NEIGHBOURS - On the Eve of the Holocaust. Polish-Jewish Relations in Soviet-Occupied Eastern Poland, 1939-1941 by Mark Paul
Foreword
On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union entered into a Non-Aggression Pact (the so-called Motov-Ribbentrop Pact) which paved the way for the imminent invasion of Poland. A Secret Protocol to that Pact provided for the partition of Poland, as well as for Soviet domination of the Baltic States and Bessarabia. Germany attacked Poland on September 1st, while the Soviet strike was delayed until September 17th. Polish forces continued to fight pitched battles with the Germans until early October 1939 (the last large battle was fought at Kock on October 5th), after which the struggle went underground.
After overrunning Poland, the Nazis and Soviets agreed, under the terms of a Secret Supplementary Protocol to the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of September 28, 1939, to a redrawn common border. Each side seized roughly half of Poland, thus ensuring that the country was once again wiped off the face of Europe. They also undertook a common struggle against the Polish independence movement - the suppression “all beginnings” of “Polish agitation” - and to keep each other informed of their progress. In fact, this ushered in a period of close cooperation between the NKVD and the Gestapo.Contacts between the two organizations intensified and conferences were held to discuss how best to combat Polish resistance and eradicate Polish national existence. A joint instructional centre for officers of the NKVD officer and the Gestapo was opened at Zakopane in December 1939. The decision to massacre Polish officers at Katyn (transliterated as Katyń in Polish) was taken concurrently with a conference of high officials of the Gestapo and NKVD convened in Zakopane on February 20, 1940. While the Soviets were undertook the extermination of captured Polish officers, the Germans carried out, from March 31, a parallel “Operation AB” aimed at destroying Poland’s elites.
This partnership did not remain a secret for long. On September 19th, Pravda published a Soviet-German communiqué confirming the joint role of Hitler’s and Stalin’s armies in the invasion of Poland. On September 30th, Pravda proudly announced to millions of its readers that “German-Soviet friendship is now established forever.” In a speech delivered before the Supreme Soviet on October 31st, Vyacheslav Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, openly applauded the destruction of Poland:
A short blow at Poland from the German Army, followed by one from the Red Army was enough to reduce to nothing this monster child of the Treaty of Versailles. … One may like or dislike Hitlerism, but every sane person will understand that that ideology cannot be destroyed by force. It is, therefore, not only nonsensical but also criminal to pursue a war “for the destruction of Hitlerism.
The Nazi-Soviet alliance lasted for over a year and a half, until shortly before Germany turned on its erstwhile ally on June 22, 1941. During this time the Soviet Union was the principal supplier of much needed raw materials for the German war machine which, in the meantime, occupied Denmark, Norway,the Netherlands, Belgium, much of France, and smashed the Western Forces
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