On 1 September, on the anniversary of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, a report on Poland’s losses in World War II will be presented. “It was compiled by a group of experts from various areas and fields of science – historians, economic historians, property appraisers, archivists”, said a Law and Justice (PiS) MP Arkadiusz Mularczyk.

“As long as there was no report, it was difficult to talk about specific amounts, because there was no, to call it conventionally, an invoice. Today this invoice is ready, it will appear on 1 September, and it will be a basis for discussion”, said MP Arkadiusz Mularczyk commenting on the report on Poland’s war losses in World War II.  “We would also like to make German parliamentarians, ministers of the German government, and the main German media familiar with this publication. I think that this history lesson will do them good,” he added.

As MP Mularczyk revealed, the report also includes the financial assessment at which Polish losses in World War II were valued. The study consists of three volumes: Volume I deals with the description and estimation of demographic and material losses, Volume II is a photo documentation of the war and the German occupation, showing its brutality, and Volume III is a register of crime scenes, executions, mass murders of Poles and pacification of villages. There are more than 9200 of these locations.

“Since 1947, there has not been any document that estimates material and demographic losses, nor has there been a study summarising World War II”, noted Mularczyk. “Our attempt, I hope, will be received with kindness in Poland and with interest abroad. We see that the period of World War II, because of our history, because we were locked in a group of communist countries, is unknown in the West. It is worthwhile for the world to learn about the brutality of the German occupation, the German war and how huge losses Poland suffered in the Second World War’, concluded MP Mularczyk.

Adrian Andrzejewski