760C.61/983½
Memorandum by the Polish Ambassador (Ciechanowski)52
The Polish Ambassador received the following cable message from Prime Minister General Sikorski for The President:
“Allow me, Mr. President, to express to you the gratitude of the Polish Government and of the Polish Nation for the noble words of Your statement53 bringing encouragement to the oppressed and declaring that the German executioners will be judged and punished.
“I must once more appeal to You, Mr. President, in a matter of utmost importance and of great urgency. Information which I am receiving from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shows serious deterioration in the relationship of the Soviet Government to vital Polish problems and to the Poles deported to Russia. This attitude is contrary to the spirit of the agreement signed last year between the [Page 176] Polish and the Soviet Governments. Thus, the recruitment to the Polish Army has been entirely stopped. Permission for the evacuation of Polish children has not been granted. And, what is especially tragic under the existing circumstances,—the Soviet authorities have entirely stopped all Polish relief work among the Polish citizens and have, in fact, broken up our entire relief organization. The relief supplies which we have been distributing in the USSR, originate from America in their great majority. Over one hundred officials and delegates who were carrying out this relief program on Soviet territory and who are people specially chosen as energetic and trustworthy social workers, have been arrested, their personal belongings, their documents as well as the archives of the Polish distribution center have been confiscated. This virtually condemns our unfortunate population in Russia to starvation and want of the most elementary means of subsistence and spreads further depression and discouragement.
“This attitude of the Soviet Government, while placing in doubt the agreement signed by the Polish and the Soviet Government in the direct interest of the Allied cause, as a proof of the most far-reaching good will on the part of the Polish Government and with entire disregard for the great wrongs done to the Polish Nation by the Soviets at the outset of this war,—leads not only to a profound deterioration in the mutual relations of Poland and Russia, but also imperils the unity of the camp of the United Nations. This latter consideration is uppermost in my mind in appealing to you, Mr. President, who have already given so many proofs of active and friendly sympathy for Poland and her problems.
“The announced pending departure to Moscow of Mr. Wendell L. Willkie, as your special delegate, appears to me to open a new possibility of exerting a salutary influence on the USSR Government and of granting powerful support of your influence to the justified requests of the Polish Government.54
“The first and most urgent of these is the release from Soviet prisons of the Polish official delegates and their staffs of social workers, the return of the confiscated archives, which is indispensable to recreate the mechanism of our relief activities.
“The Polish Government is ready to engage itself to evacuate from Soviet territory these workers immediately after their release.
[Page 177]“Such a definite intervention on the part of the United States alongside with Great Britain appears to me to be the only way in which it will be possible to obtain rectification of the situation in Polish-Soviet relations which is fraught with great danger for the future.
“I venture to think that if such an intervention were not attempted, the USSR would interpret this as a proof of lack of interest in Poland on the part of the United States and Great Britain and they would probably not fail to take advantage of this situation, which would undoubtedly lead to render Polish-Soviet relations even more difficult.”
- Handed by Ambassador Ciechanowski to Under Secretary of State Welles on August 24, 1942, for transmission to the President.↩
- For President Roosevelt’s statement on August 21, 1942, on crimes against civilian populations in occupied countries, see Department of State Bulletin, August 22, 1942, p. 709.↩
- In a memorandum of August 24, 1942, Under Secretary of State Welles wrote that he “later consulted the President by telephone telling him that both Secretary Hull and I thought it would do no harm if Mr. Willkie were Asked to mention the matter when he saw Stalin, on the ground that a friendly solution of this controversy would be in the interest of the common war effort. The President said that he was entirely in accord and Asked that Mr. Willkie be notified.” The recommendation to Mr. Willkie that he should speak to Stalin on this matter is explained in the memorandum of August 24 by Mr. Elbridge Durbrow of the Division of European Affairs, p. 633.↩