Here, the students witnessed the establishment of a German-Polish-Russian forum designed to encourage a rapprochement among three countries with fundamentally different historical narratives of World War II.
Any such process would ultimately mean Russia confronting its past, particularly Stalinist crimes and the gulags, and reassessing its role as victim and victor during and after World War II. It would also mean Russia embracing the European idea of dealing with memory and the past, now so much a part of the European identity.
“Being European is about being aware of what we did,” said Ivan Krastev, historian and chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia.
ALL that Russians and Germans have ever done with Poland is to invade conquer and divide up Poland’s territory between them. After which they set to the very serious and energetic business of killing as many Polish people as possible.
If Poland is in dialogue with these two, I imagine their first statement would be something like: “So please stay out of our country.”
The “shared cultural heritage” these three countries have consists mainly of the enforcement upon Poles of speaking the conquerers’ languages and forcing them to hide in basements to practice their religion.
The main advantage to Poland of this dialogue? Safety? I hope it will include some apologies and some good economic advantages for Poland.
Leave the gun; take the glumpkies.