Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Poland's Tragedy

More details are emerging about the victims of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and nearly 100 other government officials and prominent citizens.  It is the equivalent of Air Force One crashing and leaving no survivors.

What makes this event all the more horrific is that Kaczynski and the other were on their way to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.  In 1940, the NKVD killed approximately 20,000 Poles, mostly military officers captured when the Soviets invaded eastern Poland in 1939 as part of the Nazi-Soviet pact.  Stalin ordered the execution to wipe out Poland's military elite and destroy the nucleus of any opposition to Soviet occupation.  Thus, the two most tragic events of recent Polish history are conjoined.  In this case Marx was wrong.  History repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then again as more tragedy.

No comments: