1945. Is This Freedom?

The starting point for the exhibition's narrative is 8 May 1945, when the Second World War came to an end in Europe. Although the war with Japan was still going on, for most of the world it was a moment of great relief and joy. From the Polish perspective, the day had a different meaning – joy at Germany's defeat was intertwined with anxiety about the immediate future. "The war is over, but the struggle continues. The struggle for [...] true freedom, democracy and a just peace," the representatives of the Polish underground state wrote in an official declaration.

The concern was linked to the unique situation in which the Poles found themselves at the time. In May 1945 there were two governments in Poland. The first, the Government of the Republic of Poland, still recognised by most countries, was in exile in London. The second (the Provisional Government), appointed by the Soviets, was already in power in Warsaw. It was recognised by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, whose leader, Joseph Stalin, played a leading role in shaping Poland's post-war history. The structures of the Polish underground state, weakened by the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising and Soviet repression, persisted. Its relations with the authorities in London were unclear, following the domestic underground's recognition of the Yalta resolutions, which were rejected by the Polish government. Despite agreeing to talks with the Soviets, sixteen leaders of the Polish underground were abducted in May 1945 and awaited trial in Moscow. There were two armies under two centres of power – the Polish Armed Forces in the West and the Polish Army, known as the 'People's Army'.

The founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in April/May 1945 became a symbol of this division. Poland was recognised as a founding member of the organisation, but its representatives were not invited to the conference. The gesture of Artur Rubinstein, who played a concert in the conference hall to protest against the absence of the Polish flag, went down in history.

On 8 May 1945, the uncertainty was not only about the question of authority. Poland was a country that... had no borders. At the Yalta Conference, the Great Powers decided that the eastern border would be along the Curzon Line "with deviations in some regions of five to eight kilometres in favour of Poland". This was a very general formulation, the first agreement on the demarcation of the border was not reached until August 1945, and changes to the course of the border were not made until 1951. With regard to the western border, the situation was even more unclear at Yalta it was only decided that Poland would receive "significant acquisitions" in the west and north. This led not only to uncertainty about the shape of the border, but also to real conflict – in mid-May 1945, representatives of the Provisional Government and Polish settlers were expelled from Szczecin. The shape of the border was not determined until August, at the final conference of the superpowers in Potsdam. Even the course of the southern border was uncertain in places. In June 1945, only Stalin's intervention ended the armed conflict with Czechoslovakia.

In May 1945 the Poles were a scattered nation. The largest group, some nineteen to twenty million, lived in the part of the pre-war territory that was to remain within the new borders. More than three million were in the territories annexed by the USSR. Several hundred thousand more – including those deported in the preceding months – were forcibly interned deep inside the Soviet Union. There were several hundred thousand former prisoners of war and forced labourers in the German territories to be annexed to the Polish state, and another two million in Germany. Several hundred thousand war refugees were in the West, the largest groups in Italy (soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps) and Great Britain. However, it is safe to say that Poles were scattered all over the world as a result of the war. Smaller and larger groups were found on every continent – from Mexico to Tanganyika and Uganda, to India and New Zealand. In addition, there were hundreds of thousands of economic migrants before the war.

All this, combined with the enormous human losses and war damage, as well as the continuing mass repression by the Soviet authorities and their Polish auxiliaries, meant that by May 1945 most Poles looked to the future with fear rather than hope. At the same time, the end of the war raised questions and forced people to make difficult choices.

The soldiers and officials of the Polish underground state faced a particularly difficult dilemma. Did the end of the war mean the end of the underground struggle? Should they stay in the country or try to escape? If they stayed in the country, should they continue their conspiratorial activities (armed or political), try to return to a normal life, or perhaps join the activities of the legal opposition (this became possible for a short time from July), or even side with the new authorities?

To stay or to return – this is the dilemma not only of the war refugees, but also of hundreds of thousands of Polish "displaced persons" from Germany, as well as of economic migrants from before the war. Whether to stay, whether to engage in emigration activities or to get on with their own lives? To stay in Europe or to seek their fortune overseas? An even more dramatic choice had to be made by Poles in the countries annexed to the USSR: to stay in their small homeland – which for centuries had been identical to the big one – or to resettle in Poland within its new borders? If the latter, should they accept the place offered to them to live in the unknown and alien lands of the West and North, or should they look for another place on their own?

Jewish survivors of the Holocaust also had to answer the question: to stay in a country that had become, not of their own volition, the graveyard of their people, or to leave for Palestine in the hope of creating their own state?

There are countless examples of the dilemmas faced by Poles in May 1945. The exhibition shows them through the example of two main characters: Władysław Bartoszewski and Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, as well as a group of several dozen people with whom their wartime fates brought them into contact. 

Dr Łukasz Kamiński