Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) has noted that shortly before the war the communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a Treaty of Non-Aggression, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, that sought to divide Europe between the two totalitarian regimes.
The European Parliament in 2019 passed a resolution that recounted how World War II broke out in September 1939 and stressed that Poland was attacked by not only Nazi Germany, but also the USSR at the time, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
The resolution said that on August 23, 1939, “the communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a Treaty of Non-Aggression, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, dividing Europe and the territories of independent states between the two totalitarian regimes and grouping them into spheres of interest, which paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.”
Condemning the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the resolution said that in its aftermath “Poland was invaded first by Hitler and two weeks later by Stalin – which stripped the country of its independence and was an unprecedented tragedy for the Polish people.”
The resolution adopted by MEPs in September 2019 also called on the European Commission to decisively counteract “efforts by the current Russian leadership to distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet totalitarian regime.”
It added that such attempts were “a dangerous component of the information war waged against democratic Europe that aims to divide Europe.”
The resolution was drawn up as the international community commemorated the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.
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Source: IAR, PAP, polityka.pl