Statement by the Institute of National Remembrance in connection with the attempts to manipulate history on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

In the interwar period, the Republic of Poland was vitally interested in maintaining peace on the European continent. It concluded two non-aggression pacts with both totalitarian neighbours: in 1932 (with the USSR) and in 1934 (with the German Reich). Both agreements meant renunciation of war in mutual relations. In this way Poland intended to consolidate peace and existing borders, the Polish-German and the Polish-Soviet one.

There were no secret protocols attached to these pacts, nor were there any hidden agreements on the division of spheres of influence in Europe. Instead, there was a desire to secure Polish citizens against the threat of war and enslavement.

Signed on 23 August 1939 in Moscow, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was of a completely different nature. Under pretence of a „non-aggression pact”, Germany and the Soviet Union delineated their spheres of influence in a secret protocol, dividing the territories of other independent states among themselves. In this way, both countries prepared for a policy of imperial conquests of free nations - in order to enslave them and subordinate them to totalitarian regimes of Moscow and Berlin. This pact was an introduction to the Second World War.

The German Reich, after terminating the 1934 declaration, invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. The Soviet Union broke the 1932 pact with its armed invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939, in alliance with Adolf Hitler.

The current Russian attempts to rehabilitate the German-Soviet agreement of 1939** and silencing its long-term tragic consequences are nothing more than an attempt to falsify history and defend the policy of totalitarian regimes – the victims of which were not only Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Romanians, Finns, Ukrainians, Belarusians and many other nations, but also Russians themselves.

On this special day, as we celebrate the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes, we urge that the tragic history remains a lesson to be learnt.

Source: IPN