Contenu du sommaire

The Big Disillusion : the French-Polish Alliance in September 1939 The Polish defeat of September 1939 had different causes. The question of the German responsibility is well known, such as the Polish incapacity to win the war. The role played by the USSR after the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact has also been largely exposed. But the reasons for the basically inactive diplomatic and then military comportment of both the United Kingdom and France during the August-September 1939 crisis have been very rarely analysed. This situation explains to a certain extent why the war became possible and why USSR acted as it did. We are now in a position to observe the events of 1939 without being submitted to the pressures coming from the political situation as it was after 1939 and 1945.

French War Prisonners and Polish People : Brotherhood, Experiences, Testimonies In 1940, a significant number of French prisoners got in touch with Polish soldiers, themselves prisoners, or with Polish civilians with whom they mixed in the 'kommandos' to which scores of them were dispersed. Those forced encounters influenced the way the two nationalises perceived each other, and the spiritual brotherhood, born under arms, lasted after the defeat. With the advance of the Soviet army, French and Polish prisoners had shared common experience. If the stories of the ex-KG returning to France were ignored, contained or scorned owing to the political and social strength of the French Communist Party, the fact remains, nevertheless, that this moment of shared history Polish and French provided a basis for the profound sympathy that links the two nations.

The Contribution of Testimonies to the History of the Polish Resistance in France : F2 and POWN Oral testimony is one of the sources used by the XXth century historian, who compares it with other sources, in particular written accounts. In fact, like other oral sources (such as interviews and commemorative speeches), the testimony of survivors is of particular importance in view of the limited amount of released and preserved records on activities which are clandestine and secret by definition. Two spontaneous accounts, elaborated and disclosed in 1995, were given by an ex- member of the Polish Organisation of Struggle for Independence (POWN), and by a Polish woman, a member of the F2 network, both now deceased. Presented under the form of a summary, these accounts, add a meaningful contribution to the history of the Polish resistance in France.

The unrecognized position of the provisional government of the french republic about the Polish citizens born east of the bug, living in France after WW2, and their Right to Choose Statuts (Archives, Oct.1944 - Feb. 1946) At the end of WW2 and ail its changes (new frontiers, deportations, prisoners' camps) problems with repatriation and national identity came up. The new Polish-Soviet border (Potsdam treaty) included the eastern territories which had belonged to Poland before 1939, and confirmed the Soviet occupation as well as Stalin 's authoritarian mesures to sovieticize the inhabitants. These decisions conferred a kind of legitimity to the Soviet delegations sent to France after the liberation in order to repatriate, sometimes by force, Poles living in France but native of these territories. How did France react faced with these problems? As it is not always known, France was opposed to the Soviet doings. This is proved by the Foreign Office' s archives from fall 1944 to spring 1946, thus before February 12 1946, date of the UNO resolution defending the rights of displaced people. 4,340 documents have been analysed which show that France acknowledged the rights to chose its nationality, and was opposed to forced repatriation.