APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
FIGURE 2. The Polish Knight, by Aleksander Orlowski, 19th century painter (U/OU) (picture)
Aleksander Orlowski, symbolizes this aspect of the national spirit (Figure 2). This decision by party leader Gierek soon after coming to power to reconstruct the Royal Castle in Warsaw (Figure 3), a move that had been avoided by all postwar Communist governments in Poland, shows the willingness of the new regime to appeal to popular pride in the national heritage. As a seat of royal power, the castle dated to the late 16th century, when King Zygmunt III moved the court to Warsaw.
The sufferings and losses of World War II have remained fresh in the national memory, not only because of persistent verbal propaganda disseminated by the regime but also through the many national monuments dedicated to both native and foreign victims of Nazi policies who died on Polish soil (Figure 4). The most infamous of the many Nazi concentration and extermination camps, Auschwitz (Oswiecim), has been maintained in its stark condition as a mute monument to an era. Since the war, a reconstructed Warsaw has become the embodiment of Polish pride in national tradition and heritage and the Polish will to survive. The Warsaw Nike, a monument unveiled in 1964 (Figure 5), symbolizes the heroism of the city.
In an effort to counteract foreign pressures during the interwar period, the Poles usually sought support from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, the French and British declarations of war against Germany in response to its invasion of Poland in September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of the eastern part of the country by the U.S.S.R. further strengthened the average Pole's predisposition toward the Western powers. Although the Communist regime places the origins of postwar Poland's military forces in the Polish contingents which fought alongside the Soviet army in World War II, it has given increasing recognition to the average Pole's stress on the contribution of Poles to the military effort of the Western allies. (For example, more than 10% of the German aircraft destroyed during the Battle of Britain were shot down by Polish
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
