OPINION:
Last month, the Polish people celebrated their 100th Independence Day, an anniversary they mark from Nov. 11, 1918, the end of World War I. As they have every year since communism fell three decades ago (the celebration was banned during the German Nazi and Soviet occupations), Poles of all political stripes devoted the day to rejoicing in their nation’s escape from bondage. But this year, as it did last year, much of the global media covered the event not as a festival of liberty but a bonfire of extremism. This is wrong.
A long and painful history lies behind the annual celebration. In 1795, imperial Russia and Prussia finished a nearly quarter-century-long process of creeping occupation with the final and complete division of Poland between them. That ended the country’s official existence for the next 123 years. Not until the Versailles Conference following the “Great War” did an independent Polish state reemerge. Freedom was lost once more in 1939, as Nazi Germany invaded from the west and Soviet Russia from the east. Subjugation continued until 1989 and the end of Soviet-backed communist rule.
Those 50 years were horrific. Poland suffered the largest percentage population loss at German Nazi hands of any country in the world. To this day nearly every Polish family can name a parent, grandparent or great grandparent known to someone still living who was killed in a German Nazi death camp, put up against a wall and machine-gunned on a city street or tortured horribly at Gestapo hands. Most have similar stories of the Cold War Soviet occupation — of its Gulag, its local version of the KGB and ordeals in the same “interrogation” chambers German Nazis had used. Anyone who knows the Polish people even slightly knows that in Poland today patriotism means anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist and anti-Communist.
Having lived this history, the Polish people embrace each Independence Day with dedication and fervor. Poles count it their patriotic duty to commemorate those who were ready to give up their lives so future generations, today’s generations, could be free. In all Polish cities, the heart of the celebration is an annual Independence Day parade. This year about 250,000 people marched through Warsaw under the centuries-old motto that Poland’s World War II anti-Nazi Home Army embraced, “Dla Ciebie Polsko: Bog, Honor, Ojczyzna” — “For you, Poland: God, Honor, Fatherland.” Happy in the holiday atmosphere, they proudly carried white and red national flags. Many brought their children. Everywhere police termed the festivities “calm and peaceful.”
This was not, however, the picture of Poland that too much of the outside world received. Many in the international media filed stories that, in light of their nation’s past, most Poles saw as a sick joke. The BBC’s online report that night led with a focus on “far right groups” and photos filled with smoke and fire (handheld flairs are to Polish Independence Day what fireworks are to America’s 4th of July) that made Warsaw look like a riot zone.
A German newspaper, Sddeutsche Zeitung, ran a picture of reenactors in World War II Polish officers’ uniforms under the headline, “Ein paar Banditen” or “several bandits.” “Bandits” was exactly what German Nazi troops called the Home Army during the war. The Guardian suggested that the massiveness of the march was thanks to “attracting activists from across Europe,” not the virtually universal popularity of the event. The Wall Street Journal called the march “an annual gathering point for Europe’s political fringe.”
In fact, several days earlier the government had taken over the march’s organization to insure that it was inclusive of all Poles and exclusive of non-Polish intruders. “We want the march to be peaceful and not provoke tensions,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters in announcing the decision, adding, as the Associate Press reported, that there would be “no tolerance for foreign neo-fascists or other agitators” reportedly planning to gather in Warsaw.
Poland today is a vibrant democracy. It has a passionate and patriotic people of many views, faiths and backgrounds, who, having experienced decades of totalitarian trauma, love freedom and are determined to preserve it. We wish the international media would recognize that simple fact and tell it candidly to a candid world.
• Maciej Swirski is the former deputy chairman of the Polish National Foundation.
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