Against
the background of the innumerable small wooden buildings that stood
out for the neglected housing conditions of those times, such
tenements in Poland were palaces in the interwar period,
By
no means do I intend to make feet clay to the criminals. No doubt,
Stalinism was not good. But the Stalinist regime was not as dangerous
as Hitler's General Plan Oberost; if this should be done, the Polish
language on the Vistula would be silent for ever. On the other hand,
to declare Poland from the period 1926-39 as a model is a false turn.
On
October 2, 1938, the well-known publicist Wanda Wasilewska gave a
lecture in the hall of the Lodzer Philharmonic, on the question:
Polesia as
a social problem
In
a building that has not been preserved (because of probably a
conscious policy)... In her lecture she described from her own
experience the social and economic resources, which prevailed in this
part of the country, highlighting the unbelievable poverty of the
local inhabitants ; the lack of elementary schools, transport,
farmland and livestock feed. The speech was rewarded by stormy
applause for her depictions, based on what she saw with her own eyes.
(Vortrag
von Wasilewska,
„Volkszeitung”, 3 Oct. 1938, p. 2)
The
strip lowlands between the river basins of the Bug and Prypjat, once
called also Rokita swamps in German, represented in the interwar
period, along with the villages of the former Eastern Galicia, the
inability of the Polish state and the Polish people to the fight
against poverty and misery, as well as to alleviate some terrible and
shocking living conditions.
One
spoke with horror that the inhabitants there wear craft shoes because
they can hardly afford anything better
The
news that a number of German people were living an arduous existence
there, and the resulting general judgment was clearly unfavorable for
the Polish government. Nevertheless, the Rokita swamps Germans, who
were mostly woodcutters and woodworkers, could somehow get along
compared to other local communities. Only rarely were they wealthy,
but not the poor gobblers.
The
bast shoes were hardly the only evidence for how unintelligent and
unable of the sanation regime was in that part of the country. In
this vast, wooded river valley, wood and the variety of fish species
have always been the two main assets. The Prypiat swamps are with
about 90,000 square kilometers acreage, the largest swamp area of
Europe. Now, under the rule of Belarus, inland fishing
(sturgeon) supplies the world with coveted Russian caviar.
In
the inter-war period, the authorities of the Province of Polesia did
not understand how to use this wealth of land in a planned economy
… or
to make a plan to create the appropriate conditions for the private
companies, or cooperatives, so that they can deal with it. Instead,
this dictatorship' officials have proved that they can swim in dirty
pools. In the 1930s, the Sanation regime wanted to drain a large part
of the Prypiat swamps, but failed to have the things done, due to
lack of funds and corruption, raging in the country.
And
now a word about Wanda Wasilewska once again
After
the so-called Polish transformation (being by no means a polished
one) the scholars and mass media almost hanged her, denying that she
could ever be, at least in some extent, a patriot. That's, in my
personal opinion, a misguided view for the most tragic era in the
history of Poland. First, it takes a heavy hammer to drive a big
nail, so many various actions were necessary on her part to gain
Stalin's confidence, desperately needed to convince this most cruel
tyrant that he must not destroy the Polish people. What she done to
save Poland could be considered as a treason if you don't understand
the whole picture.
Secondly,
she has played a positive role in Polish history, making a decisive
commitment to the creation of the Polish armed forces dependent on
the Soviet Union. The other Polish army, fighting in North Africa as
well as Western Europe and led by the government in exile in London,
was unable to march to Poland —
just as she foresaw. The Polish army on the eastern front, with
General Berling at the head, achieved this goal and as a result the
restoration of the Polish state has become possible.
The
People's Republic of Poland, of which she dreamed already in 1938,
proved able to unlock potential of the Polish state. The People's
Republic, although it must by no means be praised to the skies, has
done a great deal to make the Polish people, theirs culture and
economy flourish once again. In this sense, Wasilewska was a
politician who could substantially limit the extent of Poland's
terrible defeat from September 1939.
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