II. They would find themselves fighting both Germany and the Soviet Union, as well as suffering defeat and occupation of both. The vitriol of both Germany and the Red Army would result in mass killings that scarred the country for decades to come.
Those scars would include attempted purges of elites, the Polish nationality itself, and most infamously the epicenter of the horror and evil of the Holocaust. Six of the most notorious concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Sobibor, and Treblinka were all in Poland. Ten percent of Poland’s prewar population were Jewish, which further demonstrates that Germany’s conquest of Poland was intended as more than just a land grab from a weaker neighboring country.
The Poles were a part of the war in formality from its beginning in September of 1939 to its end in Europe in 1945. Some of the worst war catastrophes and the most evil movement in humankind all occurred on Polish soil. It is estimated that 5.6 million Poles would die as a result of World War II. It is astounding when you realize that Western European countries, Great Britain, and the United States combined lost fewer citizens than Poland.
Perhaps the most representative of the cruelty of geography, Poland would lose its freedom at the onset of World War II, and then again in victory at the war’s end. While in Europe, World War II would draw to a close in 1945, Poland would find itself continuing to fight for democratic principles from communistic rule and the USSR. It wouldn’t be until 1991 that Poland successfully held its first entirely free Polish parliamentary election, finally completing its transition from communist party rule to Western-style liberalized democracy. It’s first election in that fashion since the 1920s.