Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe

Author:Keith Lowe [Lowe, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780670917464
Google: MqVpIr2Ri7QC
Amazon: 125003356X
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2012-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

The ethnic cleansing of Poland in 1947 is not something that can be considered in isolation. It was a product of many years of civil war, and more than seven years of racial violence that had begun almost as soon as the Germans had invaded the west of the country in 1939. It saw its foundation in the Holocaust of Polish Jews, particularly in the massacres in Volhynia, and the collaboration of Ukrainian nationalists in these and subsequent atrocities. After the war, the expulsion of Poland’s ethnic minorities was carried out with the explicit help of the Soviet Union, but the subsequent displacement and assimilation of Ukrainians and Łemkos was something that Poles conducted on their own initiative. Operation Vistula was effectively the final act in a racial war begun by Hitler, continued by Stalin and completed by the Polish authorities.

By the end of 1947 there were barely any ethnic minorities left in Poland. Ironically, given that Ukrainians had been responsible for much of the initial impetus, the country was far more ethnically homogeneous than its neighbour. The ‘Ukraine for Ukrainians’ espoused by the OUN was never achieved – particularly in the eastern parts of the republic, which kept a large Polish and Jewish minority even while western Ukraine was busy exchanging populations with Poland. ‘Poland for the Polish’, by contrast, was by the end of the 1940s not merely an aspiration, but a fact.

This process, which destroyed centuries of cultural diversity in just a few short years, was accomplished in five stages. The first was the Holocaust of the Jews, brought about by the Nazis but facilitated by Polish anti-Semitism. The second was the harassment of Poland’s returning Jews, which, as I discussed in the last chapter, caused them to flee not only Poland but Europe as a whole. The third and fourth were the ejection of Ukrainians and Łemkos in 1944 – 6, and their assimilation during Operation Vistula in 1947.

The final piece of the ethnic jigsaw in Poland, and one that I have not yet touched on, was the expulsion of the Germans. This, along with similar actions across the whole of Europe by other countries, is the subject of the next chapter.

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