Was Poland really "independent" of the Soviet Union in 1945? It wasn't an SSR, if that's the only definition of "independence."
But what was going on in Poland from 1945 to around 1955?
According to Tadeusz Piotrowski, who quotes several other authors (including John Sack), it was Jews who spent time in the Soviet Union who came back to Poland with Polonized names and were placed in important roles and ministries.
The result: a reign of terror against the native Poles, with these Jews returning from the Soviet Union arresting members of the Polish Home Army and Zegota -- the Council to Aid Jews.
According to Andrzej Paczkowski, between 1944 and 1956 — when Jews constituted less than 1 percent of Poland’s population — out of 447 persons occupying positions of leadership in the headquarters of Poland’s Ministry of State Security (Ministerstwo Bezpieczenstwa Publicznego, or MBP), 131 (just over 29 percent) were Jews. [...] Many of these Jews, claims Paczkowski, were associated with the Communist Party before the war and spent the war years in Moscow, in the Soviet partisans, or in the GL/AL.
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that having your country run by Communist Jews is a true measure of "independence."
The first cadres of the Polish Communist Party in 1945, it must be remembered, were composed of men in uniform, a very large proportion of them intellectuals of Jewish descent. The Russians regarded them as more reliable instruments of Soviet desires in the belief that they would be less inclined to Polish patriotism because of the discrimination to which the Polish rightists had subjected them before the war.
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that having Russians decide that Jews will run your country because they are less inclined to Polish patriotism is a true measure of "independence."
Long before the end of the war, the political elite of the future People’s Poland was selected in the Soviet Union, mostly from among the old communists, but not exclusively.
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that having your country's political elite chosen by the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union is a true measure of "independence."
According to various authors, in postwar Poland communist Jews, often with changed names, served in the major Soviet organs of oppression...
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that having Jews serving in Soviet orgrans of oppression in your country is a true measure of "independence."
Hence the hierarchy: Stalin in Moscow at the pinnacle, issuing orders to Berman orally during his visits and all-night feasts or by direct telephone line; Berman assigning duties to the directors of the various departments of the Ministry, every one of them Jewish. Since the Ministry of State Security exerted at the time the power of life or death, it held Poland under a reign of terror in the years 1945-1955, at the cost of many lives... That task was assigned to the Jews because they were thought to be free of Polish patriotism, which was the real enemy.
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that living under a reign of terror directed by Stalin in Moscow is a true measure of "independence."
The major part of that leadership group of Jewish prominence came to Poland from Russia, where it had fled during the war. It exerted totalitarian rule over Poland from 1945 to about 1955 and the “Polish October” of 1956.
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that Poles living under a Jewish-Russian totalitarian rule is a true measure of "independence."
Stefan Korbonski maintains that the postwar reign of Soviet terror, carried out with the help of the Jews, claimed tens of thousands of lives — mostly of Poles who belonged to the resistance movement during the war and who became the avowed enemies of the communist regime in Poland after it was over. When these Jewish communist elites were finally dismissed from the party and left Poland along with other Jews, a wail of protests was raised by the world Jewish community, including a thousand American professors, over this “anti-Semitic” purge.
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that Soviet terror against Poles is a true measure of "independence" and ending it is "anti-Semitism."
The ten years of Jewish [i.e., Stalinist] rule in Poland could not be easily forgotten. It was an era of the midnight knock at the door, arbitrary arrests, torture, and sometimes secret execution. Most of those responsible for that reign of terror left Poland and upon arrival in the West represented themselves as victims of Communism and anti-Semitism...
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that being against Soviet terror is "anti-Semitism" and living in a country with widespread Soviet terror is a true measure of "independence."
In 1948-49 you arrested members of the Home Army Council of Aid to Jews, the "Zegota."
Yes well, all organizations connected with the Home Army were included; the scope was wide.
[...]
I already had some idea of my situation and Stalin’s attitude towards me. So I thought that if I got involved in certain things, if I acted against the wishes of the Soviet advisers, then reports about my activities would reach Stalin, who would say, what kind of behavior is this?
Some people have worked out to their satisfaction that Jakub Berman, brother of Adolf Berman, arresting members of Zegota ("Council to Aid Jews") and imprisoning them for nearly a decade because of "Stalin's attitude towards" Jakub Berman is a true measure of "independence."
- Quotes from
Poland's Holocaust
