In the case of Operation Wisla, which involved about 140,000 Polish civilians, most of whom were Ukrainians, the choice is simple.

Or in Warsaw they will consider that the national Polish position in 1947 was represented by the forces of the Internal Security Corps, the young Wojciech Jaruzelski, who fought both with the Ukrainian and Polish "gangs", as well as the Politburo of the "Polish Workers' Party". Or Poland will turn to the elementary morality, which prohibits the imposition of collective responsibility and the conduct of military actions against civilians inclusive with women and children.

About this on the pages of Rzeczpospolita writes a Polish historian and former European MP Pavel Koval. He recalls how, 10 years ago, President Lech Kaczynski had no doubts about the operation of the Wisla operation,. He invited the Polish Catholic Cardinal Jozef Glemp and the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Lubomir Husar, as well as representatives of the Ukrainian minority in Poland to read the Holy Scriptures together. Together with the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, he issued a statement that spoke of the injustice of the totalitarian action. And in his speech before the press, Kaczynski added that he considers all these celebrations to be an addition to his vote in the Senate for a decree condemning the events of 1947.

This is the difference between the position of the politician and the position of the researcher. The historian digs to the truth, seeks context and historical connections, he can stop and pay attention to it. Politician can not stop halfway. He has to judge historical events from the standpoint of law and morality. In some issues, such as the totalitarian heritage, it is not enough just to "drive in the aspen stake". And it does not matter if the "others" apologized for this, and someone else for something else.

"The conference of the Institute for Political Studies PAN, which was held on Monday, and the assessments of the ombudsman left no doubt. The action "Vistula" was a totalitarian practice, equivalent to what Moscow at that time was doing in the USSR. The memory of Polish heroism during the Second World War, that as a Polish state we were further away from persecution, deportations, the creation of camps, tells us to stay away from seeking "advantages" in the diabolical totalitarian practices of power, "writes Koval.