Poland a token of courage and determination - Prince William
Addressing a reception marking Queen Elizabeth II's 91st birthday at the Royal Lazienki Park in Warsaw, the Duke of Cambridge said ties with Poland were highly held in Britain since Poland was an example of courage, determination and resilience.
The guests of honour at the reception are Polish President Andrzej Duda and Poland's First Lady.
Prince William praised the Polish people saying that they had survived ages of attacks and partitions (see: NOTE 1) which were to erase Poland from the map of Europe.
He also stressed close ties having lasted between Poland and Great Britain for a long time. Prince added that these ties were centuries-long and marked by rich history of cultural exchange and close trade relations.
Prince William underlined that Poland was highly held in Britain since it had always been an example of courage, determination and resilience.
According to the Duke of Cambridge, in the 20th century Poland showed exceptional courage opposing the brutal German Nazi occupation. He also emphasised that one could not forget the Uprising in the Warsaw Uprising (see: NOTE 3) and the Warsaw Ghetto (see: NOTE 5).
Prince William added that he and his wife Catherine had been deeply moved visiting the Warsaw Uprising Musuem with the Polish President and the First Lady. He added it would most likely feel the same the next day, during their visit to the former Nazi German concentration camp Stutthof (see: NOTE 6).
NOTE 1: The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (see: NOTE 2) towards the end of the 18th century which ended the existence of sovereign Poland for 123 years. The partitioning powers were the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Habsburg Austria, which divided the country among themselves progressively.
On Sept. 18, 1772, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Austrian Empire notified Poland of the partition and demanded a Sejm (parliament) sitting to approve the cession. Opposition to the partition was broken by threats and the occupation of Poland by the troops of the three countries.
The 1772 partition of Poland led to further two partitions, in 1793 and 1795 ending the existence of a sovereign Poland for 123 years. Nevertheless, the nation itself did not cease to exist for over a century connecting the East with the West culturally, technologically and trade-wise. The partitioned Poland also remained a robust base to anti-invader conspiracy movements and freedom fight bouts with four insurrections including 1794's Kosciuszko Uprising, November Uprising (1830), Krakow Uprising (1946) and January Uprising (1863).
NOTE 2: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a 16th-18th century Polish-Lithuanian state composed of the Crown - Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and considered a precursor to modern democratic systems such as federation or constitutional monarchy. The Commonwealth was a dual state ruled by one monarch, who was simultaneously King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
The Commonwealth was one of the biggest countries in 16th/17th-century Europe, at its peak spanning about 1.2 million km2 and with a multi-ethnic population of about 11 million. It was formally established by the Union of Lublin in July 1569.
NOTE 3: The Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944 as the biggest resistance operation in Nazi-occupied Europe. Initially intended to last several days, it continued for over two months before being suppressed by the Germans. The uprising, mainly fought by units of Poland's Home Army (AK) anti-German resistance underground (see: NOTE 4), claimed the lives of 18,000 insurgents and around 200,000 civilians.
After the insurgents surrendered and the remaining 500,000 residents were expelled from Warsaw, the Germans methodically burned down and blew up the capital city house by house. By January 1945, app. 90 percent of the buildings and city infrastructure was destroyed.
NOTE 4: The Home Army (AK) was the main resistance movement in Poland when it was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. It was formed from the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which in turn evolved from a clandestine organisation called the Polish Victory Service (SZP).
The Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) was an underground force formed in Poland following the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. On February 14, 1942, it transformed into the Home Army (AK).
The SZP was launched on the night of Sept. 26, 1939 by a group of senior officers led by Gen. Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, with the participation of Warsaw Mayor Stefan Starzynski. It became the nucleus of a nationwide resistance movement known as the Polish Underground State.
The Home Army, allegiant to the Polish government-in-exile, was one of the largest and best organised resistance movements in Europe, with the total number of fighters put at anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000.
In his book God's Playground. A History of Poland, prominent historian Norman Davies said that "the Home Army could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organisations]".
The so-called Polish Underground State, whose armed wing was AK, operated from 1939 to 1945 and by many has been looked up to as a model of conspiracy administration. It subordinated to the Polish government-in-exile, which was first based in France and subsequently in Great Britain. In Poland the government-in-exile had an impressively developed administration with secret courts and prosecutors, underground schools and universities with its own publishing houses.
Along with various combat activities, the AK was also widely involved in rescuing Jews, among others, by means of the famous 1942-founded Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Zydom) codenamed 'Zegota' - the only organisation in Europe and a unique one on a global scale established to defend and provide help to Jews in ghettos and elsewhere.
The successive commanders of the AK were generals Stefan Rowecki (until June 30, 1943) Tadeusz Komorowski (until Oct. 2, 1944) and Leopold Okulicki (until Jan. 19, 1945).
The culmination of the AK's armed struggle came with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The AK's wartime losses totalled about 100,000 soldiers killed in fighting or murdered, and about 50,000 taken to the Soviet Union and imprisoned.
In early 1942, the Home Army had about 100,000 soldiers; by the summer of 1944 the number had risen to 380,000. These included 10,800 officers. Poland’s famous Silent Unseen elite special-operations paratroops were also part of the Home Army.
The Home Army's activities did not end with the end of WW II. After 1945 the AK's so-called Enduring Soldiers fought the Soviet regime.
Under communism AK soldiers were persecuted by Poland's authorities, especially during the Stalinist period. Many of them were handed death penalties; others spent many years in prison.
NOTE 5: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out on April 19, 1943 in the final phase of the ghetto's liquidation launched by the Nazis few months earlier. The insurgency, that lasted until May 16, had been a symbolic act taking the small chances of success. In an uneven, almost one-month-long struggle, the poorly armed fighters of the Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ZZW) stood against SS and Wehrmacht soldiers, the Security Police and auxiliaries.
At 6 am on April 19, ap. 2,000 German troops along with units of Ukrainian and Lativan collaborators entered the ghetto from 2 sides. The plan was to complete the deportation action within three days, but Germans encountered heavy resistance and found themselves in an ambush by Polish Jewish insurgents maintaning a sustained fire and tossing Molotov cocktails as well as hand grenades from alleyways, sewers, and windows.
A couple hours into the fight, on the afternoon of 19 April, a symbolic event took place when two boys climbed up on the roof of a building on the square and raised two flags, the red-and-white Polish flag and the blue-and-white banner of the ŻZW. These flags remained there, highly visible from the Warsaw streets, for four days, infuriating Germans.
After a few weeks of uneven fight on May 8, 1943 the then commander of the uprising Mordechaj Anielewicz together with a group of ZOB soldiers committed suicide in a bunker at 18 Mila st. Just a handful of fighters managed to escape from the burning ghetto through the sewage system. Among them was the last commander of the uprising Marek Edelman.
It is presumed that about 6,000 insurgents died in the fighting. Survivors were mostly deported to concentration camps. Of what remained from the ghetto was razed to the ground by German troops led by SS General Juergen Stroop. Stroop was tried, convicted, and hanged for crimes against humanity in Poland March 6, 1952.
The Warsaw ghetto was established on October 12, 1940. A German decree required all Polish Jews from Warsaw to move into a designated area which German authorities sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940.
The ghetto's population reached at its peak over 400,000 Polish citizens of Jewish descent. The first wave of mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka German Nazi extermination camp started on July 22 and lasted until September 12, 1942 embracing some 300,000 Polish Jews.
On April 19, 1943, German forces arrived at the ghetto with the intention liquidate it and deport the remaining inhabitants. This sparked the uprising.
Warsaw was the only city in Europe to have held two uprisings against the Third Reich, the 1943 ghetto uprising and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
NOTE 6: The Stutthof Nazi-German concentration camp was opened on September 2, 1939 close to a town of the same name (today Sztutowo in northern Poland)). Initially designed as a prison for the local Polish population, it was transformed into a concentration camp in 1942 and began to receive inmates of various nationalities, including Jews and Russians.
An estimated 65,000 people perished in the camp, including 28,000 citizens of Jewish descent. According to historians, the camp's female population numbered around 46,000. The Stutthof Museum opened in 1962 on an initiative by former inmates.
(PAP)
