In a joint statement with a number of other European foreign ministers, Poland’s Jacek Czaputowicz also honoured “all soldiers who fought to defeat Nazi Germany and put an end to the Holocaust.”
Friday, May 8, marks 75 years since VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day, when the Allies celebrated Nazi Germany’s surrender of its armed forces and the end of World War II in 1945.
Marking the anniversary, the top diplomats of Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia as well as the US secretary of state said that while May 1945 brought the end of World War II in Europe, it did not bring freedom to all European nations.
“The central and eastern part of the continent remained under the rule of communist regimes for almost 50 years,” they said in their statement.
Soviet ‘repression and ideological control’
“The Baltic States were illegally occupied and annexed and the iron grip over the other captive nations was enforced by the Soviet Union using overwhelming military force, repression, and ideological control,” they added.
The statement also said that numerous Europeans from the central and eastern parts of the continent for many decades “sacrificed their lives striving for freedom, as millions were deprived of their rights and fundamental freedoms, subjected to torture and forced displacement.”
The statement added that societies behind the Iron Curtain “desperately sought a path to democracy and independence.”
It named Poland’s Solidarity movement and the collapse of the Berlin Wall among “important milestones which contributed decisively to the recreation of freedom and democracy in Europe.”
Justice for victims of totalitarian regimes
According to the statement, “the future should be based on the facts of history and justice for the victims of totalitarian regimes,” while “manipulating the historical events that led to the Second World War and to the division of Europe in the aftermath of the war constitutes a regrettable effort to falsify history.”
The top diplomats also said that “lasting international security, stability and peace require genuine and continuous adherence to international law and norms, including the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.”
(gs/pk)
Source: gov.pl