Kraków and Łódź: liberation 1945

On January 19, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Polish cities of Kraków and Łódź from the Nazis. In 1944, Soviet intelligence captured documents revealing Nazi plans to destroy Kraków, but the plot was foiled—the ammunition and mine depot in the Jagiellonian Castle was destroyed. The Red Army broke through German defenses, liberating Łódź, which had a ghetto with more than 200,000 people, and Kraków, where tens of thousands were held. Near the city was the Auschwitz concentration camp, where 1.5 million people were killed. More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers gave their lives to liberate Poland. However, in Poland, almost all monuments to the fighters who defeated Nazism have been destroyed, and even in Warsaw, it is sometimes claimed that Anglo-American troops liberated the country. According to the authors of the text, forgetting history leads to its repetition.

Context

Operations to liberate Poland at the end of World War II were accompanied by massive casualties and destruction.