September 1

September 1 has two basic connotations in Poland. First, it’s the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, which began with an attack of the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein on the Polish Military Transit Deposit (Westerplatte) on the territory of the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk). At the same time German troops crossed the Polish borderline heading from three sides towards Warsaw. Second, it’s the first day of school in Poland. I don’t know how school authorities begin school years nowadays but my generation connects these two events automatically. Our school principles and teachers used to remind us about the tragedy of the Second Republic every first day at school, every year, from the first class of primary school to the last year of secondary school.

I don’t know what school principals are going to tell present day kids on Monday (actually since it’s Saturday today, the school year commences September 3). The fact is that every year fewer and fewer young Poles has this immediate association of September 1 with World War II.

The instilment of the tradition of Polish martyrdom was part of the Communist conscious propaganda policy aiming at us believing that Germans had always been our enemies and still were! Of course, there were “good Germans” in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and “bad Germans”, actually all crypto-Nazis, in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). We had to be vigilant because “West German revisionists” incessantly plotted against us preparing their perfidious schemes to take back the lands that used to belong to Germany before 1937.

In the 1980s, although General Jaruzelski seemed to have stifled the patriotic and independent movement (“Solidarity”), more and more people went to Germany to work. Many Poles treated that country as a stopover on their way to the US, Canada or even Australia. However there was quite a number of those who went to West Germany ‘on vacation’ and came home for the rest of the year. During those two months they earned more (sometimes much more) than over the remaining ten months in Poland. They brought lots of western goods, hardly available behind the ‘iron curtain’: clothes (including original jeans), cosmetics and electronic equipment, including video players and VHS cassettes. That’s why even today when someone talks with nostalgia about the VHS era (now replaced by DVD) the first thought that comes across my mind is American movies with German dubbing. All the video cassettes were in German! As a result we could not hear the original voices of great American stars, including songs in musicals, because the Germans dubbed every second of spoken/sung text!

What was much more important to me than all those gadgets and symbols of ‘the world of abudance’, was those people’s stories. We were listening with open mouths about easy access to all possible goods, stores full of literally everything, while in our version of socialism we had empty shelves and long lines of those who ‘hunted’ for literally anything. We were devouring stories about high wages and salaries, high quality cars, TV-sets, spacious houses and apartments. And we loved all the accounts on democracy at work. TV debates with politicians not sparing harsh words against their opponents while in Poland the regime TV served us perfect harmony and cooperation on the top level of power. In a word, everything was perfect in West Germany.

One thing was also important in those stories which sometimes sounded in our ears like fairy tales. It was the fact that our friends visiting and working in Germany did not see their hosts as Nazis or even crypto-Nazis. Well, their experience with particular Germans could vary from person to person. Hardly anyone, however, remembered any incidents that would brought to mind situations known from World War II (or movies about WW II). The role of those ‘working visits’ to West Germany is, therefore, hard to overestimate. They really contributed to breaking our attitudes towards Germans. However, if someone asked me if the negative stereotype of the German in Poland is now the matter of past, I’d be far from optimism.

Polish Germanophobia has its roots in history, although it was Hitler and WW II that created a very strong stereotype of the Germans being our ‘eternal’ enemies. It’s not my intention to present an outline of the Polish-German relations throughout history but in fact there were quite long periods when our mutual attitudes were simply good. It was Birsmarck’s policy of germanization of the inhabitants of Great Poland ruled by Prussia (later united Germany) as the result of the partitions of Poland and half a century later Hitler’s atrocities that created the image of Germany as our intransigent foe.

Germanophobia may be a great tool in the hands of the politicians who know how to skillfully play with the crowd’s emotions. At the moment in Poland there are quite a number of those who are scared of German and Russian conspiracy aimed against Poland and the Polish people.

Well, I would be naïve if I believed that German (and Russian as well) politicians or businesspeople are full of exclusively good intentions towards Poland and the Poles. They simply have their particular interests and it’s quite understandable that they stay in conflict with ours. This may quite frequently lead to serious problems (e.g. the Nord Stream pipeline) and suspicions. The media will never reveal the real reasons for closing down Polish shipyards (as some believe, the result of German conspiracy in the EU whose decisions resulted in the end of the Polish shipbuilding industry, while the Germans successfully protected their shipyards being in a similar situation) but we should understand one thing: all these actions have nothing to do with Adolf Hitler, ‘eternal enmity’ between our nations or any other long-term ethnic or cultural conflicts. ‘Business is business’, as they say, and in the world of politics there’s no room for sentiments. Germany as politically and economically stronger seems to be better prepared to protect its interests.

Talking about ‘centuries of enmity’ cuts both ways. On the one hand, instead of analyzing current problems (which may be quite real) some politicians make us focus our attention on the past, which is useless and, on the other hand, we tend to live in a box of paranoia outside of which our enemies are lurking.

However (or, on the third hand, as I’d love to say), uncritical acceptance of all instructions given by ‘more experienced’ and ‘wiser’ neighbors by other Polish politicians does not necessarily result in something good for Poland. A friendly pat on the shoulder from the current German chancellor or a eulogy of a Polish minister in a German newspaper does not mean that this minister does work in the best interest of Poland.

Anyway, the past should not ruin our prospects for the future. I strongly believe that good relations with Germany should remain one of the priorities of our foreign policy. Our relationship shouldn’t be built on the patron-client principle. Both our countries are EU members and if we finally learn how to use the community mechanisms, our position may become stronger.

Do I want to say we should forget September 1, Adolf Hitler and six years of war and occupation (the occupation of West European countries wasn’t nearly as brutal as that of Poland)? By no means. We should always remember that dark period just to realize that such things may happen, that such ‘civilized’ peoples as for example Germans are able to turn into callous murderers ready to eliminate whole nations and ethnic groups in the name of some insane ideologies. This is what we should remember.