Quote:
Originally Posted by Pointman
And in the end of the day it was Stalin, who relieved polish people from Hitler's occupation and liberated Warsaw.
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!!! Only after any possible independent military and political forces in Poland had been liquidated by the Germans. The Warsaw uprising began when Soviets were just 10 km outside the city. But the Soviets stood by for weeks and let the Germans wipe out the Polish Home Army. Not only did Soviet army and air force units not take part in the struggle, they refused to allow allied planes trying to resupply the Poles from the UK refuel in any Soviet airfields in the area, hamstringing desperate Allied efforts to help the Poles. And when the Soviets did finally enter the city after the uprising was crushed, they arrested and executed the remaining Home Army officers.
Then there was the Katyn Forest massacre in the wake of the first Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and the purge of Polish leaders, doctors, teachers, etc. that saw 140,000 Polish civilians sent to labour camps and gulags to remove any opposition to Soviet rule.
Yeah, some liberation.