Rape is part of the nature of any army, like weapons or alcohol. Masters in this shameful matter are the Russians, who left behind about 6 million illegitimate progeny after World War II. Poles are far from achieving such a result. However, it cannot be said that they avoided sexual violence. That would be a lie, unfortunately.
Elisabeth Kunert was a teacher in the Karkonosze Mountains, near Szklarska Poręba. She herself, as well as her grandparents, for several generations back, called this charming village Karlstal - because if it had anything to do with Poland, it was somewhere in the times of the Silesian Piasts, and over the following centuries it was much easier to meet a German, Czech or Walloon in it than a Pole. . It was like that until 1945, when the Red Army entered, briskly supported also with Polish bayonets. Elisabeth remembered this moment very well:
The rape happened every day. The Russians were dangerous, especially when they got drunk, but the Poles were also to be feared. Even the pastor's seventy-year-old wife, who went shopping through a small forest, was not spared. One of our friends became a victim of six Poles who went to rob at night .
The future of Poland is in the West… the question is at what price? (fragment of a poster from the first years of People's Poland).
Two million abortions
Kunert herself managed to avoid a similar fate, but what she saw was told immediately after the war by Marianne Weber - privately widow of the classic sociology Max Weber, and a professionally known activist for women's rights. Although Weber received an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1924 for her activities, even she did not expect how much it would be necessary to fight for women's rights in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
In 1946, she collected reports of women aggrieved during the great resettlement action, when about 14 million Germans fled and were expelled from Central Europe. As a result of starvation, disease, extreme conditions of transport and common assaults, they died then - averaging the numbers estimated by historians - about half a million.
Even a few-year-old children were raped. It was done not only by the Russians, but also by Poles (photo:public domain).
On the other hand, it is impossible to calculate what percentage of this number were suicides following mass rape, or death during such rape. There must have been a lot of them, since Antony Beevor in the book Berlin 1945. The Fall the total number of rapes on German women in 1945-48 is cautiously estimated at 10 million , adding that 2 million abortions were performed in Germany in these years.
“A certain gynecologist from Wrocław, who took care of these women with dedication, deserved my gratitude,” admitted Elisabeth Kunert. She was not the only one who witnessed the rape that was common at that time. An unsigned woman from Lower Silesia told Marianne Weber:
Virtually all women, without exception, were directly threatened with rape, also from Poles - whether during the plundering, somewhere on the side paths, or during forced labor. Almost all young girls experienced it the hard way - just like nineteen women in house number 700, raped in broad daylight, in front of the whole village of Kopaniec, by the armed Polish staff of the station.
Poles in Szczecin in 1946 (photo:public domain).
Dr. H.K. knows the cases of rape of thirteen-fifteen-year-olds, often committing suicide later. A 50-year-old middle school teacher, A, and her peer, Miss H, were also raped, and then locked together for eight hours in a closet. One of them later suffered from an infection of the genital tract. A similar fate befell the baker, seventy-year-old sick wife, Mrs. N., in her own apartment in the mill.
I witnessed a Pole visiting a house allegedly for business purposes, that is, looting him, while his accomplice attempted to rape the family's daughter. Women and girls did not sleep at home for months, especially those who were persecuted by a particular Pole. The frequent rape of the elderly may also be explained by the superstition that it brings happiness.
The latter is also emphasized by Beevor:"All female beings between the ages of 8 and 80 were raped."
Humanitarianism in Polish
If one can afford a gradation of something like rape, statistically Poles were far behind the Russians. Historian Marcin Zaremba, author of the moving work Wielka fear. Poland 1944-1947 admits:“Behavior towards women is the most brutal. This is not mass rape, as is the case with the Red Army, but German women are indeed raped ”.
Still from the film "A Woman in Berlin". Similar stories also happened in Wrocław, Szczecin, Zielona Góra ...
Red Army soldiers were famous not only for their penchant for group rapes, but also for their exceptional cruelty. Women who resisted too much, or reacted even by shouting or crying - were usually killed after the fact. Among Poles, such behavior is rather unheard of, and there are even reports of humanitarianism, unique for the times of post-war wildness .
Keith Lowe in his book Wild Continent quotes the story of a certain Anna Kientopf:
Single people were detained frequently, especially young girls. Polish soldiers also approached us with whips in their hands and red faces. They told us to step out of the column and go to the farms. Else and Hilde Mittag began to sob. I said, "Come on, there's no point in resisting. They will beat us to death. We'll try to escape later. ”
The Russians were standing there watching cynically. Out of despair, we begged them for help. They shrugged their shoulders and showed that Poles rule here. When all seemed lost, I saw a senior Polish officer. I pointed to my three children and asked what to do if I had three of them. I don't remember everything I told him in despair, but he said, "Get back on the road."
German refugees in Silesia, 1945 (photo:public domain).
Else and Hilde were less fortunate. We do not know what happened to them there, but Elisabeth Kunert mentioned the standard of places in Western literature as Polish "farms":
On arrival, young girls were forced to serve in the kitchen, where they were fed, and in the evenings fulfilled the wishes of the lieutenant and non-commissioned officers:"You come to me, dove! ” Some stayed there for weeks, thus protecting others from the same fate.
I witnessed such a situation on Saturday night when at night at eleven, one or three o'clock, soldiers with flashlights burst into our bedroom and looked for "girls" , girls who hid under the coats and caps of older women. With loud laughter, the found victims were forced to go to "dances" and other "pleasures" . Two young girls were sent to Hoffnungstal twice, where they were left with eight soldiers in unlocked quarters.
Blame for blame
On the basis of the example of a "higher Polish officer" in a story by Anna Kientopf, one should not form an opinion about the common behavior of Poles towards German women. Rather, it was the exception that proved the rule. Elsewhere in her account, she noted a case where four Polish soldiers tried to get a young girl out of a column. Her parents rushed to help her. There was a scuffle:"Poles beat my parents with rifle butts, especially my father." When he fell under the pressure of blows "one of the Poles took a submachine gun and fired a series of shots" . The daughter was left untouched, but at the cost of her father's life.
One cannot forget in what context the sexual violence perpetrated by Poles took place. The photo shows German soldiers leading Polish women to be shot….
Recovered Territories - were recovered with extreme brutality. All this can of course be explained by the need to respond to five years of horror that Germany provided to Europe and the universal, subcutaneous and natural desire to retaliate for the most brutal German crimes . And this is exactly how, with humility, she accepted the dozens of Marianne Weber's reports:
The behavior of Poles and Russians in the occupied territories of eastern Germany would be completely incomprehensible if not for the awareness that they were retaliation for the years of the Nazi regime. As you know, Hitler wanted to cut down the entire Polish intelligentsia and make the Poles a slave nation. So it is to blame for our fault .
Somehow, however, it is difficult to disprove Robert Murphy, the American adviser on Germany, who then reported to his government:"The mass displacements carried out by the Nazis were partly the moral basis for which we engaged in the war and which gave strength to our cause (...) . It would be extremely inappropriate if the reports showed that we are complicit in methods that we have often condemned in other cases, "he wrote in the reserved language of diplomacy.
Also be sure to read the articles on the Soviet rape of Polish women and - on German women in Prussia and Berlin.