Betrayal of Poland

(CONTINUED) Some family members retire to bed, while others talk all night narrating each other's wartime experiences, sharing views and details observed from both sides of enemy lines. Padre presents some newspaper clippings printed in 1944-45 without restrictions after the liberation of Rome. Also, he folds open some articles from the Vatican's official newspaper, "L'Osservatore Romano." As they converse, André reaches in his bag and he pulls out a few issues of "The Stars and Stripes" that had been circulating in Allied camps. Victor and Luigi search in their 'newspaper-stack' used for 'bottle wrapping' and they find copies about similar coverage from the period that's being discussed. Together with Carlo and Franki, the six men examine like articles from Mussolini's R.S.I. dated in 1944. Then, they compare similar articles from liberated Rome, and from the Vatican – in 'Stars and Stripes' – and some articles printed in Zurich Switzerland, also from the Swiss region of Italian Canton Ticino. They talk all night enjoying each other's company and sharing their intellectual abilities. They analyze and speculate. They brainstorm the various newspaper articles and examine each other's inferences to reach mutually agreed conclusions to build upon.  They do it all night searching for insights that might fill their needs and their voids about Europe's current state of affairs. They comb thru newspapers for information — seeking facts and signs, proof and insights, exploring for all the news that for more than six years had been solidly blocked by three international fronts-of-war ... in Europe: The Western front – the Axis – and the Eastern front. However, the greatest void that the six friends shared, the void they equally hungered to fill – was not filled.   Victor, Carlo, Luigi, Padre, André, and Franki, had been hungry for news about Lwów. They were starved for it. But even an entire night of research by six men didn't   release a single scrap of information about Lwów ...     ... as it was tightly held in Joseph Stalin's grip of steel. By morning, together they conclude that the Third Reich had begun to stagger soon after its defeat in Stalingrad and that Hitler's military had been limping backwards ever since the Soviet Union's successful counter-offensives in 1943. It's morning and the men are ready to eat breakfast and get some sleep. They summarize the insights gained from their all night newspaper study, confirming to each other the points that they had agreed on. They jot them down:     They conclude that the Red Army's pursuit for bloody revenge from the eastern front became the Wehrmacht's fatal concern only after the debut of the Polish 2nd Corps in the west. They also conclude that the Third Reich's defeat had begun on Monte Cassino where Poland's noble cause had given the Wehrmacht a haunting that would inhibit them.  They agree that the fearsome reports about General Anders' Polish 'Reprisal' with superior warriors had radiated a certain righteousness posing a formidable new upright adversary against Germany. They agree that it consumed Wehrmacht ranks with greater concern, than did the blood thirsty savagery from the east. All considered from their long discussions, it's quite clear to Padre, André, Franki, Victor, Carlo, and Luigi that the hostile resistance of Poland in the west had given Germany its fatal blow!  That the fall of the Nazi-Fascist Third Reich began on Monte Cassino ... but it did not end in Bologna! Instead, Poland's bold fighting spirit had permeated the entire western front. Now the ladies are awake and are preparing breakfast as the men reach their final undisputed conclusions: That the war had started with a hateful joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1945 had NOT ENDED with the horrid carnage of beaten Fascist leaders on 29 April 1945 –as many were proclaiming– instead, the war will not have ended until the other enemy who conspired to invade Poland is also defeated. Then and only then, the war will have ended. They concluded that the gruesome display of Mussolini hung by his heels, alongside 17 other Fascist leaders displayed in Milano on 29 April 1945, heralded to the world that Nazi-Fascism had been forever defeated. BUT, not the other enemy equally as vile as Nazi-Fascism had been, thus the world's task at hand was only half done! They were in full agreement that the world's victory over Nazi-Fascism had been paid by the huge cost of Poland's immense sacrifices from Monte Cassino in May 1944 and across Europe's entire western front, coming to an end on 29 April 1945. And then, they sit to eat breakfast. The actions of General Władysław Anders' heroic Polish Second Corps had fulfilled Churchill's prediction that victory would be achieved in the soft underbelly of the Third Reich.

The next day André and Franki return to their garrison camps in Macerata and in Monte San Giusto, their assigned post-war holding stations where they would enjoy more R&R mixed with local parades, trips to local award ceremonies, and occasional celebrations with other units of the Polish 2nd Corps. Summer and fall of 1945 had been joyous times that our Polish liberators hadn't seen since 1939, and neither did we. André and Franki patiently anticipate the repatriation. Their expected glorious homecoming as liberators of Poland with the brave 2nd Corps. Several of them, with André, Franki, and Padre, begin planning a sacred ceremonial arrival in Lwów for their sacrificed heroes. The Perantoni family would surely be there also for the solemn occasion.

By the end of 1945, the troops of Italy's 'Valoroso IIº Corpo Polacco' continue to share their passionate hopes of an imminent and victorious homecoming. Christmas comes, but neither travel orders nor port calls  are issued to any of the Polish soldiers in Italy. So then, André, Franki, and their Polish co-patriots reconcile themselves of having to miss one LAST Christmas without their families. With encouragement thay justify it assuming that their 'victorious homecoming' was being delayed for their units to participate in London's Victory Parade. André and Franki resolve their new hope that they will go home directly from London soon after the Victory Parade. Perhaps, they hope, the next day, right after the parade.  In this way, they reconcile themselves. They firmly believe that 1945 would finally be their LAST Christmas without their families ... Their LAST Christmas away from home!

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A few months earlier, after the Allied Military Government (AMG) releases their regional control of northern Italy (in Sept 1945) Victor, Luigi, and Carlo, hope that international travel might be resumed. That some normalcy would be restored in Europe. But their various inquiries about returning to Lwów are met with negative results. Some officials even confront their intentions for traveling to Poland, while others imply that ... ... entry to Poland would not be permitted. Victor, Luigi, and Carlo decide to not share their negative findings with their Polish friends, realizing that they had sufficient frustrations of their own.  So then, the Perantoni family's hopes of returning to Lwów had are postponed until after the national referendum scheduled by the AMG to take place in June 1946. They hope that Italy might restore the Savoia Monarchy with a new centralized government ...  ... or elect a new republic with similar rule. As the 1946 new year begins, the Perantoni family find themselves in the the same situation as their Polish friends. André and Franki are anxiously waiting to go home to Poland from London after the Victory Parade which, same as Italy's national referendum, is also scheduled to take place in June. The hopes of the Perantoni family for returning to Lwów are the same hopes that André and Franki share with thousands other members of the Polish 2nd Corps. It seems that everyone who is waiting to return home to Poland, must postpone their hope to June 1946. Neither our family nor most of our Polish friends are aware of the treachery that lays ahead: The unthinkable 'Betrayal of Poland' that will soon become a distressing reality ... to all of us.  So then, as they wait, the Perantoni family indulges in sharing the Victory's good cheer with André, Franki,  and other Polish friends. The Perantoni family does not know that 18 months earlier,  in July 1944 Joseph Stalin had taken possession of Lwów and eastern Poland with the intention to never let it go.  Most of their Polish friends don't know it either. They don't know that the Soviets had renamed Lwów ... as "Lviv" in Ukrainian. The Perantonis don't know that their "Winiarnia Italia" and all of its contents would become nationalized Communist property. 1946 was NOT going to be a happy new year. ... But they don't know it.

After the Christmas festivities had passed and the New Year's celebrations had faded, rumors began to circulate among Polish troops and some of it was being confirmed in the newspapers.  The 2nd Corps' hopeful expectation of an imminent glorious return to Poland had begun to fade. It had been the hope that fueled the Polish Second Corps' fighting spirit in their successful campaign of victories during 1944 and 1945. From the day the war had ended, it had been the single most important expectation shared by André and Franki and other members of the Polish 2nd Corps. They had been waiting and hoping for nine months, and counting! It had been their fervent hope of a looming return to their beloved "Free Poland" ... ... but their hope had begun to fade! 1946 brought them great dissatisfaction upon learning that they would NOT be invited to participate in London's Victory Parade in which all other Allied nations would be marching! It had been tragic news for Poland's Armed Forces everywhere in Europe for it had been perceived as a dark omen, an alarming portent that they had been betrayed ... and that perhaps their beloved nation had been betrayed also! The Polish Armed Forces' great hope of a victorious homecoming, which had given them the 'esprit-de-corps' and fighting strength during the war ... had become ill-fated in 1946. Later in 1946, their hope of going home had been reduced to just a 'possibility'. A faint optimism that sooner or later they might be able to go home ... in one way, or another. Their dim hope, however, was becoming short-lived also! The Polish 2nd Corps in Italy had been waiting in vain for their victorious return to their cherished "Free Poland." Soon "il valoroso Corpo Polacco" would find out that their treasured country, for which they had fought and many had died ... had been betrayed by the world's leaders. Soon they would find out that Poland had been handed over to its original enemy, the Bolshevik Soviet Union. The enemy who had originally invaded Poland in a secret conspiracy with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1939! Act 3 will treat these facts in acted scenes of the protagonists and their friends engaged in emotional dialogs, mixed with superscripts, short newsreels and vintage headlines.

Since 1918, the nation of Poland had protected the free world from communist expansion had and blocked Bolshevik aggression with the valiant action of Lwów's Polish Cavalry in 1920.  But in 1945 Poland had been betrayed by those she had protected. WWII had been the world's bloodiest war. In its closing stages, the leaders of the free world dishonored millions of sacrificed warriors from all Allied nations who fought and died to defeat the cancerous treachery that had started the war in 1939 and to prevent a similar treachery from being repeated again. Allied sacrified warriors, along with countless sacrified fighters from Poland, had been dishonored by the free world's delegated leaders by handing Poland over to the villain who had been responsible for starting the war in in the first place. The villain was Joseph Stalin. In1939 Stalin had defied the free world in scheming an underhanded conspiracy with Adolf Hitler to invade Poland, to share its spoils, and to eradicate it totally from the map of nations in Europe. It was the conspiracy that had triggered WWII and cost the world over 70 million lives. But, in complete disregard of those facts, the the leaders of the free world fulfilled Stalin's original ploy, in 1945. They gave Poland away to the free world's worst enemy, Bolshevik Joseph Stalin, who in turn rendered the victorious army of Poland's noble warriors into a global crowd of homeless exiles. Afterwards, he created his own dim version of a Bolshevik Poland. With Poland in Boshevik captivity and the conceptual 'Free Poland' scattered and homeless all over the globe, the post-war leaders of the free world took the laudable credit of the heroic warfare fought by Poland's armed forces – and gave themselves Victory Parades. That year 1946, Poland's heroic but homeless armed forces gradually learn that they had been FURTHER BETRAYED, as the Soviet Union decrees that all members of Poland's former armed forces would be considered to be ENEMIES of the BOLSHEVIK POLISH STATE. It was Stalin's method to crush any resurgence of Polish nationalism. Consequently, Poland's homeless Armed Forces come to realize that their betrayal would also affect the lives of their families in distant Bolshevik Poland. Thus, former Polish warriors everywhere become enveloped by another apprehension – that the very sanctity of their family bond had been ripped apart by godless Bolsheviks! A single political compromise by two overwhelmed, inconsiderate world leaders promoted Bolshevik tyranny on the social, economic, cultural, and religious foundations of Polish families.

In 1946, heroic Polish soldiers realize all that their betrayal really means to them – and to their loved ones back home. How being marked as enemies of their own country would affect the rest of their lives — and how the rest of their families' lives too, would be affected, as well. AT VERY BEST, returning to Poland meant living as marginal citizens, prevented from getting a higher education, and working at menial jobs with no opportunities for higher positions. All because Joseph Stalin felt it necessary to oppress Polish identity and nationalism. For the majority of the Polish military, returning to Poland meant certain persecution, imprisonment, or even death. As a result, most of these gallant veterans could not, or had to choose, not to go home to their families! Aside from the two villain nations, Germany and Russia who had defied the world and started the war in 1939,  Poland had suffered the war's greatest combined military and civilian deaths in Europe. Still, they had been betrayed by the 'Big 3' – moreover,  it was also a crime against Poland's surviving families!

The politics that promoted the betrayal of Poland had also caused a great trespass of mankind's authority on earth ... ... It broke-up the families of noble Polish fighters. The heroes who defeated Nazi-Fascism in Europe. The betrayal of Poland had been more than a political compromise. It was spiritual defiance against God! It was a defiance against the teachings of Jesus:   "What God had yoked together, let no man put apart." It was defiance by the Soviet Union and ratified by by Allied nations – against the rulings of Heaven! Defiance by godless Bolsheviks with the approval of western nations, most of who profess to be Christian! The betrayal had affected the lives of about 250.000 members of Poland's armed forces dispersed in Europe. They all had families, and at least half of them had wives. Ultimately, about 100,000 had returned to their families subjecting themselves and their loved ones to unrelenting Soviet persecution. For their families well-being, the remainder had to make a very difficult choice ... so they never returned home! For them there was no good choice to make, aside from bringing huge misery and troubles upon their families, and possibly also making widows of their wives!  So, they could never return home after having fought so valiantly. After their great victories and huge sacrifices ... they could never go home!

The lives of the Polish nation had been shattered in 1939 ... and remained broken for at least three generations. Even today, most Polish people can relate how their families had suffered after 1939 and consequently, how their lives had been transformed in the aftermath. After having bravely fought and defeated Nazi-Fascism in Italy, André and Franki and their friends of the Polish 2 Corps could never have imagined that Poland would be handed to their enemy, to endure a historical 50-year captivity. Victorious Polish soldiers, noble warriors feared by the Third Reich — the greatest heroes of WWII — they had been defeated by a devious compromise by the world's leaders. Poland's heroes, unbeatable on the battlefield, had been dealt a treacherous political defeat.

POLAND: The Unconquered.