In 2013, this image of sweetness was shattered. Piotr Zychowicz published the iconoclastic book “Madness ’44”. Yes, it is more journalistic than historical, and rightly criticized by many for its shortcomings, excessive dissent and excessive speculation. But – without a doubt – it is groundbreaking. Of course, he was not the first. Criticism of the decision to start the uprising appeared immediately afterwards and later. In addition to communist propaganda, there was also a presence in exile, to name but a few, Prof. Jan Ciechanowski, who joined the uprising at the age of 14. His “Warsaw Uprising: An Outline of the Political and Diplomatic Context” from 1971 is a fundamental work in this regard.
In 1945, in “Tygodnik Powszechny”, Stefan Kisielewski responded to the enthusiasts of the uprising as follows: “The Warsaw Uprising, like our other uprisings, was not an act of mature manhood: it was an act of impatience, of youthful incontinence. And that is why it undermined the basic axiom of patriotism, which is the existence of the nation above all else.
Independently of Zychowicz’s book, many critical publications appeared, including in particular the book by Prof. Andrzej Leon Sowa “Who judged the city? Operational plans of the Home Army ZWZ (1940-1944) and methods of their implementation”, which is the result of the titanic work of excavating thousands of pages of documents.
President Andrzej Duda is wrong
I am writing all this because on July 30th President Andrzej Duda decided to present an alternative reality to the public at the Warsaw Uprising Museum: “And look what happened recently: we no longer hear any voices that tried to question the validity and justice of that great armed act.”
Well, Mr President, there are such voices, and mine is one of them. Not only are they there, but the more we know about the preparations for the uprising – and this knowledge is constantly growing – the more we see how dramatically justified and right they are. But in fact, they do not really fit into Polish foreign policy, which is made with madness and full of grand phrases instead of cold analysis.
