Poland's president said Wednesday he will attend the commemorations of the end of World War II in May in Moscow, but said the notorious 1939 pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union should be condemned at the event.
"My decision is a yes, but we want this to be full of dignity and historical truth," President Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN television during a visit to Washington.
"On May 9, words should be heard ... words of condemnation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, words saying unequivocally that not all nations were given full sovereignty after World War II and not all could experience the democratic privileges enjoyed by a large part of the world," Kwasniewski said.
After the Nazi defeat, Poland became part of Moscow's sphere of influence and remained under communist rule until 1989.
A secret addendum to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which Nazi and Soviet leaders concluded in 1939, foresaw the division of much of Eastern Europe -- including Poland -- in case war broke out.
Shortly after German troops entered Poland in September 1939, Soviet troops occupied the country's east. Soviet forces then occupied the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Soviet Army retook the Baltics in 1944 and reincorporated them into the Soviet Union. The Baltic states gained independence only after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, and only one of their leaders has accepted Russia's invitation to the May 9 anniversary celebrations in Moscow.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has agreed to participate, but she has urged Russia to denounce the pact, named for Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
If Russia were to renounce the secret pact, it would tacitly be acknowledging some responsibility for World War II - a stance seen as sacrilege in a country that lost some 27 million people during the conflict.
|