What Happened to Poland Can Happen Here
[Letter apparently to the U.S. Supreme Court, March 1994]
Gentlemen:
For centuries, Poland was the "rampart of Christendom" against Turks, Tartars, and Russians. Because of its own Christian beliefs, it defended Europe against threats from the East. In 1683, for example, Poland's King John Sobieski saved Vienna from the Turks, thereby also sparing Central Europe from Moslem invasion. (Thirty years ago, American schoolboys read about this in their history books.) [Webmaster's note: The better history books would have noted the exact date: the 11th of September 1683. Has that date, perchance, not been lost on history-conscious Muslim minds?] At the time, Poland was a world power, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, with a territory greater than one million square kilometers. A great power... just as America is today....
Unfortunately, just as is happening in America today, the morality of the people and the prudence of the government's policies declined. The result was the partitions of Poland and its complete disappearance from the map for well over a century.
In 1920, reborn from the ashes of the First World War, Poland again saved Europe, this time from Communism, by single-handedly defeating Lenin's Russia at a time when the rest of Central Europe was being torn apart by revolutions.
In 1939, betrayed by France and England, Poland fell to Nazi Germany. During the terrible and murderous occupation which followed, we Poles fought on as an underground army, a "fifth column" on the side of the Allies. That underground obtained a sample of Germany's Enigma coding machine and sent it to the West, allowing the Allies to read Hitler's most secret communications, thus saving tens of thousands of lives and appreciably shortening the war. The same Polish underground obtained copies of the plans for Germany's "V" rockets and sent them to England. Polish fliers took part in the Battle of Britain, taking their place in the ranks of those whom Churchill saluted: "Never in history have so many owed so much to so few." Polish soldiers fought and died at Tobruk in Africa, at Monte Cassino in Italy, and at Arnhem. (Perhaps you remember the book or the movie, A Bridge Too Far?)
In the Atlantic Charter, President Roosevelt promised to restore Poland in its pre-war boundaries. Instead, at Yalta, he gave Poland and half of Europe to Stalin. That last betrayal, costing the lives of millions of Poles and others, made Roosevelt an accomplice in Stalin's crimes.
In the 1980's, Poland once again performed a service for the West. Operating, if published reports can be believed, with the clandestine support of President Reagan and the Pope, Poland's Solidarity helped bring down the Soviet Empire and helped to bring the first Cold War to a victorious conclusion.
At Monte Cassino are the graves of two and a half thousand Polish soldiers. A song says that the soil of Monte Cassino belongs to Poland because it has drunk so much Polish blood. The poppies growing there, so says the song, are especially red because of that Polish blood. American soil has also drunk Polish blood. Kazimierz Pulaski and Tadeusz Kosciuszko fought with George Washington in the American War for Independence. Pulaski died on the battlefield at Savannah during that War.
Here, then, are the reasons why I believe that I am not only entitled, but even obligated, to write the enclosed pages. [Webmaster's note: I possess neither these enclosures nor any idea of what they were.] As a Pole, I look at America as being my own, because America and America's cause once were, in a sense, Polish.
Today, however, America is once again betraying that common cause. I warn you: American immorality and corruption are testing God's patience to the limit. A second Cold War is starting. Armed with thermonuclear weapons, Russia is ready to become the instrument for the destruction of America. If you continue on your present course, you will disappear from the map as Poland once did.
America, wake up! Time is very short! I warn you!
A proud Pole, an ashamed American,
Waclaw Bakierowski.