NINA SZLOSBERG-LANDIS: Lessons from resisting a Russian invasion ... 82 years ago

My father celebrated his 18th birthday in Warsaw Poland, August of 1939. A few weeks later German troops rolled into his country from the west and 16 days after that, the Russians invaded from the east.

We now know that the two men behind the invasion; Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, had formed a secret pact a week before, pledging non-aggression toward one another and carving up Poland into German and Soviet territories. After a month of military operations, the two ruthless dictators declared victory and the stage was set for World War II.

When word made it to Warsaw of the invasion, my father and his brother set off to fight the invaders, in a fashion eerily reminiscent of the brave resistance we now see in Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of young men rushed to the western border to defend their country. They were met by a large, well-prepared Red Army and, despite their bravery, some 7,000 of them died in the fighting.

The Russians were ruthless. They went after Polish military leaders who they interrogated and then shot. They murdered staff and patients in military hospitals and they took several hundred thousand prisoners of war; my father among them.

He spent nearly three years in a Russian prisoner of war camp enduring brutal, tortuous conditions. Many prisoners died of starvation or were killed.  Famously thousands of Polish officers were murdered by the Soviet Politburo and dumped into a mass grave in the Katyn Forest.

Within months, Stalin had annexed his newly occupied Poland and more than 13 million Polish citizens found themselves, unwilling and terrified, new subjects of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Then as narcissistic despots often do, Hitler broke his promise and in 1941 invaded Russia.

In response, Stalin pledged allegiance to the Allied effort and opened the doors to the camps releasing all of the surviving POWs. Thankfully, my father had survived and despite the toll those years took on him, he was ready to fight the Nazis.

He joined the group of Polish soldiers known as Anders Army (named for their leader Władysław Anders) who evacuated Russia and made their way to Iran. There he was selected to train with the Royal Air Force and became part of a scrappy, fierce group of Polish airmen known as “The Spirit of Warsaw” – the Squadron 316. He flew Spitfires and Mustangs over England and France and, despite the odds, survived the war.

History of course, is a great teacher. And despite our best efforts, often repeats itself.

Dictators seek power and are willing to do just about anything to achieve it. Vladimir Putin is no different. We have seen that his Stalin-style regime is willing to engage in horrific acts of violence against Ukraine’s most innocent victims.

He holds nuclear power plants hostage and makes them dangerous weapons of war. He has become emboldened by his starring role on the world stage and his rhetoric is escalating. If history tells us anything, without strong and decisive collective NATO action, this will not end well for Ukraine. And perhaps, for the world.

Despite that gloomy forecast, there is a shining light piercing through these dark days. Like my father and the Polish soldiers he fought alongside in WWII, the Ukrainian people possess an authentic courage and a love of country that Putin can never extinguish. What we have witnessed in these last days is no less than heroic. The Ukrainian people are courageous fighters defending their country and democracy around the world.

My father rarely talked about his war experience. One could hardly blame him. But he did share this.

I stand with Ukraine.