Stephen Shooster Chapter Four Blitzkrieg
Before my father left to seek out his cavalry unit, I saw him neatly dressed in his uniform. At that moment, to me, he looked like a hero. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I gazed long and hard not knowing if I would ever see him again. After an extended goodbye, he left. At first, I was sad, but my grandfather was very nice, and soon I was busy playing. Only a week or so later my father returned, riding tall, astride his horse. He was full of life. My family was both elated and relieved to see him. The war was over before he could even find his unit. Poland was completely over- whelmed by the German army in less than a month. They surrendered on October 6th, 1939 in Kock, Poland. Our army offered resistance without hope against the massive ‘blitzkrieg’ that Germany mustered. Years later, I learned, the pride of our army, The Polish National Guard, moved east away from the German advance instead of west towards it. They ended up retreating all the way to Russia where they expected a safe haven until they could figure out how to counter Germany’s might. These were very confusing times. As Russia saw what Germany was doing, it swarmed to counter the offensive, but then something happened that no one expected. Stalin and Hitler made a non-aggression pact, a peace treaty called the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact just prior to the invasion. Russia may not have been ready for war with Germany, so a treaty was convenient. Meanwhile, they did not know what to do with the Polish army. Instead of enlisting the remainder of them, the Russians first held them in a makeshift detention camp and then, executed everyone. 14,589 of Poland’s finest troops were destroyed in Katyn; it was covered up for years. The Russians attacked Poland on September 17th. It was like a stab in the back. One thing was certain; even though there was a treaty, the Russians would never allow Germany to be uncontested. The ideologies of these two countries were diametrically opposed. In many ways, this is why the Jews were tortured. They were grouped with the Russian Bolsheviks as the Germans most- hated enemy. The Nazis were shaping the war to surround their ideal of herrenvolk, or a master race, with the pure Germanic Aryan features being ideal, and everything else to be destroyed like the Jews and Bol- sheviks or turned into workers for the State like the Slavs. The Church continued to operate under this regime and was either cowed into submission or complicit by their silence. While all of this was happening on a grand scale, at the farm where my family and I waited on events, the danger seemed to subside enough for us to consider returning
80
Made with FlippingBook Digital Proposal Creator