I doubt that Jaroslaw Kaczynski is naïve and knows nothing about the situation in Ukraine. He attended the Euromaidan and must have discussed this topic with his brother. And even when Russia was occupying Crimea, I saw him from time to time at the crisis meetings convened by Premier Donald Tusk. In spite of this, he said recently that he had “told President Poroshenko that they would not enter Europe with Bandera.” In all probability, Kaczynski knows what present-day Ukraine honors Stepan Bandera for – of course, not for spilled Polish blood. The history of this country has no myths about founding fathers. Nor does it have visionaries, leaders, or statesmen. This is the current situation because the country, where they would have emerged, would not be on the map now. The truth is that the well-known individuals, who fought for a “self-sufficient Ukraine” in contemporary history and are now considered heroes, stained their hands with Polish, as well as Jewish, blood.
The Bandera story shows how the turns of history can influence the destiny of man. A citizen of the Polish Republic, a graduate of the Lviv Polytechnic (without a degree), a conspirer, a terrorist, a killer, a suicide attacker, an agent of the Abwehr, MI 6, and the CIA, a prisoner… A half of his brothers and sisters were killed by the NKVD, and rest by the Nazis. Dreaming of Ukraine, he insulted the Polish court in his native language, sold himself out to the Nazis, and ordered the neighboring Poles to be massacred. He finally ended up at the Sachsenhausen death camp together with Stefan Rowecki (Grot). He was murdered by a KGB agent well after the war.
It is this kind of heroes that Ukraine is extolling. A pro-European, patriotic, anti-Moscow Ukraine – quite friendly in general towards Poland…
We, Poles, must not at all forget the committed crimes and their masterminds in order to understand the current importance of these people for the making of an independent state on the Dnieper. I even dare say that if Bandera were living now, he would be an excellent partner in the negotiations about an alliance with Poland – almost like Arafat for Israel and Gerry Adams for Great Britain.
Kaczynski knows all this. Why then is he provoking the Ukrainians?
Making his statements, he behaves like one who wants to have an alibi if the current European Ukraine policy suddenly ends in a fiasco. The point is that his statement is contributing to this. Ukraine will not renounce Bandera, while Kaczynski will hinder its accession to the European Union – with or without Bandera. Therefore, he is doing foul play, stacking the deck. He is squandering Polish assets and causes our country to lose the positions that cost us 25 years of hard work, including that of his beloved brother.
The young people who took part in the Maidan and lost their relatives are asking: “You too, Brutus?”
They are asking Poland, not Kaczynski.
