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The Silver Sword
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Historical Context: The Nazi Invasion and Occupation of Poland
The beginning of World War II dates to the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The Soviet Union joined the invasion about two weeks later. The Germans used the strategy of blitzkrieg, or lightning war, in the invasion. Sixty divisions totaling 1.5 million German soldiers entered Poland, with support from 2,000 tanks, 900 bombers, and 400 fighter planes. The world was shocked by the rapid progress of German forces through Poland, as well as by the ruthlessness of the German advance. Hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians were killed or injured as the country’s army was overwhelmed by the German forces. While Poland managed to mobilize around 1 million troops, they had no tanks, outdated weaponry, and only a very small air force. On October 8, 1939, Germany officially annexed western Poland. The Soviet Union took control of the eastern regions of the country.
After annexation, Germany began to carry out its policy of lebensraum, in which native Poles were removed from their homes under various pretenses to make way for German settlers. One way the Nazis enacted lebensraum was by arresting and imprisoning Poles who resisted its policies, as in the case of Joseph Balicki in The Silver Sword. Joseph demonstrates his condemnation of the Nazi regime by turning the portrait of Adolf Hitler at his school to face the wall and is sent to a concentration camp as punishment. His family is evicted from their home. The Nazis normalized a culture of citizen policing and reporting in the countries they occupied, rewarding those who turned on their colleagues, neighbors, friends, and even family by reporting their anti-Nazi statements or behaviors. Those like Joseph who ran afoul of the Nazi regime were sent to forced labor or concentration camps (Hughs, Thomas A. & Rhoyde-Smith, John Graham. “WWII.” Britannica, 1998).
Simultaneously, the Nazis instituted their program of state-sanctioned antisemitism in Poland. The Nazi regime banned Jewish people from schools, shops, and workplaces, and redistributed Jewish populations from their existing housing into crowded, unsanitary ghettos. Approximately 3.5 million Polish Jews were forced into ghettos and eventually transported to concentration camps.
Historical Context: Post-World War II Europe
World War II left the European continent literally and metaphorically in ruins. Many cities, towns, villages, and farms had been destroyed through combat and bombing. Dangerous military debris littered the countryside, including unexploded bombs. Some armies, particularly the German and Russian armies, had followed a “Scorched Earth Policy,” whereby enemy regions were destroyed as troops withdrew to hinder the opposition’s ability to continue to wage war. The Scorched Earth Policy required that no shelter, food, or viable land be left behind for the enemy to benefit from. After the war, this meant that there was no shelter, food, or arable land for citizens to return to, either.
As a result, after the conclusion of the war, many Europeans were living a spartan existence. Food was scarce, and infrastructure like electricity was often unavailable. Due to the destruction of homes, offices, and factories, there was mass unemployment and homelessness. The Balicki children’s journey to Switzerland after the war depicts the profound devastation of post-war Europe. When the children in the refugee camp scuffle over Jan’s spilled soup, it reflects the starvation that persisted past the war across large areas of the continent. Millions of displaced people and refugees lived rough or in refugee camps, while millions more traveled through Europe and sent letters over the continent in search of missing family members, as reflected by the Balickis’ story in The Silver Sword. Despite an immense need for reconstruction and repair, there was a shortage of resources for rebuilding. Many Europeans lived amid ruin and rubble for years, as economies that had been stretched to the breaking point with wartime expenses struggled to recover (“Post War Europe 1944-1951.” Historiana, 2023). European countries that had been involved in the war were in massive debt, often relying on loans from Britain and America for handouts to their populations.
For Poland, the recovery of national independence took longer than for most European nations. After the Nazis were defeated, the Soviet Union seized power in Poland. Poland remained a part of the USSR until its dissolution in 1989 when it became the Polish Republic.
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