“We forgive and ask for forgiveness.” These were the words written by the Polish Catholic bishops to their German counterparts in a pastoral letter dated Nov. 18, 1965.
We, Poles and Ukrainians, do not need a similar reconciliation and yet, today, these may be the most important words Poles and Ukrainians can say to one another.
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To understand the courage behind that letter from the Polish bishops, one must remember when it was written: just twenty years after the end of World War II.
One-fifth of the Polish nation had perished in this war. Millions were murdered by Germans, cities were destroyed, and families shattered. Germans had not merely occupied Poland – they had sought to erase it. They shot civilians, burned villages, exterminated entire communities, and turned our land into a vast cemetery.
Yet in 1965, Polish bishops reached out to Germany with a message that stunned Europe: “We forgive and ask for forgiveness.”
They did not forget, they did not excuse, they did not deny history. They chose reconciliation.
The letter became one of the foundations of the remarkable reconciliation between Poland and Germany – a reconciliation that once seemed impossible.
We do not need reconciliation between our nations, Polish and Ukrainian – but we do need to understand the past and forgive one another.
I am Polish. Members of my family were killed during World War II by Germans, by Soviets, and, in Volhynia, by whom?
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