Travail of Poland

The Economist recently reviewed Halik Kochanski’s The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War , which the reviewer called the first “comprehensive English-language history of Poland at war.”

Even in the brief format of a review, it makes for numbing reading. For instance: “Poland fought on four fronts. One force was in Britain, drawn from those who had escaped the defeat in 1939. It helped liberate the Netherlands. Another was drawn from the deportees in the Soviet Union, rescued from death by Hitler’s attack on the Soviets. This ragtag army mustered in Persia, trained in Palestine and fought notably at Monte Cassino in Italy. A third army was formed from Poles who remained inside the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Polish communists and collaborators. It reached Berlin. The fourth, the Home Army (whose poster urging Poles ‘to arms’ is shown), was in Poland itself. Once the biggest and best-organised underground military force in Nazi-occupied Europe, it was hounded to destruction by the Soviets.”

And: “In an overture to the Holocaust, the Nazis practised mass killings and ethnic cleansing in Poland in 1939 and 1940. Their ultimate plan was to deport 31m Poles to Siberia to make way for German settlers in Poland. Some 200,000 Aryan-looking Polish children were kidnapped and given to German parents. Most were never recovered.”