September 17, 1939: How the USSR Became the Second Occupier of Poland – for the Jews of Poland, it Became a Nightmare from Both Sides

On September 1, 1939, Hitler sent troops into Poland. This date is considered the beginning of World War II.

Everyone knows the first strike. But they try to keep silent about the second

But almost no one talks about September 17, when the Red Army entered from the east. Poland found itself in a vise: the Reich pressed from the west, the USSR from the east. The two dictators had agreed in advance.

Secret protocol and division of the world

Two weeks before the war, Moscow and Berlin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. A secret appendix divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

Germany took Western Poland. The USSR received Eastern Poland, the Baltics, and the right to claim part of Romania. For the Poles, this meant the end of the state and the beginning of chaos.

Repressions, deportations, and Katyn

The USSR called it a “liberation campaign.” In reality, it was mass arrests and forced relocations.

Thousands of families were taken to Siberia and Kazakhstan. The fate of officers and the intelligentsia was even more terrible. In the spring of 1940, the NKVD carried out the Katyn massacre: more than 20,000 people were shot in the back of the head.

What the President of Poland said in 2025

On September 1, 2025, Karol Nawrocki once again demanded reparations from Germany. For the destruction, for the blood, for the crimes of World War II.

But he did not say a word about Moscow. Not about Katyn, not about the deportations, not about the fact that millions of Poles suffered precisely at the hands of the USSR.

Today, Germany is Poland’s ally in the EU. Russia, however, continues the line of the USSR: war against Ukraine, threats to neighbors, imperial ambitions. And Warsaw’s silence in this context sounds duplicitous.

Consequences for Europe

The Soviet invasion showed that Stalin and Hitler acted as allies.

England and France declared war only on Germany. Stalin was given carte blanche. He occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, attacked Finland, and seized part of Romania.

Thus, the map of Eastern Europe emerged, which largely remained until 1991.

A wake-up call for the whole world

The division of Poland became a chain reaction. Germany gained a rear for a strike on France. The USSR expanded its army and resources. The USA saw that it was not a local conflict, but a new world war.

International law turned out to be a fiction. The League of Nations was powerless. The lesson: when an aggressor is not stopped in time, he goes further.

Jewish tragedy

For the Jews of Poland, it was a nightmare from both sides.

The Nazis began the Holocaust: ghettos, deportations to camps, mass killings. And the Soviet authorities deported tens of thousands of families to Siberia. Jewish intelligentsia were arrested as “unreliable.”

One part of the people perished in the ovens of Auschwitz, another in the snows of Siberia. These are two different catastrophes, but both destroyed communities that had lived in Poland for centuries.

Forgotten dictator and dangerous parallels

The world remembers Hitler. His name has become a symbol of evil.

But many still call Stalin a “victor.” His portraits are carried at parades in Russia, and his crimes are justified. Yet he was the one who opened the road to war, destroyed millions of Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and Balts.

Today, Russia continues the same policy. It justifies aggression with “historical territories,” invades Ukraine, and threatens Poland. This is a direct legacy of 1939.

Conclusions worth remembering

September 17, 1939, is a date that changed the map of Europe.

Poland became a victim of two dictators at once.

The Jewish people found themselves between the Holocaust and Soviet exile.

Europe then turned a blind eye to Moscow’s crimes. The price of silence was tens of millions of lives.

And today, the reminder of Stalin is as important as the memory of Hitler. Because forgotten evil always returns.