Zbigniew Kruszewski and Gaspare Genna

[00:01] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Hi, my name is Beekeep Antoni Kruszewski I'm a former member of the anti nazi resistance movement in Poland during World War two. How old are you? I was born in Warsaw, Poland. June 27, 1927. Warsaw, Poland. Capital, Poland.

[00:27] GASPARE GENNA: But Tony, you need to read. So what's today's date?

[00:30] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Today date is January 23, 2023. Location? El Paso, Texas.

[00:36] GASPARE GENNA: Okay, and what's my name and then.

[00:38] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Name of the interview partner? Doctor Gaspare Genna Relationship to partner, chairman of the department of political science.

[00:48] GASPARE GENNA: Okay, my name is Gaspare Jenna. I am 57 years old. Today is January 23, 2023. We are in El Paso, Texas. I'm going to be interviewing doctor Tony Kruszewski and he is a colleague of mine in the department of political Science and Public Administration at UTEP. Okay, Tony, so let's start. So you already mentioned, but maybe you can repeat. So tell us your name, birth, and the year that you were born.

[01:18] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, when World War two started by the attack of Nazi Germany on Poland, and then on the 1 September 1939, it was followed by attack of Soviet Union supporting nazi attack on the 17 September. And the situation were in Warsaw, Poland. And initially nobody knew about role of the Soviet Union in this. Actually, some of the russian troops entering polish territory were saying that they are going to help Poland fight against Nazis. So they were actually lying, but actually they were fulfilling the plan which they signed an agreement on the 23 August 1939. This was called Hitler Stalin, Ribbentrop Pact, which promised Soviet Union to join Soviet Hitler's army, nazi army, german army in attack on Poland two weeks after initial attack by the Nazis on the 1 September because they knew that allies of Poland, France and England promised to support Poland in any attack. On the 15. Two week after attack, they will support us, and they will attack the Siegfried line on the western border of Germany. It turned out on the 12 September, there was a meeting in Abbeville, France, where both French and Germans, French and British, decided not to support Poland and actually were left stranded. Obviously, nobody was. They simply said, okay, let Poland fight alone. And of course, with the Soviets who knew about this plan through their spies, they waited additional three days to attack on the 17th of eastern Poland. After their attack, they annexed half, 46% of the polish territory. Half of Poland was annexed by Soviet Union. So of course, the polish army fought until the 5 October for 35 days. And of course, later on, according to the constitution of Poland, enacted in 1935, the polish government was evacuated. It was part of the army to France. Polish armies rebuilt there and the army much smaller. Only 100,000 rather than 1 million, which initially was mobilized in the attack. And there was a change of the government. So the legal government of Poland was reestablished, first in France. And after collapse of France in 1940, it moved to London. And throughout until the end of the war. That was a government recognized by all the allies and recognized legal government of Poland acting, taking place activities to England, France and England. Okay. As far as my role in.

[04:39] GASPARE GENNA: You've told me a lot of stories about what happened after the occupation, but what was life like in growing up before September 1, 1939?

[04:52] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, initially, of course, we were on vacation outside in the provinces, northern. On the border of Germany. In the provinces. We came to Warsaw because everybody was saying, now there will be a war. Definitely our intelligence knew that there would be a war because Germans were mobilizing as a. The place we lived in during the summer. During the summer, we saw german tanks on the other side of the lake. So we saw them, actually.

[05:19] GASPARE GENNA: So you actually started.

[05:20] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: It was exactly. It was a borderline, incidentally, this was the first time I was exposed to borders, which I spent part of my life studying borders. This was the first time.

[05:32] GASPARE GENNA: So that was a huge impact in your life to see.

[05:34] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: And then my uncle, owner of the state where we were staying, said that you have to go back to Warsaw because there will be a war at any time. And indeed, we left three days later. Germans came in, arrested him, and he was killed within first week. He was killed by the Nazis on the spot because he bought the establishment from the Germans. And they thought that he was an anti Nazi. And so they killed him. And we came to Warsaw. And first of all, there was problem of prices. Prices were skyrocketing. And there was. Stores were completely empty because obviously, everybody was preparing for trying to hoard as much food as possible. We didn't have any food in the. During the summer, two months of the Sara, because we were in provinces and polish army when they capitulated. When Warsaw capitulated after 27 hours, 2027 days of siege of Warsaw, they were distributing food, rice and gherkins.

[06:42] GASPARE GENNA: What is that?

[06:44] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Since September 1, 1939, until Christmas 1939, we were eating only rice and gherkins.

[06:52] GASPARE GENNA: What is gherkins?

[06:53] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Gherkins are vegetables.

[06:56] GASPARE GENNA: Oh, I see. Okay.

[06:57] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: And we were eating only that. And we used pillows, actually, to carry as much rice as possible. And gerkins, they vegetables were big cans of 25 pounds. You know, normally, when we came back to war. So I presumed that I will go back to school. I was in the. At that time in the fifth grade, fourth grade, to fifth grade of the school, and I thought, everything will be normal. But within a week, german panzer troops were approaching Warsaw. And, of course, Warsaw was defending for 27 days, attacking every day by Stuka bombers, destroying a lot of houses. About 20% of Warsaw was destroyed by the bombing, constant bombing. And on the 27th day of the war, September 27, the mayor of Warsaw decided to capitulate it, and the army, polish army.

[07:59] GASPARE GENNA: So, as a young boy, I mean, you were like, what, 1011?

[08:03] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: I was eleven years old.

[08:04] GASPARE GENNA: Yeah. So how does it. I mean, what kind of impact did that have on you to have all of these bombs and tanks?

[08:10] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, obviously, it was a shock, complete shock, especially that it was continuous every day. And amazingly enough, we responded rather stoically, because, you see, I was a scout, boy scout. And they used boy scouts, and they posted us on the roofs of the buildings to watch for fires because there were no walkie talkies or there were no telephones, no Internet, so they used boy scouts. And my brother was on one roof, and I was on another roof, and we were watching for possible fire.

[08:49] GASPARE GENNA: And so you had to report back.

[08:50] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: And my mother was running from one roof to another, washing over us. So even at the age of eleven, immediately, the beginning of World War Two was somewhat involved in the activity against Germans. Amazingly enough, when we capitulated, there was obviously resentment that we had to capitulate. We were sort of betrayed by the Allies. Nobody helped us. But I observed, actually, I was, as a boy, I was just walking the streets of Warsaw controlled by Germans. I didn't see any particular anxiety about initial Germans. As a matter of fact, I saw amazing enough, somebody offering a cigarette to the german soldier, which I remember amazing enough. But almost immediately after Warsaw was occupied by the Nazis, they started treating Jews. 30%. Warsaw was populated by the Jews. It was the largest jewish group in any city except New York. One third of Warsaw, total population, Warsaw million and a half. And about one third of them were jewish population. So they started beating up Jews and immediately treating them. They were not allowing Jews to walk on the sidewalks, for instance. They had to walk on the. On the streets, and they were beating them and treating them terrible from the very beginning.

[10:24] GASPARE GENNA: Was there any one particular.

[10:25] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: The Germans were dressed differently, traditionally, so they could recognize them easily.

[10:31] GASPARE GENNA: Was there anything in particular, anything that you witnessed?

[10:34] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, the first thing, obviously, life completely changed, and the major preoccupation was finding food. We had allotment of land which we were digging up in the former airport. Land was allotted by the still polish authorities before capitulation. So we planted some food there so we could have some vegetables at least during the. But we're hungry all the time, actually. And, you know, juices, I said, were treated terribly from the very beginning. But also in September, the first mass execution of the polish leaders, polish intelligentsia, they killed about 20,000 people outside of Warsaw to scare people, to put them in the mood were these public execution. And those were people who were not actually anti german or any active soldiers. One of them was athlete who won a ten mile run in Los Angeles Olympic Games. And he was executed also. Why? Because they wanted to scare the young people. He was an idol for the people, so he was included in that. But among those 20,000 polish intelligentsia, polish educated people, there were many people who really were not active politicians, but they were simply taken to scare people. And after treating Jews that badly throughout german occupation, there were mass execution by the Germans in the streets of. For every German we killed, if they betrayed Jews, if they, for instance, betrayed polish intellectuals, they were arresting people. For every German we killed, they were executing 100 Poles and taking them from the streetcars, counting literally 98, 9900. One of the time, I was 104 or 105, and I survived. So it was meticulous. And after that, they publicized names, dates, and that they misbehaved against the Germans. So there was immediate terror in the terror increased as years increased, but also incredibly enough, polish resistance was organized the day Warsaw capitulated. Polish Home Army. Resistance army was created on the 27 September 1939. So it was a different name, but it was a first organization. Later on, it was called Home army throughout the war. And strangely enough, it was largely Germans who created increased stubbornness of the Poles, because by brutality and those public executions, they encouraged people to activate against Germans and execution work in the streets. Let me give you an example. Later on. My wife, she was a girl of eight years at that time, Washington walking with her mother on the streets of Warsaw and said, Mama, mama, there is some paint spilled. And it wasn't paint, it was blood, because the execution take in front of the streetcar or bus. So this was the. And of course, as the exist. Executions lasted. Resistance lasted also, and especially among the young people.

[14:11] GASPARE GENNA: So tell me, I mean, how did they. How were you recruited into the resistance?

[14:14] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, you know, it's not surprising that the large percentage of the people in the resistance were young people. Almost 17% were women and young people from universities, in high schools. So that resistance, that brutality actually created, to some extent, increased pressure. Now, as far as how brutal it was, let me tell you how I realized that things have changed. Everything has changed. You were, for instance, where ration food was distributed. They probably almost stopped feeding Jews. The rations for the Jews were lowest then for the poles and then for the Catholics, and then german or normal food distributed. So this was the changes. And obviously, it put us in the pressure, constant search for food. So the occupation, we thought that war is not going to last five years. We thought it would be actually 1940, because we didn't expect that France will capitulate and western Europe will be occupied by the Nazis. Some of the most brutal things which I witnessed during nazi occupation were standing. There was a problem with water. We were standing and taking water from the public in the public location, close to the wall, encircling the ghetto. You know, the jewish area in Warsaw, there was a wall built all around. It was about 2 miles by 3 miles. And there were about 300,000 people initially living there. And they added additional 200,000 people to squeeze them and put them in the ghetto. And people in the ghetto were simply not fed. And there were about 100,000 died of hunger, diseases. And it was mostly children which tried to sneak out, sneak under the wall. Because, you see, because of the climate in Poland, they had to leave a little opening in the wall for the melting snow. So the kids, incredibly enough kids of four or five years old, could squeeze in and collect potatoes, tomatoes, whatever, and come back and feel safe, their own families, from death.

[16:47] GASPARE GENNA: So children, children, children during this time, including yourself, played a major role in those.

[16:55] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Were choosing jewish children, which nobody expected initially, that this would be because of those openings in the. And we were standing, trying to get water near such a little opening. And the German who was guarding us was talking to my mother. My mother was fluent in German. So they discussed and he was showing us photographs of his family. You know, probably he wanted. You know, he was bored. He was standing, guarding us and just showing, I'm from Bavaria, and we have family and grandchildren, all that. And then at that moment, turned around and saw a little kid coming through the opening from the ghetto, coming, trying to pick up some potatoes or tomatoes from the aryan side, from the catholic side of the city into which Warsaw was divided by the Nazis. And he took that little kid and smashed his head against the wall of the ghetto. First he was normal human being, showing his family, talking normally, then turning around and showing this little kid coming and killing him on the spot. So this was how they behaved.

[18:10] GASPARE GENNA: Now, was this regular german army, or was this like a ss, you know.

[18:15] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Obviously, Jews were mercilessly executed. Killed. And by the time, first of all, about 100,000 died of starvation and the rest of them were taken to concentration camps and simply executed, gassed. So by the end of war, on the fourth of war, there was an uprising, ghetto uprising, because young people in the ghetto were decided to simply sacrifice their own families. And when the Germans demanded that the people delivered to be sent to concentration camps, they said that they are going to work. They didn't say that they are going to be killed. But through the underground contacts, they knew that they were going to be killed in the concentration camp like Auschwitz or Maidanek or sobiborite, those places. And those Jews were taken and never came coming back, obviously. So what they did, young people in the ghetto, they simply sacrificed their own families very often. And those 80,000 Jews who remained in the ghetto, by 1943, they decided to fight and die. They said they had no chance of winning, but they simply decided that those who remain in the ghetto, we simply, just simply will fight to the end. And that was in 1943, on the Easter day, there was uprising, ghetto uprising. And later on, there was another uprising of the Warsaw, one year later of the whole Warsaw. But it's another story. And of course, at that time, our life changed completely because the whole city was fighting Nazis.

[19:58] GASPARE GENNA: Well, a lot of people like to know about your role in the resistance. So how did you get involved and what did you do in the resistance?

[20:03] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, the resistance was, you know, first of all, it was created by people who knew each other initially. But there was a problem, because, first of all, if you create a resistance movement which was acting against such a brutal enemy, you have to, first of all establish solid contacts and trust people. But on the other hand, simply to know as little as possible, because if they knew as, as much about name, address, in case of arrest, it will be obviously very easy for the Germans to destroy us. So that was duality of treatment. First of all, we recruited through school. We recreated life for our own. We created, for instance, all the schools, polish schools were closed, not only universities, but also high schools. And we created our own universities, high schools in secret, apart from the army and the resistance. So there were courts, for instance, when we were killing Germans, it was demanded by the authorities that a special document be put on the dead body of the German. Why he was killed by the resistance, that he was cruel, that he was brutal, etcetera, etcetera, and condemned to die by the underground court of war of Poland. So it was really very strange kind of a situation. So I was approached by a colleague of mine during the break in, a secret high school where high schools were closed, but we were gathering in small groups in private apartments. And during that break in the, in the, between, the subjects were taught. They cut down a little some of the subjects from high school, but basically taught history. Those most important things they taught. So we didn't lose actually on education. We had normally high school education in secret. And at that point he took myself a site and said, tony, do you want to join the party? He used the word party because various parties organized their own secret groups. And later on, in later stages, those parties joined forces to create the one home army. Of course, only two groups didn't join the home army. One was the communist party and the other was nationalist party. Those two groups, one on the right, one on the left, didn't want to join. But the secret movement. In Poland, Home army was the biggest home army, biggest resistance movement in Europe, about 300,000 soldiers and amazing enough, as I said, perhaps one third of them were young people. Commanders were usually people in the 20th centuries. And of course there were constant arrests and killings. Initially, Auschwitz was. They didn't kill only jews. Initially it was. They were killing polish intelligentsia. And then after one year, they switched Auschwitz as predominantly the extermination camp for the Jews. But there were many thousands and thousands of Poles who died also in concentration camps, including my mother, who was sent to concentration camp and died.

[23:27] GASPARE GENNA: So why was she sent to the concentration camp?

[23:29] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, she died. She approached the Nazi asking, you know, they divided families when they were emptying. After the Warsaw uprising of 1944, they kicked out all the people. Half a million remaining Soviets, citizens of Warsaw, were empty. Warsaws emptied. But they divided families. And my mother approached the German and asking German not to divide her from my grandma because she said, she's an old lady and she will probably die, but I want to be with her the very day. And for that, instead of sending my mother to work camp, working for the german industry, most of the people were sent to do work in the german industry for the army. He sent her to concentration camp and she died in concentration camp Ravensburg.

[24:29] GASPARE GENNA: So her crime was just to ask to stay with her.

[24:32] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: She actually simply asked not to be separate from, amazingly enough, you know, during. Since Mama was obviously starving and we had barely anything to eat during all those years. Well, everybody was trying to survive as much as possible. I didn't see meat for years, actually, until after the war, practically. But nevertheless, so what she did, she was renting rooms and there was a jewish student who came to Warsaw to study the University of the University of Warsaw. Of course, he never studied because university was closed and he was supposed to be in the ghetto. She rented the room to a jew, and he lived with us for four years until 19 43, 39 until 43. For helping a jew, giving a jew even piece of bread. Only in Poland, there was a rule of death for everybody, for the whole family. So we actually were hundreds of times were dying, thinking, is Adam going to come back or Gestapo is going to come and shoot us? But Mama was heroin, really. And he stayed with us for four years. And incidentally, when we asked him, are you also a member of the resistance? He said, are you crazy? I am a jew. So I have one barrier. Do I have to enroll in the army to create another barrier for my life? But he joined the officer school and died later on in the Warsaw uprising of 1944. As commander of the barricade, I met him by chance, complete chance, incredible chance. During the Warsaw uprising, there was a barricade, overturned streetcars and buses, and he was the commander of a barricade. And I was at that time messenger whose cipher documents sent by the commander in chief of the polish horm army in Warsaw to the units, partisan units in the forest. And I was supposed to transmit this document, which was put inside my jacket, that all the units, partisan units of the troops, should help Warsaw and attack Germans from behind. Since we were cut into pieces at that time, Warsaw was chopped up by the german army. We had to communicate from one district in Warsaw to another through the sewers. So I had to walk about three to 5 miles through sewers, and I entered sewers at the barricade where Adam, jewish friend, was commander.

[27:22] GASPARE GENNA: So you transported messages through the Warsaw sewers?

[27:25] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, you know, I delivered the message. Of course, they didn't have enough weapons and they couldn't attack. So it was a useless, actually attempt. I had to approach those partisan units. It was about 30, 40 miles outside Warsaw, in the forest outside Warsaw. And at that time, they wanted me to. When I delivered the message, they said, we cannot help because we don't have enough machine guns and we cannot attack german Panzer decisions. And at that point, they said, stay with us in the partisan units. But I saw Warsaw burning, and, of course, all my friends were in Warsaw. So I decided to go back, first of all, because I was ordered to deliver a message to the authorities in the partisan units, but at the same time, report what happened. So I said, I have to write a report of my failed mission to they cannot help. So again, I repeated the story, went through the sewers back to Warsaw. Luckily, I survived. There was one element during this trip through the sewers. I had to leave the sewers in one place because there were too many Germans all around. And I emerged from the sewers, and I was stopped by the german soldier. And I tried to lie to him that I lost my mother, and I'm looking for my mother. And he looked at me and said, no, no, you are a carrier from the underground. Why? Because I smelled from the sewers. And I didn't realize, of course. And he arrested me and put me in the. There is a building outside palace in. Near Warsaw, royal palace. And there is one building in front of the palace, which is still a nice, very nice restaurant. And at that time, they kept us sort of prison. They had about 30 soldiers, and those soldiers were partisans who attacked Germans. And they were kept in one room, about 30 of us, and another German was guarding us. I spoke German because, incredibly enough, in the secret high school, we were studying German. One of the german professors was working with us, not with the Nazis, and she was teaching us German. So I was fluent in German. And I talked to that German. And the German who was guarding us was an old man, about 70 years old.

[29:56] GASPARE GENNA: And he said, look, what year was this?

[29:58] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: It was. He was probably about 70 years old. Old weapon.

[30:03] GASPARE GENNA: Now, what year were you?

[30:04] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: It was about three weeks after Warsaw uprising started, okay, because I left Warsaw through the sewers on this second week, two weeks after Warsaw started. And we were coming. And I came back to Warsaw on the 27 August August. So he was guarding me. And incredibly enough, he turned out to be a human being because he said, look, you are going to be killed. They will execute you within three days. So you have to escape. And he saved my life because I managed, since I found out that I will be killed the first opportunity, incredibly enough, I was lucky enough to escape and not be seen. It was dark and very narrow street. And I jumped into cellar. It was open window in the cellar, and I jumped into it. And I was a little boy, 16 years old. Incidentally, during the resistance movement, since they were arresting constant leaders, the leaders were younger and younger. So it's not surprising that people my age, there were three of us commanders, about 100 boys, scouts used for liaison and partisan spying on Germans and things like that, obviously were soldiers of the underground. But we were absolutely condemned. If they caught us, they killed us. So at that time, I simply said, I have to escape. And I managed incredibly enough to escape. Come back to Warzone and then at the end of the uprising, instead of uprising was supposed to last one week. It lasted 63 days. 200,000 civilians died and 18,000 soldiers, where about half of us soldiers in the uprising died. There is a monument very similar to the Vietnam monument, almost a carbon copy of the Vietnam monument, this black mural document in Washington, DC, the similar one in Warsaw with all the names of 18,000 people. And I added my jewish friend to this list because he died. He was a jew fighting in the polish home army, and, of course, died in that barricade three days after I went into the sewers. So those are some of the things.

[32:43] GASPARE GENNA: So the war ends, the allies win, but, of course, the Soviets occupy Poland. So what made you decide that it was time to leave Poland?

[32:53] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, it was very relatively simple. Obviously, Poland was attacked by nazi regime and in the east by another totalitarian government, communism and communism as brutal as Nazis. And they were taking people to Siberia and killing them. And they were executing almost the same way as Nazis. But incredibly enough, we were fighting under command of the legal government of Poland, residing in London. We wanted to establish democracy in Poland and were fighting. We wanted to win over the Germans, liberate Warsaw, and welcome the soviet army coming against the Nazis on the other side of the river Vistula. But unfortunately, instead of when we started the uprising, the Soviets completely stopped all the activities. Soviet planes stopped flying over Warsaw and allowed Germans to fly. They allowed Germans to kill us? Why? Because this way they didn't have to kill them, us themselves. They later on liberated empty city of ruin and introduced communist government. And incredibly enough, people from the home army were being arrested as collaborators of the Nazis. Really incredible enough, tragically enough, thousands of people were killed and arrested as a result of that, many of many people from abroad. After capitulation, I was sent to Germany, to the POW camp, and spent a year in POW camp. And after POW camp in Germany, I rejoined the polish army under british command. So now I am a veteran, polish veteran, british veteran, american veteran. And after the war, the polish army in the west was about quarter of a million strong. Fighting in Italy, in Germany, in battle of Britain and all that. And half of them didn't all go well. About 150,000 went back to Poland because they had families, children. I had my brother. I didn't have contact with him, and I didn't know what happened to my mother. My mother, by that time, was dead. I didn't know about it. I found out later on about the concentration camp. So in context of that, I was alone in England. So I decided not to go back to Poland because friends of mine were being arrested for anti nazi activities. Presumably they accused them of. Of working for the Nazis or collaborating. Actually, they wanted to eliminate legal army of Poland and patriots who were fighting against Nazis. And they tried to control the whole country. The communist party in Poland was very small, actually before the war, about 20,000, 30,000, mostly composed of minorities. And in the country of 35 million introduced. And they presume that they are the will of the people and they will control Poland. And when they came with the soviet army, they established communism in Poland. So I decided to stay in London. And later on, the best decision I made, I decided that it would be very difficult for me to finish university in England because university was for the rich in England. I didn't have money, so I decided to go to America. The US Congress allowed 18,000 polish ex servicemen to join as immigrants in America. And I went to America. It was the best decision because I started working. And after working, I simply finished my University of Chicago, got PhD and became an american professor.

[36:54] GASPARE GENNA: And then you came here to El.

[36:55] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Paso, and I went back to Poland to do research at the time when conditions changed in Poland slightly in the fifties. And they simply said, well, the leadership of legal government of Poland was bad, was working with the Nazis, which was obviously a lie, but nevertheless, they said the soldiers who were fighting, they were fighting against Nazis in the work, essentially allies. So it. But they arrested everybody who was really patriot. So I didn't have a chance to go back to Poland, actually.

[37:33] GASPARE GENNA: So, you know, I gotta tell you, I've heard these stories before, and I'm glad that you're able to tell these stories to the broader audience. And the fight against fascism, I think, is still something that we need to understand. I mean, the greatest antifascist movement in the world was one that you participated in, in World War two. So what can you tell the young people today? Because for many young people, World War Two and the Holocaust and everything that happened, that seems like such ancient history. Right. What can you tell young people today to make them understand that it's not necessarily just, ain't just history, but I. Something that we need to learn from.

[38:18] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Yes, it's very, very, very confused story, because before the war, you see, there were fascist parties in various western countries. And most of the legal governments in France and England, they were fighting, but French, for instance, refused to. They collaborated with the Germans. There was resistance movement against Nazis, but part of the french army was collaborating with Germans. Fascists were active in many countries. In Poland, there was a fascist movement, but luckily the country was authoritarian but was not fascist oriented. And the fascists were later on also, amazingly enough, joined resistance movement against Nazis. Seeing brutalities of the Nazis. The story of resistance is extremely complicated because, you see, the strongest resistance movement in France was created by the fascists, by the fascists, french fascists. And some of them later on had to be rehabilitated. And French didn't admit that really they were fascists, but they said they are right wing. There are nationalists, but they are not really fascists. But it was in reality, people were afraid of war, and that's why they wanted to buy off Hitler and try to postpone the confrontation of Hitler. What do we tell the generation? We have to tell the whole story. First of all, we have to talk about World War Two. Started with attack on Poland by the. By Germans and Soviets. Soviet Union for two years was an ally of Hitler. And it was in 1941 when the treaty was broken by Hitler and he attacked Soviet Union. And that's why, in the final analysis, he lost the war. Because the biggest fights and biggest battles were fought in Russia. Actually, the same brutality was enacted in. In Russia, even bigger. You see, most of the cities were totally destroyed in Russia and armed. Millions of people died. For instance, when I was in a POW camp, there were some 30,000 people in the POW camp, and about 27,000 of them were Soviets. When we were about to be liberated by the Canadians, I was in western parts of Germany, they simply stopped feeding Russians. So now in the cemetery in sandboxel, there are 23,000 grades. They simply starve them to death. They fed us, including polish soldiers and british and american, especially american. They supported them. But normally Russians were small, but they fed us. But the Russians, they stopped feeding completely. So we have to remember that Soviets supported Russia, allowed actually, Hitler to achieve control of whole of Europe and annexation of all of Europe. You have to include this in history. Most of the west doesn't realize that for two years Soviets were supporting Hitler. And then, of course, they suffered the same tragic fate as people who fought from the 1 September, like Poles, because 20 million Russians died during world war. 220 million. Only 400,000. Only 400,000 Americans died. 400,000 Soviets. In Poland, 6 million people died. 3 million jewish citizens and 3 million Christians, including my mother. So we lost every fifth person in the uprising, in the fighting Nazis, either the whole family or every fifth person.

[42:17] GASPARE GENNA: Well, these are, you know, thank you so much for spending the morning with us to go over these these stories, these are very important for people to know and to understand. And, you know, as you were talking, there were a lot of reflections that I had about what's going on in Ukraine today. Obviously not at the same scale as what you experienced, but many of the same atrocities that I've been hearing today that happened, that's happening in the Ukraine are similar to what you've been describing, which kind of demonstrates that we have to really understand that this is not ancient history.

[42:56] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: Well, the final comment I will include that we have to tell young people the truth, and we have to tell them that what the Ukrainians are doing right now, they're defending their country and their nation. Ukrainian nation is a different nation from Russian. It's completely baloney, completely. Use strong words, complete nonsense that they are russian. They are not Russians. They are Ukrainians. Since in thousand years of Ukraine, they tried to achieve independence three times, they almost achieved it, finally achieved this in 1991. So no wonder they are defending Ukraine. But also they are defending democracy. Because if they don't stand up against authoritarian government of empire of Russia, the same will happen to other countries in Western Europe. So we Americans have to support Ukraine. Otherwise some other country will be treated the same way as Ukraine. Is true. They are fighting for themselves, for democracy, for them, for themselves, but also for the future of the country.

[44:05] GASPARE GENNA: Right. Thank you, Tony.

[44:06] ZBIGNIEW KRUSZEWSKI: And we have to tell young people the full story. Well, it's complicated, and of course, it's a very complicated, very long story. Okay.

[44:23] GASPARE GENNA: So that concludes that will conclude our session today. Okay.