Is ignorance bliss?
The award for crassest headline has to go to Taiwan and The Taipei Times, which managed to title its story "Poland marks 60th anniversary of Nazi invasion." Although the subsequent article was a syndicated interview with expert Polish historian Norman Davies, as always skillfully bringing the Uprising's causes and effects into clear focus, the paper's editor obviously decided that the difference between the Nazi invasion in 1939 and the Battle for Warsaw of 1944 was small enough not to bother his readers.
Elsewhere, stories tended to get their history right, for once not confusing August 1944 with the Ghetto Uprising of April 1943, and the presence at the remembrance service of top-level government representatives, such as Colin Powell and Gerard Schroeder, ensured global coverage.
However, the most controversial part of the remembrance service came on the second day, when Prime Minister Marek Belka was reported as saying that an apology from Britain for not doing enough to help the Uprising would be welcomed in Poland. What Belka actually said was, "Maybe we should start with recognition that the Uprising was a huge effort of Polish people suffering under the Nazi occupation [...], and then we can follow with some sort of apology."
With this, press agencies the world over ran the story that Poland was calling for an apology outright, and the websites of various newspapers set up impromptu reader surveys. The comments posted on these reflected again the tremendous ignorance that remains in the West. Some individuals trotted out the old insulting fabrication that the Home Army was a lone group of irregulars ("bandits" was Stalin's preferred choice), without the support of the government in exile. Others repeated the lie that the Uprising had not been encouraged internationally. Presumably they were unaware of the fact that, to take one example among many, the day before it began even Moscow radio had transmitted a message - in Polish - calling on Varsovians to rise.
Mostly, however, anti-apology sentiment centered on the "What's the point in apologizing when it all happened so long ago?" complaint, which demonstrates with clarity that Westerners really do believe World War II ended for everyone in 1945.
Although it is extremely difficult to summarize briefly all of the issues that were in play 60 years ago, the fact remains that the USA and UK didn't assist the Home Army as much as they could have done for fear of upsetting Stalin. And it is this issue with which Westerners are most uncomfortable. Needing to admit that the Allied cause - having joined forces with a brutal murderous regime to defeat another brutal murderous regime - may have been something less than the simple Good versus Evil battle portrayed over the last 60 years, may be just too much effort.
However, virtually all commentators missed the crucial point that Poles are at least, finally, free to make such requests. So perhaps the appalling sacrifice was not in vain, whether an apology so long after the event is justified or not.
Elsewhere, stories tended to get their history right, for once not confusing August 1944 with the Ghetto Uprising of April 1943, and the presence at the remembrance service of top-level government representatives, such as Colin Powell and Gerard Schroeder, ensured global coverage.
However, the most controversial part of the remembrance service came on the second day, when Prime Minister Marek Belka was reported as saying that an apology from Britain for not doing enough to help the Uprising would be welcomed in Poland. What Belka actually said was, "Maybe we should start with recognition that the Uprising was a huge effort of Polish people suffering under the Nazi occupation [...], and then we can follow with some sort of apology."
With this, press agencies the world over ran the story that Poland was calling for an apology outright, and the websites of various newspapers set up impromptu reader surveys. The comments posted on these reflected again the tremendous ignorance that remains in the West. Some individuals trotted out the old insulting fabrication that the Home Army was a lone group of irregulars ("bandits" was Stalin's preferred choice), without the support of the government in exile. Others repeated the lie that the Uprising had not been encouraged internationally. Presumably they were unaware of the fact that, to take one example among many, the day before it began even Moscow radio had transmitted a message - in Polish - calling on Varsovians to rise.
Mostly, however, anti-apology sentiment centered on the "What's the point in apologizing when it all happened so long ago?" complaint, which demonstrates with clarity that Westerners really do believe World War II ended for everyone in 1945.
Although it is extremely difficult to summarize briefly all of the issues that were in play 60 years ago, the fact remains that the USA and UK didn't assist the Home Army as much as they could have done for fear of upsetting Stalin. And it is this issue with which Westerners are most uncomfortable. Needing to admit that the Allied cause - having joined forces with a brutal murderous regime to defeat another brutal murderous regime - may have been something less than the simple Good versus Evil battle portrayed over the last 60 years, may be just too much effort.
However, virtually all commentators missed the crucial point that Poles are at least, finally, free to make such requests. So perhaps the appalling sacrifice was not in vain, whether an apology so long after the event is justified or not.
