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Jerzy Tyts: My mom was rescued by a Red Army soldier.

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Jerzy Tyts: My mom was rescued by a Red Army soldier.

30.10.2020

Vladimir Emelianenko

Jerzy Tyts. The photo is provided by the press service of the Russian Military Historical Society especially for the Russkiy Mir

Jerzy Tyts, important Polish public figure, has come to Russia with the idea to install in Krakow a monument to Red Army soldiers who saved the mined city from being blown up by the Nazis in 1945. The truth is that the idea seems fantastic - for now. It represents his response to the Institute of National Remembrance (INR) of Poland that got into an argument with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the background of World War II. According to insights of the Institute of National Memory, the USSR did not liberate Poland, but invaded it.

New ideas of new Poland

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Poles think differently - they were liberated from the Nazis by the USSR, namely by simple Red Army soldiers and Polish partisans, and the Polish people do their best to preserve their burial places.

My mother was rescued by a Red Army soldier, says Jerzy Tyts. - When my mother was ten years old, he pulled her out of a burning house set on fire by retreating Nazis. It happened in the winter of 1945. My mom could have died, but one of Red Army soldiers pulled her out of the fire. Now she is 88 years old. She still remembers him and teaches me to cherish his memory. Ordinary Poles try to avoid speaking bad things about Red Army soldiers, because they saved us and did not allow Krakow to be blown up. Therefore, a monument to a Red Army soldier in Krakow is a decent move.

However, Tyts’s idea is almost fantastic: a monument to Marshal Ivan Konev who had decided not to storm the city in 1945 was dismantled in Krakow in 1991. And today this idea is also dangerous: Jerzy Tytsa can be prosecuted for spreading Russian propaganda. After all, the INR point of view prevails in Poland: “Saving Krakow from destruction by the Red Army is a hypocritical communist propaganda."

A new idea is being officially fabricated within the country, Tyts says. - According to it, the liberation mission of the Red Army in Europe in 1944-1945, when over three million Red Army soldiers were killed, is a myth. And the truth is that Europe was enslaved by communists. The incident with Krakow is just the launch of a new "evidence" system. It has another goal - to prove that there was no liberation of Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow, but rather "a desperate democracy uprising against communism in Warsaw, which was suppressed by the Stalinists" and followed by seizure of other Polish cities.

Simple question

There is another intention behind Jerzy Tyts’ visit to Russia. He aims to get access to Russian archives for Polish researchers. According to him, the system of evidences and meetings of historians from the both countries will help “eliminate the myths of modern history”. He has gained support of his Russian colleagues - Yuri Borisenok, associate professor of the History Faculty of Moscow State University, and Nikolai Nikiforov, deputy head of the Research Institute of Military History of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. They believe that the Soviet Union chose the wrong strategy by classifying documents related to large-scale help provided by the USSR to post-war Poland in 1945-1953. That involved supply of grain, meat and food, as well as allocation of industrial equipment and finances from reparations payments by Germany.

A simple question of why the Polish Home Army did not defend Krakow and left it to the USSR will blow away the INR concept of Krakow invaded by the Reds, Yuri Borisenok is convinced. – Here is the question: who prevented Krakow mined by Germans from being blown up?

Yuri Borsenok and Nikolai Nikiforov showed some declassified documents from the State Archives: in 1945 the Red Army cleared of mines 5 bridges, 57 enterprises, 157 institutions and castles, as well as 375 residential buildings in Krakow. The veracity of the documents and Marshal Konev’s statement prohibiting the city assault was confirmed by the allies (the United States and Great Britain).

Nikiforov also showed a document formerly classified by the USSR Ministry of Defense: in Krakow, the Nazis and the local administration under their command mined 14 enterprises and 3 water towers with self-exploding flasks, which were supposed to detonate in five days. However, Red Army reconnoiterers and deminers cleared the city within two days.

And now the INR of Poland claims that Krakow was not mined; this is just an undocumented Soviet myth. From the INR’s point of view, the only documented fact is that the Red Army troops entered Krakow, Warsaw and Lodz.

Krakow, Warsaw and Lodz were included into Hitler's Scorched earth policy, said Nikolai Nikiforov. - Some Polish historians claim that the Germans turned Krakow into a flourishing land. Their myth is based on the fact that Hans Frank, the German vice-governor of the district, attained economic growth in the region, but for the benefit of the Wehrmacht only. And when they retreated, Hitler ordered to blow up everything, even Germany. Now that myth is supported and replicated by the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland. Krakow is an example of the high-class work performed by the Soviet intelligence and agents of the Polish People's Army. However, information of that high-class intelligence work was classified by the NKVD* of the USSR, which has led to the apparent substitution of facts and, thus, to oblivion of historical memory.

Scientists believe that opening of the archives is the right way to prevent historical oblivion and possible tirades against Russia for “invading” Europe. The documents, which Russia is preparing to publish for the international community, contain information about military operations to liberate Krakow, Warsaw, Lodz and the role of Soviet partisans in establishing the sites of the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Ukraine).

The next step

Well, it should be followed by development of a new strategy and tactics of political, economic and business relations between Russia and countries that have been rewriting the history of World War II in accordance with their new national standards.

The Red Army brought the peoples of Europe the opportunity to live, develop and speak their native languages, as well as to have their own ethnic culture, tells Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society (RMHS). – Such recalibrations of our country’s liberation mission leads to information wars, rewriting of the results of World War II, growth of neo-Nazi sentiments and turning the victors into "occupants." Therefore, the RMHS consistently confronts attempts to falsify history. Further to opening of the archives, it is necessary to stipulate a legislative ban to travel to Russia and do business with our country for those directly or indirectly involved in the blasphemy to memory of our soldiers. They should know that their actions will always be followed by consequences.

And now Jerzy Tyts, a Polish public figure, has turned out to be the public trigger to initiate opening of archives and public discussions, which do help preserve historical memory. The State Archives of Russia and the RMHS invited specialists from the Institute of National Memory of Poland to work in the Russian archives and to start a scientific dialogue. Unfortunately, the invitation was not accepted. However, a number of Polish historians and higher academic educational institutions, including the Jagiellonian University (also known as the University of Krakow) and the University of Warsaw, are interested in the opportunity to study and research the opening Russian archives.

From the Russkiy Mir files

Jerzy Tyts is the person behind establishment of the KURSK Community, which has been engaged in preservation and restoration of Soviet war graves and monuments in Poland since 2012. Thanks to this organization’s efforts, the cemetery of Red Army soldiers was restored in the city of Pruszków. 641 Red Army soldiers were buried there in 1945. Jerzy Tyts has gathered a team of volunteers. They restore abandoned and vandalized memorials, as well as work to establish names of Red Army soldiers who died there. They have managed to establish names of nearly 400 perished Red Army soldiers with the help of the Union of Veterans of the Russian Navy. The KURSK Community's plans include renovation of the cemetery of Soviet soldiers in Krakow, establishment of an educational center in Surmovka (a village in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland. - V.E.) and publication of a catalog with places where the memory of the Red Army soldiers who liberated Poland is perpetuated.

* People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs

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