Yellow daffodils are the symbol of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and are being distributed in Warsaw in observance of the 73rd anniversary.
In the 1960s and 1970s I first learned of the WWII 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Without realizing at the time, I was also learning the version being promoted in popular culture by anti-Polish Soviet propaganda. That version reported that Slavic Poles because of their anti-semitism and fascism abandoned the Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to the Nazis.
Since then as I have deepened my skills as an amateur historian here's what I have been learning:
What was the relationship between Slavic and Jewish Polish during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
2013 Israeli stamp commemorating the raising of Zionist and Polish flags over the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising.
Most of the Polish Jewish combatants in the Warsaw Ghetto were in units of the Polish Home Army, The Polish Home Army, the official underground armed resistance movement in Poland, was one branch of the Polish armed forces under the command of the Polish government-in-exile, the legitimate government of Poland.
When the Poles learned the Nazis intended to liquidate the ghetto, the Polish Jews discussed what to do with the Polish Home Army. The Polish Home Army reported they lacked the capacity to defend the ghetto but agreed to support armed resistance by the Polish Jewish combatants.
The Polish Home Army supplied weapons and explosives to the Polish Jewish units in the Warsaw Ghetto.
After the defeat of the Uprising, the Polish Home Army assisted Ghetto survivors to escape.
Some of the surviving combatants continued to served in the Polish Home Army and fought in the next year in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Could the Western Allies Provided Support for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?:
Another part of popular culture history is that the Allies also did nothing to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I am less clear if that is the result of Soviet propaganda or the post-Holocaust rage and grief at the horror of both the Holocaust and the many times the world failed to act to have prevented the Holocaust or to have rescued victims.
My assessment is that the Allies could not have done anything militarily effective to assist the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In April, 1943, Warsaw was beyond the range of American and British air forces at the time based in Britain and North Africa.
The Polish air force units in the British air force and the Polish paratroopers in the British army were always willing and available for missions in Poland. They were under orders of the Allied command and were also restricted to the range of Allied long range aircraft.
Warsaw did not come within range of Allied long range bombers until the Allies had captured air bases in Italy later in 1943.
Raids that deep into Nazi held territory also required that the long range bombers be escorted by fighters. At the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising n 1943, the Allies were still working on extending the range of the their fighters. They did not have that capability until 1944.
Could the Soviets Have Provided Military Support to Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
By the Soviet's pointing fingers at Slavic Poles and the Soviet's British and American Allies, the Soviets successfully diverted attention from their own role in the Holocaust and their own failures to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to use military force against the Holocaust infrastructure, or to rescue Holocaust victims.
Warsaw was much closer to Soviet airbases than it was to Allie air bases.
But unlike the WWII history of the Allied long range bombers, no maps exists showing the range of Soviet long range bombers. That is because the Soviets had no long range bombers.
The Soviets destroyed their long range bomber capacity during their paranoid purges of their armed forces during the 1930s and did not recover that capacity until after WWII.
The Soviets did have medium and short range bombers.
Even if Warsaw was within range of Soviet medium range bombers, the Soviets would not have assisted the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The Soviets did not use their short range bombers or artillery to assist the 1944 Warsaw Uprising when the Soviet armed forces were across the Vistula River in the Warsaw suburbs. The Nazis fighting the Polish Home Army were well within artillery range of the Soviets and within range of Soviet battlefield short range bombers.
The Polish Home Army was opposed to Soviet occupation of Poland. Among the reasons the Soviets did little to support the 1944 Warsaw Uprising is that the Soviets wanted the Polish Home Army destroyed. The Soviets let the Nazis destroy much of the Polish Home Army knowing that would make easier the Soviet destruction of the remanents after the Soviets drove the Nazis out of Poland.
The Soviets killed Polish Jews who were opposed to Soviet occupation. Among the 20,000 Poles killed by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest in 1940 were about 1800 Polish Jews in 1940. They were Polish POW officers, police, intellectuals religious and community leaders.whom the Soviets suspected of opposing Soviet occupation of Poland.
Because of both antisemitism and ideology, the Soviets did not care about Polish Jews. The Soviets deny or minimize the significance of the racial aspects of WWII, focusing instead on fascism.
These posts are background research and talking points.
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