Over eighty years since VE Day, World War II continues to cast a shadow over Europe. Since the fall of the socialist systems in Eastern Europe, the crumbling postwar consensus in Western Europe, and the rise of the far-right throughout the continent, the historical narrative surrounding Europe’s darkest hour has become increasingly contested. This is particularly the case in Poland, which suffered some of the worst human and physical damage of the war. Many of the conflicts which surrounded the war, some of which had been suspended or suppressed for decades, now shape the public debate in the country influencing its domestic and international politics. The historical events of eighty years ago continue to impact its relations with, amongst others, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine. Painful episodes regarding the role of Poles during the Nazi Holocaust are still contested. The postwar reconstruction of Poland, as a Soviet-aligned socialist system, remains a disputed period of Poland’s history. Amongst the many contradictions lies the question of how or whether the Nazi crimes can be compared to the atrocities inflicted by the Soviet forces, who also helped to liberate the country from Nazi occupation.
Many of the historical events covered in this article are complex, with details and interpretation of them heavily contested. It is not my concern here to examine them closely, nor to delve into many of the different interpretations of them. Rather, I shall seek to show how they continue to affect Poland today.
Nazi destruction
The German Nazi regime inflicted unimaginable suffering on the Polish nation and population. Around 6 million Polish citizens (17% of the population) perished during World War II. Therefore, whilst the Soviet Union and China endured the largest number of absolute deaths during the war, Poland had the highest percentage of fatalities of any major nation. This figure includes around 3 million Polish Jews (around 90% of Poland’s prewar Jewish population), who were murdered in the Holocaust in the death camps built by Nazi Germany on Polish soil (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, etc.). The other 3 million were made up of ethnic Poles and Polish citizens of other ethnicities such as Ukrainians and Belarusians.
The Nazis classified Poles as ‘subhumans‘ (Untermenschen), which placed them at the bottom of the racial hierarchy, where they were deemed as inferior even to most other Slavic peoples. This dehumanisation of Poles provided a pseudo-scientific justification for horrific crimes against the Polish people. The Nazis sought the total destruction of the Polish nation as a cultural and biological entity, as laid out in the Generalplan Ost, that aimed for the capture and Germanisation of land in Eastern Europe. If the Nazi plan had prevailed, the vast majority of the Polish population would have been killed or used as slave labour for the German Reich. The Nazis also inflicted immense physical, infrastructural and cultural destruction on Poland. Over 60% of the country’s industrial potential was destroyed, alongside much of its transport infrastructure. An estimated 43% of Poland’s cultural and academic assets were looted or demolished. Even when the defeated Nazi army was in retreat, it attempted to systematically obliterate Warsaw, with 85% of the capital city reduced to rubble. One of the most brutal acts of mass murder committed in Europe during the war was the planned and deliberate campaign of extermination carried out by the Nazis against the civilian population of Warsaw’s Wola district in August 1944. Beginning just three days after the start of the second Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, the German SS and police units, under the orders of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, murdered between 40,000 and 50,000 civilians, with the aim of terrorising the city into submission1.
Historical controversies
Poland’s overriding historical experience, during World War II, was the murder, terror, and destruction inflicted on the country by the German Nazis. However, the country’s historical experience, and the memory and interpretation of this time, is not limited to these Nazi crimes. Poland stood at the geographical juncture between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and in 1939 the country was divided into two spheres of influence by these powers. The Nazi-Soviet pact was preceded by the West’s appeasement of Hitler and Nazi Germany, with many in the European centres of power hoping that Germany would stand as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. The Munich Agreement, reached in September 1938, allowed for Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, after which Poland itself annexed that country’s Zaolzie region. Therefore, whilst the Poles blame World War II partially on the Soviets, who helped to divide their country, the rival Soviet interpretation of history held that Poland and the allies failed to ally with it against the Nazis. Furthermore, an opinion often heard in Poland is that the Allied powers such as Great Britain and France, while declaring war on Nazi Germany in September 1939, failed to react sufficiently in defence of Poland itself against invasion.
The Nazis sought the total destruction of the Polish nation as a cultural and biological entity. They did not utilise local nationalist forces in Poland; there are, therefore, no nationalist, Nazi aligned groups that the far right can now try to rehabilitate.
The controversies surrounding the outbreak of World War II are combined with those regarding its end. The Soviet Red Army helped to liberate Poland from Nazi occupation, with around 600,000 Soviet soldiers dying on Polish soil. This included the units of the First Polish Army, numbering around 90,000 Poles who had been deported to the USSR after 1939. The liberation of Poland and indeed Europe from Nazi tyranny could not have occurred without the historic defeat of Germany by the Soviet Union, which eventually drove the German army out of Poland.
Despite these historical contributions to the liberation of Poland and Europe, the Soviets also carried out a number of atrocities. There were executions of Polish POWS, including the massacre at Grabowiec, after the Soviets entered Poland in 1939. In 1940, the NKVD executed around 22,000 Polish military officers and intellectuals in Katyń. Hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens were transported to gulags in 1940 to 1941. Accounts of rape and sexual violence by Soviet soldiers alongside the looting and destruction of public and private property have been recorded when Soviet forces advanced in 1944. Most controversially, the Red Army has been accused of halting its advance on the outskirts of Warsaw and failing to aid the London-aligned Polish Home Army, during the Warsaw Uprising. Many of these events remain contested today.
Despite the undoubted atrocities committed by the Soviets, it remains the case that Nazi Germany murdered millions more Poles and sought to wipe the Polish nation off the map, whilst ideologically defining them as subhuman. It is also the case that the Soviets played the leading role in liberating the country and the death camps that the Nazis had built. This contradictory history, similar to that in some other Eastern European countries, helps explain how the historical experience and memory of World War II differ to those in Western European countries.
Post-war reconstruction
At end of World War II, the Polish state shifted westwards — losing 176,000 kilometres of its prewar eastern territories (including the cities of Lwów, today Lviv, and Wilno, today Vilnius) to the USSR, with 1.5 million Poles repatriated to the new Poland. Meanwhile, Poland gained 112,000 square kilometres of former German land in the west and north (incorporating much of Silesia and Pomerania, including cities such as Wrocław, formerly Breslau, and Szczecin, formerly Stettin), from which over 7 million Germans were expelled. Its borders with Germany along the Oder-Neisse Line, were only officially recognised by West Germany in 1970, under Chancellor Willy Brandt, with the final, internationally legally binding recognition eventually signed after German reunification in 1990. After World War II, Poland lay within the Soviet sphere of influence and a new political and economic system was formed. A Soviet model of socialism was being constructed not only out of the rubble and destruction of the war, but also with a largely rural and peasant economy and society. The socialist government managed, for the first time in Poland’s history, to instigate an unprecedented civilisational leap forward in the country through rapid industrialisation, urbanisation, and the provision of universal health care and education2. The lives of millions of people were improved, with the material and cultural gains of this advance still aiding the country today.
If the Stalinist period of repression was but part of the postwar state’s history, between 1944 and 1956 tens of thousands of people were executed, died in prison, or were deported abroad. The new Polish government continued to fight some anti-communist groups of partisans, into the 1950s, who fought an armed resistance against the new government and security forces. Whilst the new socialist system represented liberation from Nazi occupation and the remnants of feudalism, it had also come via the victory of the Red Army over the Nazi occupiers. To some, it represented a new occupation.
False equations
After World War II, a broad anti-fascist consensus in Europe accepted that the Nazis had committed unparalleled crimes and that its defeat by the combined Allied forces had been a victory for humanity. By the end of the Cold War this accord had begun to break down. For example, the West German historian, Ernst Nolte, famously argued that the Nazi genocide had been a defensive reaction (‘distorted copy’) to the actions carried out by the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. He described the Nazi extermination camps as an ‘Asiatic deed’ imported into Europe by the Nazis out of fear of Soviet Bolshevism3. Although Nolte was initially a controversial figure, on the sidelines of academia, this tendency to equate Nazism and Communism (and then naturally to demonise the latter) gained traction after the fall of ‘actually existing socialism’ in Europe in 1989-91. The so-called ‘double genocide’ movement, intellectually upheld by partisan intellectuals such as Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder, relativises the Nazi genocide and ideology; downplays the actions of the Soviet Union in helping to defeat Nazism; and reduces the former socialist systems to simple externally imposed totalitarian regimes4.
In some Eastern European countries, such as the Baltic states, nationalist forces that collaborated with the Nazis are sometimes commemorated as fighters for national independence against Soviet occupation5. In Ukraine, the nationalist forces grouped around the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Stepan Bandera-led faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), have been commemorated by the state and the far right6. During World War II these forces had collaborated with the Nazis by seeking to ethnically cleanse Volhynia and Eastern Galicia of Poles to prevent postwar Polish sovereignty over Ukrainian-majority territories. The Volhynia massacres (1943-1945), perpetuated by these groups, resulted in the most brutal killing of an estimated 60,000–100,000 Poles.
The Nazis did not utilise local nationalist forces in Poland, rather seeking to eradicate the Polish nation altogether7. There are, therefore, no nationalist, Nazi aligned groups that the far right can now try to rehabilitate. Rather, the shift to the right in Polish politics, from the mid-2000s, was accompanied by conservative intellectuals disparaging the postwar state (Polish People’s Republic, PRL) as a totalitarian and criminal system. They derided those who distinguished between the different stages of the PRL’s development and
The so-called ‘double genocide’ movement, intellectually upheld by partisan intellectuals such as Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder, relativises the Nazi genocide and ideology; downplays the actions of the Soviet Union in helping to defeat Nazism; and reduces the former socialist systems to simple externally imposed totalitarian regimes.
rejected any notion that communism is morally superior to the Nazi ideology that had defined Poles as subhuman. This means partially redeeming conservative thinkers of the time who were close to Nazism. For example, the Polish sociologist, and former Vice-President of the European Parliament, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, wrote that,
After 1989 the need arose to look at twentieth-century totalitarianism in a new way. This concerns the understanding that National Socialism was not only an explosion of irrational strength but that, like communism, it grew out of modern European culture, included universal elements, was supported by eminent intellectuals, and that there existed something like a fascist and National Socialist culture. Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt and others can thankfully at last be compared to György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci8.
A further example of how history can be turned on its head, are the views of the conservative historian Piotr Zychowicz. Although representing a minority strand of historical thought in Poland, he argued in his well-publicised book in 2012 that Poland should have formed an alliance with Germany in 1939 and jointly attacked the Soviet Union9. He also later expounded the view that Hitler represented the extreme left-wing, thereby reversing the historical truth and placing the blame for the crimes of Nazism on the left and Communism10.
Shifting perspectives
As we know, historical thought is never objective or neutral but instead is shaped by our ‘social location’, which creates a distinct perspective or ‘worldview’. The interpretation of Poland’s history has changed as its geo-political position has altered, and its domestic politics have shifted further to the right. The anti-communist ideology, dominant for the past few decades, attempts to change the perspective towards events surrounding World War II and the system that was built during the postwar period.
Although the dominant ideological position of the Polish right is that the PRL was a criminal and imposed regime, this has not been an opinion shared by large sections of Polish society. Although there is little up-to-date data on this topic, in 2014, 44% of society regarded the PRL period positively, compared to 46% who saw it negatively11. Despite the huge deficiencies and sometimes brutalities of this system, many who lived through this period remember how Poland was rebuilt after the war and the large social advancement that millions of people experienced. In contrast, the right wing in Poland, from different persuasions, paint the PRL as an imposed totalitarian system.
This latter understanding of the PRL has also resulted in a change in attitude towards the so-called ‘Cursed Soldiers’(Żołnierze Wyklęci). They were an anti-communist resistance composed of different factions who continued an armed struggle against the new system into the 1950s. Some units were connected to the nationalist National Armed Forces (NSZ) and some groups of the ‘Cursed Soldiers’ committed atrocities against civilians, particularly ethnic minorities such as Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Jews. The Polish right has over-looked these incidents and since 2011 Poland has officially commemorated the ‘Cursed Soldiers’ each 1 March as the National Day of Remembrance. Their rehabilitation undermines the internationalist nature of the struggle against fascism, which united, whatever their differences, large numbers of Poles, Soviets, Jews, partisans, communists, and anti-fascists across Europe. The state thus has choosen to celebrate some of the most reactionary forces fighting against the new socialist system after the war, whilst ignoring the huge reconstruction of the country carried out by millions of workers and peasants at that time.
Another controversial episode of World War II was the second Warsaw Uprising (August 1, 1944 — October 2, 1944)12. The uprising in Warsaw against Nazi occupation has long been commemorated and remembered in Poland. However, the decision and timing of the uprising have long been disputed, with some believing that despite its moral justness, the uprising was a tragic mistake. The dispute also continues over whether the Soviets deliberately allowed the uprising to be defeated and thus help weaken the Home Army, or whether they were not in a position at that time to aid the uprising13. In 1994, although 51% of Poles believed that the Warsaw Uprising was necessary and should have occurred, a significant 32% believed that it was a mistake. By 2024, these figures had changed to 61% and 21% respectively14. On the anniversary of the uprising, when people stop in the streets to remember those that died, it is now more common for anti-communist symbols to be displayed than anti-Nazi ones.
Reparations and Death Camps
The collapse of socialism in Poland, and then its integration into the EU and NATO, realigned Poland with the reunified Germany. Relations between the two countries rapidly improved and Poland’s economic development in recent years (alongside Germany’s stagnation) has closed the developmental gap between them. Although some negative stereotypes and attitudes towards Poles in Germany have persisted, these have diminished as the countries have converged economically. Despite these improvements, disagreements and conflicts connected to World War II continue.
Polish politicians, across the political spectrum, have rightly protested when the term ‘Polish Death Camps’ has been deployed to describe the extermination camps built by the Nazis on Polish soil15. There is great sensitivity within the country towards suggestions that Poles were somehow complicit in the genocide carried out in Poland, rather than being themselves victims of Nazi terror. The deep feelings of grievance and injustice, felt about the events of World War II, are sometimes harnessed by right-wing politicians for their own political gain. One such issue is that of war-time reparations. The Law and Justice party (PiS) government presented a detailed report in 2022 estimating Poland’s war-time losses at €1.3 trillion and arguing that the 1953 declaration signed by Poland on the issue is not legally binding. The PiS government pushed for Germany to pay reparations, which the new Polish President, Karol Nawrocki, repeated on the 83rd anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte,
Issues such as accepting refugees or expanding LGBT+ rights are portrayed as being imposed upon Poland by Germany and/or the EU, in order to weaken it.
saying that ‘in order to build a partnership built on truth and good relations, we must deal with the issue of reparations from the German state which, as Polish president, I unequivocally demand, for the common good’16. Whatever the moral rightness of such a request may be, such demands will not be met by the German state and are more intended to appeal to a domestic audience and foment nationalism.
Politicians from PiS have also regularly used the historical memory of the past, in dealings with Germany on the international stage. For example, the leader of PiS, Jarosław Kaczyński, has claimed that Germany is seeking to turn the EU into a federal ‘Fourth Reich’ and that ‘If we Poles agreed with this kind of modern-day submission we would be degraded in different ways.’17. Politicians from the right often use historical issues as a means to promote their own form of ‘cultural nationalism’. Issues such as accepting refugees or expanding LGBT+ rights are portrayed as being imposed upon Poland by Germany and/ or the EU, in order to weaken it18.
Shifting the Blame
The Polish population was subject to terror, mass executions, and indiscriminate retributions against whole communities in which there was resistance. There was no collaborationist government created in Poland and Poles organised the largest resistance movement to Nazi occupation in Europe. Occupied Poland was the only territory under Nazi occupation, where any kind of help for Jews was punishable by death not just for the helper but also for their entire family. Despite this, Polish citizens have the world’s highest count of individuals who have been recognised as Righteous Among the Nations as non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Holocaust. It is estimated that around 50,000 Poles were executed directly for helping Jews19. The occupation took place in a society in which growing right-wing nationalism (that had spread throughout the continent) was often combined with antisemitism against the large Jewish population. The Polish elites connected to the prewar Sanacja regime, including landlords and the conservative clergy, were often complicit in this. During the war these divisions were exploited by the Nazis and there were cases when some Poles helped in the killing of Jews. However, there is often great hostility towards the discussion of such topics, particularly amongst the nationalist right. A book published in 2000, revealing that Poles had been primarily responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Jews in the town of Jedwabne, caused huge controversy in the country20. In 2018, the Polish parliament passed a bill that criminalised anyone claiming that Poles were responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes. This was met by a strong reaction, among others, from the Israeli right. For example, Yair Lapid stated that the Holocaust ‘was conceived in Germany but hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier. There were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that’21.
Sensitivities around these issues are sometimes harnessed by the right in order to inflame nationalism and to discourage discussion or even academic inquiry into past events. This has aroused emotions, pushed the discussion about the terrible history of Nazi occupation to the extremes and given impetus to the most right-wing nationalist voices. Whilst it is entirely legitimate to push back against accusations that Poland perpetuated the Holocaust, some far-right politicians use Polish sensitivity on the topic to disseminate antisemitism. The most extreme current example is Grzegorz Braun, a member of the European Parliament who won over 6% of the vote in Poland’s May 2025 presidential elections. Braun is known for his controversial actions and opinions, such as extinguishing Hanukkah candles, which had been lit in the Polish parliament building, or destroying LGBT+ exhibitions. In July 2025, Braun crossed the Rubicon of acceptability when he claimed that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were ‘fake’22. Antisemitism in Poland is often connected to anti-Communism, with Communism believed to have been imposed by Jews from outside of Poland. Stereotypes of the Jewish Communist (Żydokomuna), plotting to weaken the Polish nation, persist in sections of society and are perpetuated by the nationalist right23.
Ukraine: war and nationalism
The historical controversies from World War II have also resurfaced during the current military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Anti-Russian sentiments soared in Poland following the invasion of Ukraine, with many fearing that the conflict would reach Polish territory. The Polish state quickly provided logistical and military aid to Ukraine and millions of Ukrainians settled in the country, with Polish society mobilising to help those fleeing the war zone. However, support for Ukraine has begun to subside in Poland. No mainstream Polish politician supports sending Polish troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal and the country’s newly elected President, Karol Nawrocki, has stated that he would veto any attempt by Ukraine to join NATO. Nawrocki has recently vetoed a bill that would continue to provide non-working Ukrainians in Poland with child benefits; and a majority of Polish society believes (mistakenly) that Ukrainian immigrants have had a negative impact on the economy24. Although the majority of Polish society continues to back Ukraine against Russia, most believe that a negotiated settlement should be sought25.
Historical events from World War II continue to affect relations between Poland and Ukraine. The 2018 historical remembrance bill also referred to those crimes ‘committed by Ukrainian nationalists and members of Ukrainian units collaborating with the Third Reich’26. In turn, the Ukrainian government condemned the law for curtailing freedom of expression. The commemoration by the Ukrainian far right of nationalist groups and leaders, such as UPA and Bandera, has caused dismay in Poland. The Polish state has also protested when, for example, the Ukrainian ambassador in Germany claimed that Bandera was not responsible for the murder of Poles and Jews and sought to justify collaboration with the Nazis27. Such disagreements have also led to rising tensions between Poles and Ukrainian immigrants. For example, during a recent rap concert, attended mainly by Ukrainians and Belarussians, a couple of individuals waved the Banderite black and red flag, which gained a lot of negative publicity in the media and online. Partially as a reaction this, Nawrocki stated that ‘we should also say clearly “stop to Banderism” and equate the Bandera symbol with the symbols of German National Socialism (Nazism) and Soviet Communism. We must also amend the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) with regard to the crimes of the OUN–UPA’28.
Although Polish society continues to strongly oppose Russia’s actions against Ukraine, historical issues have resurfaced when Ukrainian nationalists have at
No mainstream Polish politician supports sending Polish troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal and the country’s newly elected President, Karol Nawrocki, has stated that he would veto any attempt by Ukraine to join NATO.
least partially rehabilitated wartime collaborationist forces. Polish right-wing nationalists in turn seek to exploit such tensions between Poles and the estimated 1.5 million Ukrainians currently residing in Poland29.
Far-right narrative.
The ending of socialism in Eastern Europe and the fragmenting of the postwar order has broken the consensus surrounding World War II. Many controversial issues were suppressed during the Polish People’s Republic, when the ruling narrative was that Poles had valiantly fought Nazi occupation before being liberated by the Red Army. Controversies surrounding the role of Soviet forces in Poland, the nature of the postwar order and relations between ethnic Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians were largely stifled. However, many of these controversies are now coming to the surface, during a time when nationalism and the far right are on the rise.
The equation of Nazism and Communism has helped to open space for a new dominant right-wing narrative. But whilst politicians in the West may be able to ignore the partial rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, this is not so easily done in Poland. Therefore, although Poland has steadfastly stood on the side of Ukraine against Russia, it is also instinctively opposed to many of the symbolic expressions of Ukrainian nationalism.
Eighty years after the end of World War II, Poland once again finds itself at the crossroads of geopolitical conflict. The effects of the war in neighbouring Ukraine, and the rise of nationalism throughout Europe, are opening historical wounds that had not yet fully healed. The huge suffering of the Polish people at the hands of the Nazi occupiers is sometimes little understood or fully recognised in Western Europe, including Germany. The classification and treatment of Poles was much more brutal and inhumane that that carried out in most other countries. However, the tendency to equate the Nazi occupation and genocide with Communism diminishes the historical significance of these events. The attempt to reverse the events of history, through the vehicle of anti-communism, leads back towards nationalism, antisemitism, and the relativisation of crimes that were unparalleled in Poland’s and Europe’s history.
Notes
1 See the Wikipedia article on the Wola Massacre, https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Wola_massacre.
2 Adam Leszczyńsk and Zygmunt Bauman, Skok w nowoczesność: polityka wzrostu w krajach peryferyjnych 1943-1980, Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2013.
3 Siobhan Kattago, Ambiguous Memory. The Nazi Past and German National Identity, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001, p. 49
4 Daniel Lazare, ‘Timothy Snyder’s Lies’, Jacobin, 9 September 2014, https:// jacobin.com/2014/09/timothy-snyders-lies/.
5 ‘Latvia’s Controversial Waffen-SS Fighters’, BBC Sounds, 16 March 2018, https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3csvtsy; Lev Golinkin, ‘Nazi Collaborator Monuments in Lithuania,’ Genocide Watch, 29 January 2021, https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/nazi-collabora-tor-monuments-in-lithuania.
6 ‘Poland Condemns Ukraine’s Commemoration of Wartime National-ist Leader Bandera’, Notes from Poland, 2 January 2023, https://notes-frompoland.com/2023/01/02/poland-condemns-ukraines-commemora-tion-of-wartime-nationalist-leader-bandera/.
7 The National Armed Forces (NSZ) were a right-wing nationalist force which did not collaborate systematically with the German occupiers, although some of its units, including the Świętokrzyska Brigade, had sporadic, limited tactical contacts with them.
8 Zdzisław Krasnodębski, ‘O genezie III Rzeczypospolitej raz jeszcze’, Ius et Lex, no. II, 1/2003.
9 See the Polish-language Wiipedia entry on Piotr Zychowicz, https://pl.wiki-pedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Zychowicz.
10 Piotr Zychowicz, ‘Adolf Hitler był lewakiem, twierdzi Piotr Zychowicz. Czyżby stracił kontakt z rzeczywistością?’, Rzeczpospolita, https:// www.rp.pl/plus-minus/art10190731-adolf-hitler-byl-lewakiem-twierd-zi-piotr-zychowicz-czyzby-stracil-kontakt-z-rzeczywistoscia.
11 CBOS, Prl – Doświadczenia, Oceny, Skojarzenia, no. 61, 2014.
12 The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews during the Holocaust, as poorly armed fighters held off German SS and army units for nearly a month. Some controversy has surrounded this uprising, with historian Timothy Snyder arguing that the Soviets and Polish Communists were trying to draw the Polish Home Army into actively supporting the Ghetto uprising although they were not prepared for such a fight. The main support for the uprising, outside the Ghetto, was organised by the communist Polish Workers’ Party (Daniel Lazare, ‘Timothy Snyder’s Lies’, Jacobin, 9 September 2014, https://jacobin.com/2014/09/ timothy-snyders-lies/).
13 The decision to call the Warsaw Uprising was made by the Polish Home Army and the government-in-exile in London, with the hope that they could take power before the Soviet Army reached Warsaw. This decision went against the geopolitical realities of the time and left the Home Army severely weakened after the war. Ultimately, the Red Army and Communist People’s Army (AL) played the decisive role in defeating the Nazis after the Uprising’s defeat.
14 CBOS, The attitude to the Warsaw Uprising after 80 years, July-August 2024, https://www.cbos.pl/PL/publikacje/public_opinion/2024/07_08_2024.pdf.
15 ‘Explainer: Why the Term “Polish Death Camps” is Misleading and Inaccurate’, 27 January 2025, Polskie Radio, https://www.polskiera-dio.pl/395/7789/artykul/3475785,explainer-why-the-term-pol-ish-death-camps-is-misleading-and-inaccurate.
16 ‘Nawrocki Calls for Reparations from Germany as Poland Marks Outbreak of WWII Anniversary,’ TVP World (Warsaw), 1 September 2025, https:// tvpworld.com/88655762/nawrocki-calls-for-reparations-from-germa-ny-as-poland-marks-outbreak-of-wwii-anniversary.
17 ‘Polish Deputy PM Says Germany Wants to Turn EU into "Fourth Reich"', The Guardian, 24 December 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ dec/24/poland-jarosaw-kaczynski-germany-eu-fourth-reich.
18 PiS politicians also accuse figures from the governing KO (Civic Coalition) of working in the interests of Germany. Accusations have even been made against Donald Tusk, claiming that his grandfather volunteered to serve in the Wehrmacht. ‘How Tusk Returned to Power despite Myths about “German Agent” and Kaczyński’s Camp’, 21 December 2023, https://www. eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2023/12/21/7176023/.
19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during_the_ Holocaust.
20 Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
21 Isabel Kershner, ‘Israel Slams “Baseless” Holocaust Legislation in Poland’,
New York Times, 27 January 2018.
22 ‘Polish Far-Right Leader Declares Auschwitz Gas Chambers to be ‘Fake’, Notes from Poland (Poland), 10 July 2025, https://notesfrompoland. com/2025/07/10/polish-far-right-leader-declares-auschwitz-gas-cham-bers-to-be-fake/.
23 Anna Zawadzka, Więcej niż stereotyp. 'Żydokomuna’ jako wzór kultury polskiej (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2023), https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12528/1968.
24 ‘Poles Were Asked about the Impact of Ukrainians on the Economy — Opinions Were Divided along Party Lines,’ Liga.net, 3 September 2025, https:// finance.liga.net/en/ekonomika/novosti/poles-were-asked-about-the-im-pact-of-ukrainians-on-the-economy-opinions-were-divided-along-par-ty-lines.
25 ‘Polish Far-Right Leader Declares Auschwitz Gas Chambers to be ‘Fake’, Notes from Poland, 10 July 2025, https://notesfrompoland. com/2025/07/10/polish-far-right-leader-declares-auschwitz-gas-cham-bers-to-be-fake/.
26 ‘Polish Law on Historical Memory Widens Divisions at Home and Abroad,’ LeftEast, 26 January 2018, https://lefteast.org/polish-law-on-historical-memory-widens-divisions-at-home-and-abroad/.
27 ‘Poland Intervenes after Ukrainian Ambassador Denies Wartime Massa-cre of Poles and Jews’, Notes from Poland, 1 July 2022, https://notes-frompoland.com/2022/07/01/poland-intervenes-after-ukrainian-ambas-sador-denies-wartime-massacre-of-poles-and-jews/.
28 President of the Republic of Poland, ‘President vetoed the amendment of the Act on Assistance to Ukrainian Citizens,’ President.pl, 25 August 2025, https://www.president.pl/news/president-vetoed-the-amendment-of-the-act-on-assistance-to-ukrainian-citizens,105753.
29 ‘Ukraińcy w Polsce – fakty i mity,’ Schuman.pl, 29 May 2025, https:// schuman.pl/2025/05/29/ukraincy-w-polsce-skad-wynika-ich-ochrona/