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OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF PERTH. Registered at the G.P.O,, Perth,
for transmission 1,y post as a newspaper.
ESTABLISHED 1874. 'PHONE B6950 450 Hay Street, Perth, Box A35, G.P.O., Perth.
PERTH, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, LW.
NO. 2,258.
SEVENTY-THIRD YEAR
PRICE THREEPENCE
Poland Has Lost Faith in the West Britain "Sold Down the River" by B
This truth was acknowledged hy with Russia, seemed justified. .
with aol,litallgite,b,l,,eidge.rs. The
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.t!lueie(sei ccoonndfermeneeeetingmaoifskt,hediencteirr-1
Poles,
thoroughly aware of the length ed: and the bitterness of the struggle., "The Soviet Union, which deboth at home and abroad, did not fends the right to establish its once fail in all-out loyalty to the own social order and its own govWe were ernment, has consistently and choice they had made. with the Western powers-for bet- with full force denounced all vioter or worse, for "life and death." lations of the sovereign rights of Those were Churchill's words, ad- peoples, all aggressions and agdressed to General Sikorski when gressors, any and all attempts of he came over with his government aggresive nations to impose their and his army, which included two will on other peoples and to inPoland , ()lye them in war." thousand trained fliers. was the only active ally Britain The deeds that followed-like had at that moment against the the deed which had precededBy ALEXANDER JANTA, in "The Sign," whole massed might of Germany were in stark contradiction to and Italy. these words. of Briconnivance, with ..ntright that imagine smugly may We The Germans meanwhie sought The drains of Polish -Russian rePolish anger is saimed solely at tain and the United States. they lations is too well known to ret, convince the Poles that Russia We are wrong. Poland You can, .1 am sure, understand in were fighting in vain and only quire reiteration here. It became has lost faith in the West; and the indignation of a Pole as he the interests of a foreign power. obvious that Russia was determinthe West has lost a friend. surveys the wreckage of the cause They -covered occupied Warsaw ed to turn Poland-for a thouin which we fought and bled side with posters picturing a wounded, sand years the easternment bulBut you assume, smugby side. haggard Polish soldier against the wark of Western civilisation --toly, that our anger is directed enruins of his home town, with the wards Moscow, even if the Polish I was an officer I am a Pole. is backbone had to be broken in the tirely. or even mainly, against Soinscription: "England! This in the Polish Armoured Division, viet Russia. In this you are misyour work!" The death senfince process. which closed the gap at Falaise, And taken, deeply mistaken. was announced for anyone damThe more apparent this intenand took part in the liberation of seems to aging these posters. But the pets. tion became, the more fervently I am one somehow your mistake Belgium and Holland. me to aggravate your fault, plc of Warsaw tore them off, al- Polish hopes were turned to the of those Poles who fought shoulmost under the noses of the in- West. I know, because we talkAfter all, we could not and did der to shoulder with their Westfollow him vaders. A teen-age girl was caught ed of these things in our barracks. to were ready Poles ern allies. I spent two and a half not expect respect for our soil and blindly. first The shot. In the act-and in the foul Nazi prison camps, on year- in a German prison camp. I our national aspirations from the ,asualtv in the Polish under- battlefields. "With leaders like We shared risked my life in a successful es- Soviet Government. ed complete mastery of the seas, thus died defending Great Roosevelt and Churchill we cancape in order that I might risk none of your illusions about that while the other boasted the great- ground Britain's honour. I recommend not be let down," we assured one We had lived too it again for our common victory. dictatorship. The Pol- this fact to Britons proud of their est army in the world. another. its works to be taken in to close the earned that I have granted ish people took it for I feel that Home the sense of sportsmanship. Preparations for by its words. Moreover, we knew to to mind my arrive speak soon military would to help moral right that the people of Russia, how- stem the tides of death pouring It was on tl.ot foundation of Army's ultimate tasks continued. if even Britons, and Americans trust in Britain that an effective The home country gave endless ever they might feel. were helpless what I have to say is not pleasant. over their homes. Polish Home Army was organised. proofs of implicit and unabridged to curb or even influence their Though you seem to have forgot- rulers. by that no quislings appeared; that faith in its London Government, France was hound to Poland ten we were all comrades-in -arms to our resistance grew and deepened. even after the Russians had brokan alliance that was supposed No, our indignation is directed in a noble cause, my colleagues agof The Poles, true to their generous en relations and begun to fashion work automatically in case We shall al- against the Western democracies gression. and I remember. Great Britain had nature, staked all on one card, a regime of their own Polish "pawhose on word, plighted whose on e-ays remember. guaranteed the Polish borders two confident of winning. triots" of Comintern lineage. Poles leadership and passionate reassurdays after the pact between HitBy a fortunate accident, I am' ances, we staked our From London the Horne Arm,' continued to die for the common national shattered the last was organised against the back- cause, inside their country and among those Poles who can still soul. It is the indignation shot ler and Stalin My doubts as to the ultimate inten- ground of a Polish Underground outside, scarcely conscious that talk without inhibitions. the bewildermentwith through claim to a right to be heard is kind one feels for his friends, not tions of our powerful neighbours. State intimately linked with its conniving politicians had almost therefore backed up by a deep his enemies. We have been hurt, We were reduced to the condition Bailed government, Polish intel- forgotten the nature of that cause awareness of my duty to make degraded, oppressed by the Rus- of a buffer nation-which, accord- ligence service, one of the least When Churchill, in the spring of famous definition is "a known but most sensationally effi- 1944, to appease Stalin, proclaimyou listen. I demand your atten- sians. But we believe that we ing to one state set up by bigger states cient organisations made precious ed the so-called Curzon Line a tion as a debt of honour. have been betrayed by the British small That noble cause in which we and Americans-that, in your as an artillery range." contributions to the allied cause; just frontier between Poland and in the were joined was implicit It was without doubt precisely that is not my opinion but Gen- Russia, veteran Polish airmen, the vivid English phrase, we have fighting. were we Batkind of enemy been "sold down the river" of that British guarantee that stiffen- eral Marshall's, as expressed to surviving participants of the But it was also made explicit: in power politics. tle of Britain, decided as a body In General Sikorski. ed the Polish will to resist. the Atlantic Charter and other Nor can we absolve you, the in- the minds of the Polish people, alto protest by handing back the For two years military and poligreat Allied declarations of future dividual citizen, from a share in ways eager to defend a good cause. decorations won in defending Lonthe enemy's in was tical initiative freedms. We Poles naturally trans the fearful blame. don. They were dissuaded with the it sealed the decision to accept un- hands. Unlike attack to choosing By fated those flaming principles and Russians you have the responsibil- conditional conflict, to reject congreat difficulty. that drove Hitler Russia, Soviet We promises into specific hopes. The Poles held on tight to their of democratic advant- temptuously the proffered condi- eot.ntry from benevolent neutral ity born accepted them literally, perhaps ages. They simply could not illusions. on the en- tional surrender. silence of Your allies, of the camp the into ity naively, as specific pledges of Pol- slavement of Poland-on the beaccept the thought that they and presumfirst the nothing, was did Allies Poland The whom of ish independence, the integrity had taken the first blows of trayal, therefore, of our common do nothing, in Sep- the most cruelly punished. It who and our blood-soaked soil, a chance to cause--is not enforced with bayo- ably could for a mo was at this juncture that tens of the war might be discarded even relieve to tember patlife build a free, democratic nets and firing squads. You have ment the terriffic pressure applied thousands of Polish underground treated like a conquered enemy and dreams own terned on our nation. Once the war was over, a right to review the record, to by Hitler to Poland. and overground fighters heard the sacrifices a pacifies. we told ourselves, our protest. to insist on amends. Soviet Union-bound to PO most. thrilling announcement of The would be remembered; the AtlanThose pledges have been broken, The Poles were the first to enter land by a nonaggression pact that the. war. promises lofty A regime World War II. When Great Britic Charter and the those hopes violated. still had six years to run-made I refer, of course, to the Atlanimposed from outside is enthroned tain and France declared war on quick use of its partnership with tic Charter, bearing the signatures of the war would not be forgotten. our doubts. Nearly half of my September 3, 1939, my country the Nazi invader. in Warsaw The Russian of two great men whom the Poles We shouted down Churchill himself undertook to For armed intervention on September were ready to follow blindly, coun'tryls territory and a large was already bomb-battered. part of its population have been three days it had stood steadfast- 17 cut short Polish possibilities of Roosevelt and Churchill. It came to knock the props from under these the ly alone against an ,aemy whose Perhaps the vigour of illusions. cut off without consulting resistance, enabling Hitler to turn us as an unequivocal confirmation Polish people. The dream of de- fire power was seventy-two times that much sooner against the of the principles for which we his behaviour will provide histormocracy has turned into a mock-' greater than ours. With the news West. Nevertheless, Poland's lone- had at that time shed more blood ians with a clue to his bad conAn alien way of life has of the Anglo-French declaration, ly sacrifice gave nine invaluable than all the allied nations coin- science. The Polish problem was ery. developing into a test case of the the truncated a wave of unbounded enthusiasm months to France, well over a i ined. been riveted on genuineness of democratic profesbody of Poland. swept through the land. Spon- year to Great Britain. Cn September 24, 1941. full adIt sions and idealistic pledges. in front of demonstrators Charter taneous and of France 'Atlantic l'erence to the These are the facts. They can- the French and British embassies Both the Battle be removed to make way to bad the by e Pol. London found in Britain of was pledged not be quite smothered in diplo- in Warsaw shouted in ecstasy of the Battle Mr. Churchill for power deals. ish Government supported by Government of Poland and h y matic rhetoric and face-saving for- fellow feeling. took the scabrous job on himself. Soviet for the first defending Maiskv forces M. armed Polish Ivan mulas. The most horrifying fact This was in the summer of 1944, The slogan advanced by to "We are no longer alone!" peo- French soil, then British skies, as Union. of all-the one that impels me in Moscow. After preliminary conbe bygones Poles own. sustheir Sficorski-"let they were did if they General Little ple repeated. address you, my former comnadesferences with Stalin, he summoned of the were prominent among "the few to bygones"-nvhich had already takin-arms----is that the tragedy has pect the unpreparedness " en substance in an agreement (Continued on Page 10.1 so much owed many claim whom so which of one consent, two nations, come to pass with the
and America
Poles Were Rewarded by
the Betrayal of Yalta
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