1940 massacre of Poles remains potent issue

Dude, I'm way behind. I don't belong in this century at all. When I look around me all I see is corruption, materialism, idiocy, lack of culture, shallowness and loss of national identity. I guess it's the way I was brought up and I'm comfortable with it. I detest any form marxist socialism and we are heading only in that direction. EU is just a USSR without violence - a big internationale.

No, that's total nonsense. There was no foreigners working at Bletchley Park during WW2. So no chance for Polish officer. You are confusing reality and fiction: you watched British movie "Enigma" who invented that character of Polish spy for dramatic purposes.

IMO one big difference between those living in the "west" and those in former communist countries is that these countries have only really had 20 years to freely (and "freely" is the key word) "bang on" about their history particulary of WWII and to start to fill in all those "blank pages" surpressed by the communist regime. Whereas the "west" has had circa 40 years head start to get all that "banging on" out of the way and consequently have in many cases, such as Germany, come to terms with their role in the history of WWII. For Poland, this is evident by the explosion in the numbers of books published in Poland about Poland in WII since the collapse of the communism.


Indeed. The Polish team made it to France after the September defeat with French help. It then worked fruitfully with Bletchley Park, albeit at a distance, until the Fall of France. Indeed the Poles were remarkably effective between January and June 1940. Thereafter, the French refused to allow the Poles to go to England and sadly, owing to turf battles between the French and the British, the Poles’ talents were subsequently never fully employed during the war. Furthermore, the Polish émigré authorities seemed unaware of the extraordinary trump card that they had in their hand and they too failed to take full advantage of the cryptanalytical team’s skills.

The Polish team remained hidden in Vichy France and continued to work on breaking German codes. However, the Bletchley Park boffins, with Alan Turing as their star, as well as the Americans and their superior financial and technical resources, were now making all the running. They were, for instance, able to produce extensive numbers of ‘bombes’, which were a more sophisticated version of the earlier Polish version. When the Poles did eventually reach England in 1943, they were not invited to work at Bletchley Park and spent the rest of the war breaking relatively low-level German codes.

Interestingly enough, neither the existence of Bletchley Park nor the Poles’ role in breaking the Enigma machine came to light until the 1970s, so well had the secret been kept by all those involved. Hence, Winston Churchill’s memorable description of the codebreakers as ‘the geese that laid the golden eggs, but never cackled’.

Here's a thing: Don't know if any of the 10 Polish-made Enigmas that were buried in a field by the fleeing Polish Cipher Bureau on Bulgarian frontier have ever been rediscovered? Each would be worth a considerable fortune!!!

Just remember it is enough

You might be right: I remember when that British movie "Enigma" was coming to theaters one of its producers, Mike Jagger of Rolling Stones, was showing one of the original Enigmas he proudly owns. He considers himself Enigma buff. I wonder which model he has.

and btw: This movie has now been uploaded to Youtube.