September 1,
2019 (time.com) Germany’s president expressed deep remorse for the suffering
his nation inflicted on Poland and the rest of Europe during World War II,
warning of the dangers of nationalism as world leaders gathered Sunday in the
country where the war started at incalculable costs. “This war was a German
crime,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Poland’s top leaders, U.S. Vice
President Mike Pence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders
at a 80th anniversary ceremony marking World’s War II’s outbreak.
German President Frank-Walter
Steinmeier speaks at the commemoration ceremony of the 80th anniversary of the
start of World War II, in Wielun, Poland, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019.
Also
in attendance were elderly Polish war veterans wearing military uniforms and a
Holocaust survivor wearing a yellow Star of David and the striped clothes that
prisoners wore at Nazi German death camps. Steinmeier expressed his sorrow over
the mass killings Adolf Hitler’s regime committed in Poland, which paid a huge
price for being the place war began on Sept. 1, 1939. The German president
expressed gratitude to Poles for the gestures of forgiveness Poland has
bestowed in return.
“I bow in
mourning to the suffering of the victims,” Steinmeier said. “I ask for
forgiveness for Germany’s historical debt. I affirm our lasting responsibility.”
Two weeks after
the German invasion, the Soviet army invaded Poland from the east, putting the
country under a dual occupation that came with atrocities committed by two
invaders. By the war’s end nearly six years later, about 6 million Polish
citizens had been killed, more than half of them Jews. Polish President Andrzej
Duda recalled Poland’s immense suffering and he appealed to those assembled not
to close their eyes now to imperial tendencies and border changes imposed
through force. Duda cited aggression against Georgia and Ukraine, and though he
didn’t name Russia, it was clear he found that country at fault as the
aggressor. “Recently in Europe we are dealing with a return of imperialist
tendencies, with attempts to change borders by force, with aggression against
countries,” President Andrzej Duda said. “Turning a blind eye is not the recipe
for preserving peace. It is a simple way to embolden aggressive personalities,
a simple way to, in fact, give consent to further attacks.” German president
had a modern-day warning of his own — about the dangers of nationalism — and
described European unity as a guarantee for peace in the future.
Polish
authorities didn’t invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend
anniversary events because of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for
separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s recent rehabilitation of the
Stalinist era, and a pact Soviet leader Josef Stalin made with Hitler that led
to Poland’s dismemberment in 1939, were apparently also behind the decisions
not to invite Putin. That represented a change from 10 years ago,
when Putin was invited amid attempts to thaw relations between the West and
Russia at the time.
President Donald Trump had originally been scheduled to
attend the event, but canceled as Hurricane Dorian barreled toward the U.S.
Pence spoke on behalf of the United States in Warsaw. “While the hearts of
every American are with our fellow citizens in the path of a massive storm,
today we remember how the gathering storm of the 20th century broke into
warfare and invasion followed by unspeakable hardship and heroism of the Polish
people,” he said. Pence said the Polish people “never lost hope” and “never
gave in to despair.
