Border stories: Anglo-European chauvinism and racism in dealing with Ukrainian refugees

Foreign students in Ukraine brutalized and terrorized at borders. Germany asks Poland to stop sending refugees. Oligarchs, MPs, neo-Nazis flee for their lives | Press review by TONY SEED*

African students await evacuation from Ukraine.

“Civilized” Europe is not only Russophobic but anti-Black and colonial.

Amid a deluge of reports and footage of racial discrimination in Ukraine, representatives from the Caribbean and Africa spoke to the unjust treatment of Ukrainian refugees of African origin during the debate on the UN General Assembly resolution concerning Ukraine. Videos showing Africans being pushed back from trains and border crossings have gone viral on social media (for example, here), causing an uproar and sparking statements of concern by African politicians and officials.

77th Anniversary of the Start of the Warsaw Uprising August 1, 1944

The Treachery of Historical Falsifications | Dougal MacDonald

Monument in Warsaw, inaugurated in 1989, to those who fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising

Much has been written by historians about the Warsaw Uprising in Poland which took place from August 1 to October 2, 1944, during the Second World War.[1] Much of it is false. The main aims of the past and modern falsifiers of the history of the Warsaw Uprising have been to attack the Soviet Union and its great leader, Joseph Stalin, to whitewash the Polish reactionaries and their modern-day descendants, and to try to pretend that the innumerable Nazi war crimes which were committed against the Polish people were a mere historical footnote. But the facts of history are stubborn things and they do not change just because of the scribblings of reactionary historians.

Word. Falsificators of History, Chapter 3: The isolation of the Soviet Union and the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact

For Your Information

– Soviet Information Bureau, February 1948 –

After the seizure of Czechoslovakia fascist Germany proceeded with her preparations for war quite openly, before the eyes of the whole world. Hitler, encouraged by Britain and France, no longer stood on ceremony or pretended to favour the peaceful settlement of European problems. The most dramatic months of the prewar period had come. At that time it was already clear that every day was bringing mankind nearer to the unparalleled catastrophe of war.

Falsifications about the origins of the Second World War

Information picket against the glorification of Nazism, Ottawa, August 21, 2020.

By Dougal MacDonald 

The government of Canada declared August 23 Black Ribbon Day to spread lies which blame the former Soviet Union for starting the Second World War. The Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler Germany on August 23, 1939 which the government of Canada claims was a “military alliance” to take joint military action against some third country. But the pact contained no such agreement. The agreement was only that the two countries would not attack each other.

Eight hundred billion

A large coalition of German parliamentary parties offers charity to Poland | Commentary by Hans-Rüdiger Minow

Old Town Market Place, January 1945. Nazi German forces destroyed 85 per cent of Warsaw.

(german-foreign-policy.com) – Several hundred members of the German Bundestag are planning major construction projects in Warsaw. The non-partisan group of German parliamentarians – ranging from right to left – is discussing transformation plans for the Polish capital, which had been destroyed in the 1940s, when war was raging everywhere. Warsaw could finally be embellished with historical sensitivity and German money from a “Poland Fund.” Berlin is discussing the reconstruction of Warsaw’s huge 18th century Baroque palace, the “Pałac Saski” in reminiscence of the Kingdom of Poland, when Poland was moaning under the reign of the Saxons (“Saxony Poland”) – a serious proposal from the portfolio of Germany’s Poland institutes. Therefore, Warsaw’s museums and libraries must also expect wide-ranging construction measures. They would be expanded, with means from the “Poland Fund,” to make room for cultural goods from Germany, where they have been stored in greater quantities – some already for several centuries. They had unfortunately disappeared from Poland, when “Saxony Poland” had been succeeded by quite varying regimes under German domination. Poland’s cultural heritage had been transferred to Berlin in a cloak-and-dagger operation, supposedly to safeguard it from theft and destruction. The Polish artifacts would, however, remain German property and only loaned out to Warsaw’s museums, as was so caringly suggested in the Germany capital.

For the record: Exposing the falsification of history – victim or aggressor: Chrystia Freeland’s family record for Nazi war profiteering, and murder of the Cracow Jews

January 27, 2017 marked the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland by the Red Army, shown in photo. Three months before, in October 1944, German troops along with deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather and other collaborators fled nearby Krakow, Poland (68 kilometres away from the camp) for Vienna, Austria. He left Vienna in March 1945 days before it was liberated by the Soviets.

Polish media: The US can abandon Poland in the same way it abandoned the Kurds

By SERGEY FILATOV

It has long been known that the establishment in Poland is guided by the US more than by even EU partners. This despite the fact that in the last 10-15 years Warsaw received about €100 billion for “integration” from the budget of the EU.

Significance of the Non-Aggression Pact signed by the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany

Aim of falsifications of the origins of the Second World War | Dougal MacDonald

Great Soviet victory against the Nazis at Stalingrad

Red Army soldiers raise the red flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, May 2, 1945, signifying victory over fascism in Europe.

On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union signed what is now known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact with Germany. The agreement stipulated that Germany would not attack the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union would not attack Germany. Future events proved the farsightedness of Stalin in signing the pact which was the best of all available alternatives. It provided the Soviet Union with 22 months of peace so as to prepare herself to withstand the inevitable German invasion which Hitler had foreshadowed in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, when he openly declared that Germany needed to “turn our gaze to the lands in the east.” The pact also put an end to the Anglo-American and French policy of egging Hitler toward the East so that an isolated Soviet Union would end up facing massive German forces.

Disinformation about invasion of Poland

By HARDIAL BAINS

September 1 marks the anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Hitlerites in 1939. Instead of condemning the Nazis, reactionary forces such as the Harperites use disinformation to rehabilitate the reputation of Nazi war criminals and to cover up who were the victims of fascism in whose name the peoples of the world declared “Never Again!” At this time of year, they use the anniversary of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact signed on August 23, 1939 to claim that this was an act of appeasement, not a tactical move for the Soviet Union to buy time to arm itself for an inevitable confrontation with the Nazis. The disinformation is also used to suggest that it was the Soviets and not the Nazis who invaded Poland in September 1939 and started the war in Europe. This is to hide the fact that it was the European powers that actively appeased the Nazis and permitted the invasion of Poland, while the Soviets fought to defend that country and its people at every turn. Ultimately, this disinformation about the causes of World War II is to justify and commit similar crimes in the present.

Warsaw Uprising: Polish authorities’ political amnesia

By VALÉRY VRUBLEVSKY

People light flares as they observe a minute of silence to mark the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi German occupiers during World War II on August 1, 2019, in the Polish capital Warsaw | Janek Skarzynski/AFP

Poland is suffering political amnesia. The condition gets acute any time one mentions the mass crimes committed against Polish nationals. There is a plethora of examples to prove the case. The Volyn massacre is the most illustrative one. Ukrainian nationalists brutally tortured and killed dozens of thousands of old men, women and children. For all that, the Polish government supports the successors of Stepan Bandera who have seized power in Ukraine.

There is another example – the pogroms in Wola that took place during the Warsaw uprising (Wola – a district of western Warsaw). German fascists killed around 60,000 Poles in two days (August 5-6, 1944) – the largest single massacre in WWII.

75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising: The treachery of historical falsifications

When a city of almost one million people was nearly obliterated from the face of the earth

By DOUGAL MACDONALD

Monument in Warsaw, inaugurated in 1989, to those who fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.

Much has been written by historians about the Warsaw Uprising in Poland which took place from August 1 to October 2, 1944, during the Second World War [1]. Much of it is false. The main aims of the past and modern falsifiers of the history of the Warsaw Uprising have been to attack the Soviet Union and its great leader, Joseph Stalin, to whitewash the Polish reactionaries and their modern-day descendants, and to try to pretend that the innumerable Nazi war crimes which were committed against the Polish people were a mere historical footnote. But the facts of history are stubborn things and they do not change just because of the scribblings of reactionary historians.

Behold Operation Bagration, D-Day of the Eastern Front

By JOHN WIGHT*

Map of Operation Bagration, showing the massive westward thrust of the Red Army.

Operation Bagration was the D-Day of the Eastern Front. In scope, size, scale and impact, it was a remarkable feat of arms unmatched in WWII.[1]

Cheap commemoration

BERLIN/ATHENS/WARSAW(November 11) – In reference to Greece and Poland’s new demands for reparations for Germany’s World War II mass crimes, the German government has reconfirmed its blockade on compensations. Berlin maintains that there are no legal grounds for Athens and Warsaw’s demands. No reparations will be paid.

Demolition of anti-fascist memorials in Poland: Falsifications about country’s liberation from Nazi rule

Monument in Rzeszow celebrating the liberation of the city from the Nazis. In 2016 the city rejected calls from Poland’s historical legacy institute to remove such memorials.

By DOUGAL MACDONALD

On June 22, 2017, the Polish government’s lower house voted to amend the “decommunization laws” to demolish all monuments and memorials honouring the Soviet Union’s liberation of Poland from the Nazis. The fact that the amendments were passed on the 76th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union would appear to be no accident.

Canada leads NATO mission in Latvia

BY HILARY LEBLANC

Banner in mass actions at Munich Security Conference February 18, 2017: “Peace Instead of NATO – No to War!”

In June, the first of 450 Canadian soldiers will arrive in Latvia to lead a battalion in a large military buildup of NATO countries on Russia’s frontiers. According to reports, the Canadian-led battalion will have troops from Albania, Italy, Poland and Slovenia. Three other battalions of foreign soldiers, led by the U.S., Britain and Germany, respectively, are being placed in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. The result will be thousands of NATO troops indefinitely stationed in two countries bordering Russia (Estonia and Latvia) and two others bordering Belarus (Lithuania and Poland). Canada will also deploy light armoured vehicles (LAVs) and up to six CF-18 warplanes to conduct air patrols.

NATO Summit – German calls for ‘fundamental readjustment’

german-foreign-policy.com BERLIN (July 1) – Just a few days before the NATO summit opens in Poland’s capital Warsaw, German think tanks are not only pushing for stationing combat troops at Russia’s borders but even for the expansion of the West’s nuclear arsenal.

Opposing the NATO Summit

“NATO Legal Terrorism”: Protest in downtown Krakow, Poland against NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting, February 19, 2009, and plans to install U.S. anti-missile bases in Poland.

Anti-war activists are converging on Warsaw, Poland to vehemently denounce the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 2016 Summit taking place July 8-9 and all the moves to embroil the peoples of Europe in imperialist war preparations, particularly those aimed at Russia. Around the world, including in Canada, activists are holding events as part of a Global Day of Action Against NATO.

Ghosts of the past: The story of Red Army captives in Poland

Soviet army greeted as it liberates Warsaw in 1945.

By Ekaterina Blinova

While the Polish government is preparing to demolish 500 monuments devoted to the memory of Soviet soldiers who died liberating Poland from the Nazi invaders, another disturbing historic episode comes to mind – the story of tens of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war tormented in Polish captivity back in the 1920s.

Polish city refuses to demolish monument honouring WWII Red Army soldiers

RT.com (April 21) – The city of Rzeszow, close to Poland’s border with Ukraine, has ignored calls to remove a Soviet-era monument celebrating the liberation of the city from the Nazis. Last month, Poland’s historical legacy institute urged the immediate removal of 500 such memorials across the country.

Dresden and Poznan: Two different ways to wage war

The Liberation of Poznan by the Soviet Red Army

By YURIY RUBTSOV

The Red Army and British-American forces had one enemy – the German Wehrmacht – but quite often they waged different wars. The liberation of the Polish city Poznan by the Red Army and the bombing of Dresden by [other Allied countries] – one event following one week after the other – 70 years ago in February 1945. These two examples provide a good illustration of this.

NATO’s nuclear ‘debate’

Throughout the aggressive U.S.-led NATO, member states are engaged in encircling and engaging in criminal warmongering against Russia, as documented by  this report from Germany on just how the deployment of nuclear arms against Russia is being justified. Justin Trudeau is no less extremist than Stephen Harper in decrying “Russian aggression.” Canadian Forces are participating in NATO exercises on the borders of Russia that attempt to encircle Russia with a nuclear shield. In Warsaw on June 9, Harper announced that Canadian Armed Forces personnel would be joining a NATO command centre being set up in Szczecin, Poland as part of the efforts to encircle and isolate Russia.

Falsification of history: German president uses Auschwitz commemoration to justify militarism

Memorial to the victims of Nazi atrocities at the site of the former Dachau concentration camp representing the demand of the world’s people to never again permit the rise of fascism.

By ULRICH RIPPERT

wsws.org (Jan. 30) – On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet troops, German President Joachim Gauck made a commemorative speech on Tuesday in parliament. The sermonizing tone of the former East German clergyman was difficult to bear. But even worse was the cynicism with which Gauck used the Holocaust memorial day to legitimise the reemergence of German militarism.

Falsification of history: Auschwitz and its liberation – Heroic deed of the Red Army

Auschwitz prisoners liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

By YURIY RUBTSOV

If you ask the prisoners of Auschwitz or at least those who have ever visited the memorial and museum about what they felt — they will tell you that the place where hundreds of thousands died is cursed. One gets the impression that the deathly silence of the cemetery is still broken by cries and moans of inmates pushed into gas chambers… piles of shoes of all sizes, tooth brushes, glasses… all these objects still appear to preserve the warmth of the hands of the people they belonged to.

Russia declassifies Auschwitz liberation documents

Sputnik (Jan. 27) — Classified World War II documents of the Auschwitz concentration camp’s January 27, 1945 liberation will finally see the light of day on its 70th anniversary, the Defense Ministry announced in a statement Tuesday.

“Today, 70 years after the events, the Russian Ministry of Defense will for the first time publicly disclose reliable historical documents from the period of the Great Patriotic War from the central archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense on its official website,” the statement reads.

Auschwitz: Polish falsification of liberation, Polish collaboration with Nazis

Located 70 km from Krakow in occupied Poland, Auschwitz was the largest (around 40 square km) network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during WWII.

Oriental Review (Jan. 24) – The statement by Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna, claiming that it was Ukrainians alone who allegedly liberated the prisoners from Auschwitz, needs no further comment. We’ll let that remark lie on its author’s conscience, as he seems to have “forgotten” about the thousands of his own countrymen who fought heroically against fascism as part of the Armia Ludowa.

Liberation without the liberators

Auschwitz prisoners liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

BERLIN/WARSAW (Jan. 16) – Through their virtual disinvitation, EU countries are preventing the Russian president from participating at the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The highest representative of the country, whose army had halted the mass murder in the German extermination camp January 27, 1945, is thereby excluded from the commemoration ceremonies. However, Germany’s president, will participate.

75 years ago: Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland

On Important Questions of War and Peace

Pictured here in 1944 are Polish partisans, members of the Polish People’s Army (Armia Ludowa), who bravely and with great sacrifice fought together with the Soviet Army to liberate their country and defeat Nazi fascism in Europe | Polish Army Museum in Warsaw (Click to enlarge)

By DOUGAL MacDONALD

TML Weekly (Aug. 30) – At 4:15 am on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland in a massive assault. Hitler’s Wehrmacht of 1,850,000 troops, 3,200 tanks, 2,000 combat aircraft and 11 warships – over two-thirds of Germany’s entire combat force – destroyed the Polish state and massacred the Polish people.[1]

Ukraine: What is the trouble and who are the troublemakers?

By NATHAN J FREEMAN

TML Daily (March 21) – THE cunning of history has positioned Ukraine as the latest country in which post-Soviet Russia and U.S.-led imperialism confront each other. The U.S.-led camp, which includes the old European colonialism, is on a rampage. The Russian government has responded in a measured way, securing its naval assets in the Crimea and going so far as to take Crimea out of the clutches of the fascist coup that seized power in Kiev while putting the elected president, Alexander Yanukovych, to flight.

Students in Khrakov, Ukraine, lay flowers at monument to Second World War partisan fighters and the Soviet Red Army | Jaroslav the Wise National Law University

Beyond and underlying the intermonopoly contradictions (mainly over energy resources access and control[1]) that are at odds and in play at this time in that region, the longest-standing and most burning issue for the peoples of this region has surfaced once again: how can the equality and sovereign rights of nations and peoples, irrespective of their ethnic makeup, be established (and in some respects re-established) with a guarantee that is meaningful under current conditions?

‘Akin to war’: US troops are in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Petawawa

“They’ve invaded; I mean certainly if it’s not war, it’s akin to war.” – Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, CBC’s Power and Politics broadcast, March 3, 2014

Who’s on first? “Capt Rob Cuthie, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, points out the brigade’s battle plan with WO Dan Covert, 2 Combat Engineer Regiment, and Capt Reed Preece. Pennsylvania Army National Guard, during Exercise UNIFIED RESOLVE 2014.” | MCpl Faye Worthy © 2013 DND-MDN Canada

THE following releases issued by the Government of Canada’s Department of National Defence illustrate how foreign troops are carrying out military exercises on Canadian territory on virtually a non-stop basis throughout the year. All the exercises are carried out under the Pentagon’s Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which simultaneously includes the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.

The Ukraine crisis – It’s the Intermarium plan again

The garbled slogans and ravings of the Ukrainian nationalists are straight from the Intermarium playbook | Dr JONATHAN LEVY*

Although Inermarium is an old concept, its modern significance is shown by the map, which was published by Stratfor, the corporate intelligence firm linked to the CIA, in 2015. It which views Turkey as the southern anchor of the Intermarium, a network of allies including Lithuania, Poland, Ukrain and Romania that occupy Russia’s European rim and have a collective interest in working with the US-NATO bloc to pressure Russia.–TS

(March 1) – Political scientists attribute the Ukraine crisis to competition between Russia and the West or East Ukraine versus West Ukraine.  While these simple explanations have their merits, there is much more at stake; nothing less the long planned absorption of Ukraine into the Intermarium and the break-up of Russia into toothless mini states.