Poland had Western Belarus and Western Ukraine territories, that USSR taken over at that time. They are still parts of Belarus and Ukraine, and even modern Poland doesn't dare to claim that they were "occupied" or ever were supposed to belong to Poland in the first place.
Well, the land that is now Western Belarus and Ukraine were in 1939 part of Poland and were annexed by a military intervention coordinated with Nazi Germany by Red Army. Today, no one in Poland (except few loonies) is questioning post-WWII borders, as no one sees any real benefit in changing them (I presume most Germans think more or less the same about current western parts of Poland, which were German far longer, than they were Polish).
That doesn't mean, the parts annexed by USSR were not Polish at the time Red Army marched in. There was relatively little resistance, because Polish General Command ordered Polish troops to avoid engaging soviet units. But halting quite large forces on the eastern borders of Poland which supposed to defend the land against Soviets eventually, diluted already weak defenses against Germany and spelled doom for Second Republic.
Killing prisoners of that war was a stupid and uncivilized act, however in no way it was supposed to either help or hurt Germany -- Poland would be taken over by Germany either way, and the last thing USSR wanted is Nazi in Lvov and Grodno.
Taking over Poland by Germany was not that certain at the moment the Russians came in. I remember reading memoirs of one of the German generals leading the invasion, in which he stated, the Germans were not anticipating so long campaign and were running short of supplies. If the second front would not be open, German offensive would probably stalled on on the second line of Polish defense, which was planned on Vistula river. That means, Poland probably would lost large part of its western territory, but wouldn't be erased from the map for almost six years (of course if the French or English moved their asses at that time and fulfilled their obligations, the Germans wouldn't advance even that far, and the whole WWII madness could be stopped in September 1939).
Yet now Polish politicians seem to love Germany and hate Russia.
Sadly this is true. Lots of right wing politicians view Russians as the ultimate enemy.
Personally, I admire Russian culture, like the Russians I know personally and I'm planning to start learning Russian in September. I like their design philosophy, their space program.
As most of the Polish people I'm deeply grateful
for the sacrifice of many Russian soldiers, who helped Poland to get rid of the Nazis and died on the road to Berlin (just look on the soviet military cemeteries in Poland, for example in Wroclaw).
But in their name, and millons others who died, I can not sit doing nothing, when someone is trying to rewrite history for the purpose of feeling better (be it Russians, Germans Or Poles). All countries have some parts of their history they are not very proud of (for example Jedwabne was not easy to accept by Polish society, as I think it is difficult to acknowledge Katyn by Russians). But when we are not learning from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them.
Russians had absolutely nothing to do with occupation of Poland
<sarcasm>Yes, of course. And staging a second front, detaining and killing of polish officers, policemen and other members of intelligentia didn't help Germans a bit. Also the whole Ribbentrop-Molotov pact thing is a myth, and USSR grabbing large chunks of Poland as it's WWII prize doesn't count either.</sarcasm>
To severely paraphrase, Einstein believed the unverse has a fundamental, simple order to it.
Maybe it really is that simple, just not 3+1 dimensionally simple? As far as I recall, some of the current theories predict, our universe has around 10 dimensions. We perceive only 4. Maybe the entagled pair is just the original particle, but deformed in the unperceiveable dimensions, so its projection in a 4 dimensional space looks like two different particles?
Slashdot Mirror
Poland had Western Belarus and Western Ukraine territories, that USSR taken over at that time. They are still parts of Belarus and Ukraine, and even modern Poland doesn't dare to claim that they were "occupied" or ever were supposed to belong to Poland in the first place.
Well, the land that is now Western Belarus and Ukraine were in 1939 part of Poland and were annexed by a military intervention coordinated with Nazi Germany by Red Army. Today, no one in Poland (except few loonies) is questioning post-WWII borders, as no one sees any real benefit in changing them (I presume most Germans think more or less the same about current western parts of Poland, which were German far longer, than they were Polish).
That doesn't mean, the parts annexed by USSR were not Polish at the time Red Army marched in. There was relatively little resistance, because Polish General Command ordered Polish troops to avoid engaging soviet units. But halting quite large forces on the eastern borders of Poland which supposed to defend the land against Soviets eventually, diluted already weak defenses against Germany and spelled doom for Second Republic.
Killing prisoners of that war was a stupid and uncivilized act, however in no way it was supposed to either help or hurt Germany -- Poland would be taken over by Germany either way, and the last thing USSR wanted is Nazi in Lvov and Grodno.
Taking over Poland by Germany was not that certain at the moment the Russians came in. I remember reading memoirs of one of the German generals leading the invasion, in which he stated, the Germans were not anticipating so long campaign and were running short of supplies. If the second front would not be open, German offensive would probably stalled on on the second line of Polish defense, which was planned on Vistula river. That means, Poland probably would lost large part of its western territory, but wouldn't be erased from the map for almost six years (of course if the French or English moved their asses at that time and fulfilled their obligations, the Germans wouldn't advance even that far, and the whole WWII madness could be stopped in September 1939).
Yet now Polish politicians seem to love Germany and hate Russia.
Sadly this is true. Lots of right wing politicians view Russians as the ultimate enemy.
Personally, I admire Russian culture, like the Russians I know personally and I'm planning to start learning Russian in September. I like their design philosophy, their space program. As most of the Polish people I'm deeply grateful for the sacrifice of many Russian soldiers, who helped Poland to get rid of the Nazis and died on the road to Berlin (just look on the soviet military cemeteries in Poland, for example in Wroclaw). But in their name, and millons others who died, I can not sit doing nothing, when someone is trying to rewrite history for the purpose of feeling better (be it Russians, Germans Or Poles). All countries have some parts of their history they are not very proud of (for example Jedwabne was not easy to accept by Polish society, as I think it is difficult to acknowledge Katyn by Russians). But when we are not learning from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them.
Russians had absolutely nothing to do with occupation of Poland
<sarcasm>Yes, of course. And staging a second front, detaining and killing of polish officers, policemen and other members of intelligentia didn't help Germans a bit. Also the whole Ribbentrop-Molotov pact thing is a myth, and USSR grabbing large chunks of Poland as it's WWII prize doesn't count either.</sarcasm>