Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 10, 1990                   TAG: 9003122953
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

REUNIFICATION TALKS SHOULD INCLUDE POLAND

Poland is most directly interested in security and stability on her borders with Germany. No other country suffered so much from German aggression as Poland.

Naturally, Poles are the most sensitive to terms of settlement of World War II. They are the most likely to suffer consequences of any loopholes, such as German commitment to change their borders "by peaceful means." The Soviets may well let some loopholes remain in order to play them up later.

We are now witnessing Chancellor Kohl and other German politicians avoiding any positive statement on the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border with Poland. They seem to fear that they would lose votes thereby. A large part of the German public is again suffering from their usual national megalomania and feels that they can dispose of the 40 million Poles at will.

West Germans have been taught in schools and by mass media that half of Poland is under temporary status, or "for the time being under Polish administration." The fact that Germans killed 20 percent of Poland's population, and that more Polish soldiers fought on the fronts of collapsing Germany in 1945 than any other nationality besides Americans and Russians, is practically never mentioned.

In the entire period between wars, German politicians saw destruction of Poland as their main goal. They believed that Prussia can be either German or Polish, but not both. For the same reason, Chancellor Bismarck advocated extermination of Polish people. He was following the traditional policies of the Berlin government, which initiated the crime of partitions and obliteration of Poland.

George Clemenceau said: "Let us recall the partitions of Poland, the greatest crime in history, which leaves an everlasting stigma . . . No outrage had ever less excuse, no violence perpetrated against humanity ever cried louder for a redress that had been indefinitely postponed."\ IVO C. POGONOWSKI BLACKSBURG

Editor's note: The writer is author of "Poland: A Historical Atlas."