A MURDERER RECEIVED THE VIRTUTI MILITARI?!
polish version
 
translated by: Mariusz Wesolowski The following appeared in the Polish-language Gazeta of Toronto (March 22, 2001):

http://members.home.net/kumor/ostatnie.htm

Here are the highlights:

After a few brief mentions in the press, the crime in Koniuchy has been surrounded by the sticky mist of silence. [Unlike Jedwabne] It is not discussed in large Polish dailies (not to mention similar foreign publications), historians don't debate it on the radio, the Primate of Poland doesn't have anything to say. Despite the inquiry opened by the Institute of National Remembrance, nobody knows what is being done, or what will be done, in this case.

[...]

One doesn't have to look for the perpetrators in Argentine or Paraguay; living for decades in total impunity, they have even been boasting about the "combat action" at Koniuchy, describing its exact course in their memoirs. The chief of the Soviet band, Genrikas Zimanas [in Polish Henryk Zyman], has been decorated by the People's Republic of Poland for his "internationalist achievements" with the Virtuti Militari [the highest Polish decoration for bravery]!

The victims of Koniuchy don't have a monument, and somehow we don't hear from Minister Przewozniak about his plans for erecting one. Their graves are situated in a neglected cemetery, and seldom someone lights there a candle - because nobody was left from entire families.

[...]

A crime is a crime, even if it is committed in wartime. In the case of Koniuchy, known are the names of victims, the location of their graves, the identities of murderers, and the circumstances of this event. Reports about that "pacification" still exist in Lithuanian and German archives.

It seems, therefore, that the Sherlock Holmeses from the Institute should have an easy job. How can we then explain their tardiness? Is the approach to the tragedies of our nation marked again by political opportunism? Are victims of genocide again divided into "better" and "worse", "politically correct" and "inconvenient"? [...] we hear whispers about Koniuchy: "Not yet...", "Maybe later..." So, if not yet, then when? When the last witnesses of those days all die out?

Andrzej Kumor

Note: In July 1944 a unit of Soviet guerrillas, which included about 50 Jews, massacred the Polish village of Koniuchy in retaliation for its self-defense efforts to stop the ongoing robbery and rapine. Several Jewish participants have bragged about this shameful and criminal act in their memoirs published mostly in North America.

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