Europe: peace in unity

“Europe needs a witness of reconciliation”, said Mgr. Wiktor Skworc, promoter of the Joint Statement of the Presidents of the Polish and German Bishops’ Conferences, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War on 1st September (1/09/1939). The document was published on 25 August, five days after the official celebrations held in Gdansk, in Poland, with the participation of the Polish President and Premier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi. Healing the wounds. “Even if the steps towards reconciliation have yielded good fruits in recent decades, the experiences of the war and of the following years still have a considerable impact on relations between our peoples”, write the bishops of Poland and Germany in their joint statement. This new gesture of reconciliation assumes particular value since “some tendencies present in civil society or in the political world have revealed a temptation to make propagandist use of the injuries inflicted, with the aim of stirring up resentments through one-sided historical interpretations”. The bishops emphasize that “the Church, in a constant and determined manner, intends to oppose such a flouting of historical truth. Instead, she urges a stepping up of dialogue, which must always include a willingness to listen to the points of view of the other side.” In their documents the bishops also recognize the need to heal the wounds not only of the Poles (among the most numerous victims of the war, during which, according to recent estimates, some 5.5 millions died), but also of all those “who still suffer due to the traumatic experiences suffered as a result of the war”. Equal sufferings. The document asserts that “following Soviet expansionist plans, aimed at introducing a new order into the territories of Eastern and Central Europe, and as a consequence of the decisions taken by the victorious powers, many Germans equally suffered both at the end of the war and subsequently, as refugees and deportees”. Though the statement of the bishops does not mention the Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact (signed in Moscow in August 1939) which sanctioned a de facto coalition between Stalin and Hitler and as a consequence of which the Soviet Union, as an ally of Nazi Germany, invaded Eastern Poland in mid-September 1939 – proceeding to the mass deportation of Poles resident in the territories of what are now Ukraine and Belarus, and of those who had fled before the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht – the words dedicated to the victims on both sides are unequivocal: it commemorates the millions of “victims of wartime events and of the occupation of the country by foreign troops and equally the victims of the forced deportations consequent on the military operations both of Nazi Germany and of the Soviet Union”. Importance of memory. These words should also be interpreted in the light of the recent dispute (for the time being only at the media level) between Poland and Russia, regarding the interpretation of wartime events. And perhaps it was the reciprocal accusations made against each other regarding the alliances with Nazi Germany, whether real (Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact) or presumed (as in Poland’s case), that induced the bishops to declare: “the memory of the war is now placed in a new context. The generation of the survivors of the Second World War – of the eyewitnesses of those years – is disappearing. The generation of those who had the courage to pronounce words of repentance and forgiveness is also disappearing”. So, today it is more important than ever “to ensure that the new generations acquire and preserve an undistorted knowledge of the Second World War. We need – underlines the document – an honest acknowledgement of the atrocities of the past, but we also need to renounce the stereotypes that make an exact understanding of those times more problematic”. “Together, we German and Polish bishops condemn the crimes of war. We are also united in our condemnation of the forced deportations, though without forgetting the intrinsic nexus of the sequence of events”. A gift for European unity. The document ends with words of hope: “the reconciliation between our peoples is a gift we can bring to the history of united Europe. Despite the tensions and misunderstandings that here and there do not spare this family of nations, we must not forget the fundamental progress of history that has been achieved through European integration. We cannot let slip the chance of a peace that springs from the unification of the peoples of Europe. We appeal to everyone never to cease, whether through prayer or through action, to contribute to the promotion of European unity. Only thus shall we continue to enjoy the benefits of peace”.