Probably around 2007 – I was lucky enough to visit ‘Hay-on-Wye‘ – situated on the border between Wales and England! Indeed, I seem to have memories of visiting this wonderful place on at least two occasions – with Gee, Sue-Ling, Liz and one or two others. I even spent a few days in a local Guesthouse so that I could enjoy the area more fully! Hay-on-Wye is a small town (or large village) with virtually every building serving as a second-hand and ‘new’ book shop! There are even a few shops which allow visiters to look round and take books for ‘free’ – leaving a donation in a wooden box – if a donation can be afforded! This is where I acquired my precious copy of Alexander Werth’s 1964 book entitled ‘Russia At War’! Alexander Werth was brought up in England from a small child – but was born in Czarist Russia! As his parets were ethnic Russian – as well as being brought up as a middle-class English gentleman – he could also fluently speak, read and write the Russian language!
This ability served him well with the suitably impressed Soviet Authorities – as he became one of only a handful of foreign Journalists to be embedded in the frontline of the Soviet Red Army from 1941-1945 (he was to stay in the USSR until 1949 during this visit – and even had a personal meeting with Joseph Stalin). As June 6th, 2023 is the 79th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings – I thought I would share a chapter of the above book regarding the Soviet Red Army’s discovery of the Nazi German ‘Majdanek Concentration Camp’ situated in the Lublin area of East Poland. Although the fighting was ferocious, when the violence had died down, the Journalists were taken to this Death Centre around four-weeks after its ‘Liberation’. The Soviet Red Army entered the Camp on July 22nd, 1944 (as fighting was continuing between UK and Hitlerite troops in Western Europe) – with Alexander Werth visiting the Camp at the end of August, 1944.
Nazi German records (together with the tangible evidence) suggested that around 1.5 million people passed through this Camp between 1942-1944. Werth’s Report to the BBC during late August was ‘vetoed’ by Churchill (who wrote in the margin ‘Soviet propaganda’ NOT for broadcasting). This was the first official encountering of a Hitlerite Death Camp during WWII but even then – the West was beginning to disavow its alliance with the USSR – implying the regime habitually used ‘lying’ to mould material reality! The ironic point about this Western policy is that the misrepresentation of the history and ideology of the USSR in this instance – is that it represents a direct application of ‘Holocaust Denial’! We are taught in the West that Soviet suffering does not matter and that the 41 million dead Soviet men, women and children are probably better off dead! In fact, the suffering of the Jews has been meticulously recorded – although the US-controlled Wikipedia likes to continuously ‘reduce’ the number of victims in Camps ‘Liberated’ by the Soviets – whilst simultaneously ‘increasing’ the number of those who perished in the Camps Liberated by the Western allies! Due to the sacrifice of the Soviet Red Army in Eastern Europe – the survival chances of my grandfathers fighting in Western Europe were greatly increased! Thank you Russia – thank you USSR!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 