History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Ehhh.... no.

On both sides, we have some criminally negligent commanders.

In Russia, there are still idiotic commanding officers that arrange closely spaced columns of vehicles on highways - and then a HIMARS strike promptly arrives.

In Ukraine, there are still idiotic commanders that gather dozens of soldiers in the open, make them wait for hours, and all this to award some medals.

In the third year of the war, after many, many such mistakes in the past, there can be no excuse to not exercise basic common sense.

People get complacent, people do not use their brains.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


When the Ukrainian government routinely lies about what is hit, it becomes hard to know if something was tragic or not.

This is the problem with having an information strategy of reflexively accusing Russia of war crimes every time something is hit.

Yesterday, they really stepped into some deep sh*t with the strike on Poltava. A quick recap:

1) Russia hit the 179th Signals Training Center in Poltava. This facility was used to prepare experts in satellite and tropospheric communications, electronic warfare, signals intelligence, etc - in brief a very important target for Russia.

2) Despite this being the third year of the war, Ukraine practiced minimal caution, and there were hundreds of people in the building.

3) Current casualty estimates are 60+ persons dead, and approx 300 injured. Many of the wounded remain in critical condition.

4) Photos from the site began appearing within minutes of the strike. Evident in all the photos was the nature of the target, and the fact that the scattered bodies were all in military uniform.

5) Being an idiot, Zelensky took to social media HOURS LATER, and accused Russia of hitting an "educational facility" and a "hospital".

6) Lazy and brainless Western journalists (who unlike Ukrainian journalists are under no obligation to spread Kiev's falsehoods), reprinted the lie.

7) After a few hours more, everyone and their grandma began to piece together that the "educational institution" was a military training facility, and that the nearest hospital is approximately 1.5 kilometers away.

8) Angry Western journalists and analysts (who have been made to look like idiots, again), begin posting on Twitter messages along the lines of: "events like these can easily erode public trust in future Ukrainian claims of Russian strikes on civilian targets. That can be disastrous for Ukraine."

9) Russians like me become depressed, because we have been talking about this for years.

The Poltava strike is a perfect example, because of the chronology.

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History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


The frontline is in the East.

Russian missiles and drones are capable of reaching any area of Ukraine.

Logically then - all of Ukraine should move to the EU, preferably to Poland.

This would lead to a rapid conclusion of the war, since Russia will be able to move at a pace of a few hundred kilometers a day towards the Polish-Ukrainian border.

You are a genius, Paw.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


I have been answering it directly. Maybe my English is not so good, and I should try to be more clear.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Numbers matter.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Poland's "colonization" of Ukraine, over the centuries, does not provide an excuse for ethnic cleansing of Poles in the 20th century by Ukrainians.

Is that simple enough?

Pawian's appellation to context, in this instance is not meaningful.


How can I be more clear than saying that a relatively minor atrocity by a peripheral Polish unit, cannot be equivalent to massive and systemic atrocities by numerous Ukrainian formations?


It has nothing to do with philosophy - you try to make it about philosophy. I am talking about mathematics.

You are trying to be philosophic talking about the "infinite" value of life.

I am saying that life can be counted, and compared.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


It is a very morally absolutist approach.

Only in such an absolute way, can a dozen murdered Jews, be equivalent to 100,000 murdered Poles. I understand - every life is sacred, and any killing is equivalent to the erasure of the entire universe. But... in the real world - proportionality matters.

You are not the Buddha.


Because it matters what you do with that context. That is, how you act. Poles acted one way, and Ukrainians acted differently.

During the centuries when Poland "colonized" Ukraine, as you say, some other countries colonized half the world. Nobody says it is acceptable for Brazilians to ethnically cleanse Portuguese, or for Mexicans to genocide Spaniards. Here - context is also important.

18th century cannot be compared to 20th century.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]


If you don't like reading RT, how about the Financial Times?

Quoting from today's article:

Experts say it is not just the east's economic problems that influence voting behaviour, but the memory of past injustices. Ulrich Sondermann-Becker, an analyst with regional broadcaster MDR, calls them the "Wendewunden", the wounds from the Wende.

Many in the east still associate that period with high unemployment, mass closures of industrial companies and the "devaluation of people's life experiences" in the GDR "which has continued into the present".

"People feel they were just overrun, with unbelievable arrogance," he said.

... and another quote:

A majority also oppose plans by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government to station US medium-range missiles in Germany from 2026. That is combined with a strong strain of anti-Americanism inherited from the days of the communist German Democratic Republic.

"In GDR times it was the Soviets who dictated everything - now it's the Americans," said Heinz Wolff, a pensioner from the Thuringian town of Jena on the sidelines of a campaign appearance there last week by Scholz.

Source: ft.com/content/10fe5b01-51ef-4411-9df8-67f001c8aa78

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History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


The Russian and English Wikipedia do not mention this, and only the Polish one does. I wasn't engaging in any misinformation, instead I simply did not read this.


If I give you list of each incident where the OUN-UPA killed Ukrainian Jews, it will be longer than all the other threads in this forum.

Probably French fascists and Dutch fascists killed many times more Jews in instances like this,

If this is why Pawian wants to apologize first, then he is truly not a very smart baboon.


Sorry Admin, but I deleted the translated text. It was machine translated, and it was terrible - to the point of being unreadable. I wanted non-Polish speakers to be able to follow the conversation, but it wasn't useful at that point. For some reason Google Translate does a terrible job at Polish (Russian it does quite well).

It would take me a long time to personally translate the text.

Ok - I see you translated it again. But you see yourself, "submarines", etc.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


So two incidents.

Here is the first (translated):

"Dębica (forester's house), post office Pińczów. A two-day stopover without any events, apart from an action against thirteen Jews hiding in Górki Budziszowickie near Mały Książ - four teams of forty soldiers under the command of the head of the "Bursik" company went in submarines to the above-mentioned town, where, after rescuing thirteen Jews (a couple children, old ladies, elderly women, seven men of approximately the same age), beating up the farmer with whom the Jews were staying, took them a few kilometers from this town to a clearing and shot them, leaving them where they were."

...and here is the second:

"They brought a Jewish family from the town of Sulków to my village [Czaryś near Włoszczowa], consisting of three people, including a 4-year-old child (a boy). This family was placed in the granary of Stępniak Stanisław, where after 3 or 3 days the mentioned Jewish family was taken to the Czaryski forest near the village of Wola Czaryska, and shot there."
-----

Are you seriously comparing one hundred thousand murdered Polish women and children to a literal few dozen murdered by this brigade?

It's a mess, and not justifiable, but still... to compare the two?

It also says there that this was done a formation that LATER joined the brigade.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


I learned something new today, thanks Iron.

After reading what you wrote, I read a little further and found this:

"In the end, despite all efforts, most Home Army forces had inadequate weaponry. In 1944, when the Home Army was at its peak strength (200,000-600,000, according to various estimates), the Home Army had enough weaponry for only about 32,000 soldiers."

I was going off the "400k to 600k" numbers when I wrote about corps and armies, but you are right - they only ever fielded brigade sized formations.

This means that the only real Polish army, actually equipped up to its nominal strength, and with a proper assortment of light and heavy weaponry on its balance was the Soviet Berling Army. About this formation I know much more, and can definitely say it was 200,000 actual fighting men - operating at the same time as one organic force. They provided a large proportion of the forces that stormed Berlin.

Another reason for me to be puzzled at why Soviets are such "bad actors".

But back to the AK - the lack of weaponry, in a way, makes things even more impressive. If you consider what they managed to do in the Warsaw Uprising, and in places like Lublin and Wilno - then they must have been recycling the same weapons, while personnel would get repeatedly "digested".

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


I see.

Still strange.

Somehow, the AK, under a complete blockade, managed to outfit corps and army-sized formations. I don't know all the specifics of how they did it... but I suppose it was part smuggling, part local manufacture, and part capture of war trophies.

On the other hand, the ultra nationalists supposedly fully collaborated with Germany - and yet still couldn't find more than 800 lousy rifles?

Something is fishy here. It seems they were not limited just by weapons supply, but that their proportional popularity was much weaker.

Looks more like a manpower issue.


Ok, I understand.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]

@Ironside Ehhh, what?

This makes no sense.

The AK had 400,000 men under arms in 1944. Some estimates say 600,000. That's half a million men, in uniform, and with a rifle in their hands.

How could such a large army be supported by an organization with 250,000-300,000 people as you say? It had to be millions, and with a further many thousand abroad, as well as foreign states providing support.

The First Polish Army (Soviet created), had 200,000 soldiers.

It seems illogical to focus on such a microscopic formation with 800 men, and compare it in any way to the massive formations that actually mattered.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


I guess the brigade had major issues with staffing.

Even if we assume some kind of super anemic battalion size of 300 men, you still don't have enough to make even 3 battalions.

A typical German battalion had more men than this entire "brigade".

Soviet battalions were smaller than German ones, but a Soviet rifle brigade still typically had 3,500 to 5,000 men.

This is 3 rifle battalions, a machine gun battalion, an artillery battalion, a mortar battalion, an anti tank company, a recon company, a signal company, an engineer company, and a logistics company.

Calling 800 men A BRIGADE, is nonsense.

Again, compare it to the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galician", which was a full blooded division. It doesn't matter that it was destroyed in just two days of fighting.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Nobody in the world, except Poles, has ever heard of the Holy Cross Mountain Brigade. I had to look them up on Wikipedia now, and I'm afraid I represent a very small minority of people that are interested in the minutiae of what was happening in the East during WW2.

Many people have heard of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicien".

The Holy Cross brigade had a maximum of 1,200 people, and typically less than 800 - according to what I read.

The 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicien" had over 11,000 men, and this was but one Ukrainian formation accused of engaging in massacres. One of many. There was also the Battalion Ukrainische Gruppe "Roland". There was then the Bataillon Ukrainische Gruppe "Nachtigall". Add to this dozens of UPA-OUN formations, and paramilitaries from other movements.

I read that the Holy Cross Mountain Brigade helped the Germans identify where Jews might be hiding. But I also read, and this is a direct quote from the Wiki:

"According to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, there were no documented cases of Holy Cross Brigade soldiers directly murdering Polish Jews due to their ethnic origin."

I can't find anything about them ever massacring any Ukrainians.

Comparing a few thousand Poles that refuse to condemn the Holy Cross Brigade, to millions of average Ukrainians and hundreds of Ukrainian public officials that glorify the Banderites... seems somewhat strange.

If the best you can come up with is a battalion-strength formation which never really managed to perpetrate any kind of serious atrocity... then I struggle to view your claim of symmetry in crimes seriously.

--------

From what I understand, the Holy Cross Mountain Brigade was a collection of freaks, whose main crime was collaborating with the Germans in their search for Jews and not joining the AK.

Compared to them, the Ukrainians were much more willing to get their hands dirty - and they actually had the numbers to do it.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Germans brought to work their discipline and meticulous planning - for purposes of mass extermination. The results, when discovered, shocked the world. Such a thing had not been done since Genghis Khan and Atilla.

Russia, meanwhile, has killed several times less civilians than the Jews had managed within a shorter period of time and in a smaller space (in Gaza, that your government refuses to condemn).

Russia will not suffer decades of shame, like the Germans. In this sense, Putin has done well, even if it made the war infinitely more difficult to prosecute for our fighting men.

Our supporters around the world will be able to point to this anomalously low record of casualties among innocents as proof that our intentions were not to erase anyone.

Even the Wolynians and Galicians we won't ethnically cleanse, if we can get our hands on them. But I do think we should deport them to live with polar bears and walruses.


This isn't exactly quantum mechanics. Sowing discord between Poles and Ukrainians is quite easy, when one side is a genocide denier.

Once we topple the Zelensky regime, even more sh*t will come boiling up to the top, and then you'll be truly embarrassed at who you supported.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Excellent)

Let us tread gently, because we tread on things... very important to both countries.

Start by telling me what you think about my "Ukronazi-Shorpy" photo thread. Surprised? Disgusted?

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Haha, the same reaction I had when I remembered his thread.


I won't lie, your mental pawianism is sometimes hard to digest even for me. But as long as we keep it civil, and do not threaten to f*ck each other's dead grandpas - I am ready.

I think it was because of your "unique" thread that we didn't talk to each for a year.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


You're gonna be a real Mahatma Gandhi if you apologize to Ukraine first, now.

Maybe more like the Christ.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


That's a very encouraging thought.

However, if people stop making babies, no wars will be necessary to make us go the way of the dodo.

That's what I'm afraid of for Russia, that it may go extinct before it truly recovers what was lost through the terrible 20th century.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


This is 40 years later. A new elite emerged, or was "regenerated" from the ashes of the old one. But in the aftermath of the war, Poles had truly been decapitated. Just like in many other places.

The religiosity and preservation of culture is no surprise - there was no goal to erase it. That was in the 1920s, and in Russia, and the Bolsheviks gave up on that quickly. By WW2, religion was if not encouraged, then easily tolerated. Stalin felt it helped the fighting spirit of the men. He also then reinstated many imperial era awards and even brought back many officers who earlier would have never been allowed to get near command. He started to speak to the people in the manner of Tolstoy. The names of Kutuzov and Suvorov were returned, and even the name of the war became the same as the Napoleonic one - "Великая Отечественная Война». Even Stalin understood that nobody wanted to die for ideas of Bolshevism.

It's also a testament to the fact that the autonomy of the "satellites" was not inconsiderable.

The same in the USSR, a new generation had grown up by 1989 - which did not know the meat grinder.

Still there are scars even to this day, and I think there will be for a long time. The culling of the elites has an echo effect through the generations.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


The atrocities were not committed in the name of any good. If we leave aside the Soviet Union, and refocus on Poland - Katyn was not done for any "good".

Katyn was done as a cold and hard calculation that if you remove the "head" of the Polish people - they would no longer be able to meaningfully resist. As it happened, it worked quite well. Without their officer corps and their political leaders, Poles became rudderless and malleable.

The reason it was done so? Because that's how it was done in Russia, and it also worked well. Because Poland was a smaller country, it was enough to remove 150,000. In the much larger Soviet Union the count ran into the millions. But the process was more or less the same.

People like Mao and Pol Pot learned from our methods, during this period.

Later, when mentally normal people came into power, Mao and Pol Pot type people began to despise us and eventually stopped working with us altogether. Why? Because repudiating Stalin's methods made those butchers look bad.

Mao hated Khrushchev and Brezhnev because they showed it was not necessary to be a cannibal to effect systemic change. He accused us of revisionism, and going back on the teachings of the "Great Stalin". His Cultural Revolution, was an absolute horror show and he could no longer point to Moscow and say - "that's how they do it too".

The good things I listed came after Stalin.

The only "good thing" about Stalin was him industrializing the country - but even that could have been done differently. Maybe also the surprising speed with which he ended the American atomic monopoly.

The bad things Stalin did:

1) Destroyed our creative and intellectual elite

2) Turned the country into a nation of snitches and emotionally stunted people.

3) Nearly lost us the war through his catastrophic mismanagement in the first months, and through his blind faith in Hitler. Also through killing our most capable military leaders.

4) Created famines through his economic illiteracy.

5) Finally - made us enemies out of people like you Poles and Romanians.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Yes, that's precisely why I glorify it - because it satellited Poland.

The reason some people in Russia, and other CIS states miss the Soviet Union:

1) It was a great country, respected around the world. You could be proud of your passport, and you felt protected by your state.

2) Everyone lived together, and nobody cared who was Russian, who was Azeri, who was Armenian and so on. People married between nationalities, and were friendly with each other regardless of origin. Nationalism was considered a dirty word.

3) The state took care of the sick, and provided everyone with a top notch education - even if they weren't necessarily suited to it.

4) We thought of ourselves as the good guys, defenders of places like Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia and so on. We fought Apartheid, and colonial exploitation.

5) We made huge strides in science, which benefited all of humanity.

6) The old and the weak did not have to worry that they would end up on the street.

Only turbo patriots with sh*t for brains would be proud of our country, because we kept places like Hungary and the Czech Republic "under our thumb". Most normal people viewed citizens of these countries as brotherly peoples, no worse than ourselves.

Was the system headed towards a dead end? Absolutely.

But we didn't have to tear it down to its foundation to change things. We should have done what China did. Many millions of people were terribly hurt by the collapse, and they are either no longer around or have never recovered.

Being proud has nothing to do with "enslaving Poland".

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Where did this old Pawian go? Message is from Aug. 6, 2013.

The Israelis burned Gaza to the ground for much less, and their "horror" only lasted a single afternoon. Poland - in the end - only killed a very small fraction of what was done to them in retaliation.

Christian vs Jewish culture, perhaps. Christ among Nations, and all that.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Thank you Kania, as always.


Dokladnie tak jest! Dziekuje Paulina, w koncu jestesmy po tej samej stronie.

As a reward, some more photos of old Nazi fags for you. I really enjoy that none of them are of an age that it could be even remotely possible that they served in the OUN-UPA or SS Galician. Also, the presence of many strange medals that they got from god knows who. F*cking cosplayers.

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History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


Все правильно.


We let you go later, didn't we? We let everyone else go too.

It's hard to think of another example of country that bloodlessly relinquished an entire empire, and didn't ask for anything in return. Britain and France gave away their possessions, screaming and kicking, and only after it became impossible to resist the United States and the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev may have been a galactic scale moron, but he did do the things I described above. You should pray to his ghost before bed.


Same. They were mostly too busy fighting and dying at the front, and didn't have the time or opportunity to terrorize innocent people.

Not to be compared to the vampires that moved in the rear of the German army, practically never did any fighting, but instead were specialists at torching villages and executing women and kids.


First of all - volunteers. Second - f*cking fanatics.

Any kind of a fanatic should be avoided.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


I have no problem glorifying the Soviet Union and the Soviet Army - because this is my motherland, and the military in which my family lost so many. F*cking sue me.

I do have problems with glorifying Stalin. I hate the monuments that some idiots are putting up (almost all on private initiative, and practically never state sanctioned). I don't like the documentaries being made by clueless journalists. I don't like the security services in general - the lot of them - the FSB foremost among them. They're descendants of the murderous Cheka, MGB, and KGB.

But because the army is a cross section of the entire Russian society I will not hate them. They are not in the same category as the grey little mice from the FSB and other spies. My friends and relatives are in this army, and I know they are good people that would not harm an innocent person if they could help it. They would rather die.

Pawian - I will record that you shamelessly refused to defend Ukro-Nazis.

Thank you.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


It absolutely happened, and Poles absolutely have the right to be angry.

It's just that I feel like BB, when people attack him over Hitler. He never defends him, he never says what he did was right - and yet sometimes it feels like he has to answer for the entire Third Reich.

Back on topic, and to Ukraine - they not only won't apologize, they GLORIFY it.

With parades. With fancy funerals. With monuments. With "documentaries" on television.

These are the people you gave so much weapons and money to, so that they could kill more of us. What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you not helping us?

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]

@Bratwurst Boy

Stalin was a criminal that robbed banks and trains to fill Bolshevik coffers during their underground days. Lenin during this time sat in Switzerland, drinking coffee and writing smart books.

He was brutalized through abusive parents, the Tsar's Okhranka, prisons, the Civil War, and then the Polish Soviet war. If you grew a monster in a laboratory, you could not do better than Stalin.

In his last will and testament, Lenin warned his comrades about Koba's sadistic tendencies.

Through his brutality he emerged on top, and killed every real opponent - from Trotsky to Tukhachevsky.

It's just cruel fate we ended up in the hands of this butcher. He broke my country, and robbed us of everything except our soul.

History / 70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies [454]


On my father's side, my great grandfather was sent to Kemerovo, in Siberia, where he froze to death in a labor camp. The charge was "espionage in favor of Japan". The man had never been to Japan, or spoken Japanese, and had no possible means of contacting them.

His brother, was unceremoniously shot in a MGB basement, and dumped into a pit outside of the city. We only discovered what happened to them around the late 1990s or early 2000s.

All of my grandparents were total orphans.

I don't need you telling me about what a monster Stalin was.

Outside people attacking Russia over Stalin only leads to a reflexive rallying around the flag.

What do you want from me? To tell you that I'm sorry Stalin did these things to your country? Of course I am sorry. Happy?