362 GOLGOTAform a Polish army in Russia, to grant an Amnesty to all Polish internees, and
to annul the provisions of the Nazi-Soviet Pact regarding Poland. On 4 August
Pravda announced that the Polish—Soviet frontier was open to future settlement.
A military convention was signed on 12 August. The suspension of blatant injus-
tices was presented to the world as a magnanimous Soviet 'concession'.
The tensions persisting in this alliance between enemies were obvious from the
start. The Poles, conscious of their weak position, were determined to concede
not an inch in territorial or political matters. The Soviets resorted to all forms of
pressure, provocation, and prevarication. Polish prisoners in the USSR were not
promptly released. Polish and Jewish leaders were rearrested, imprisoned, and,
in some cases, shot. The Polish Army did not receive promised support or sup-
plies. Polish communist organizations, hostile to the Government-in-Exile, were
revived. No satisfactory explanation was offered as to the fate of the 15,000 miss-
ing Polish officers. The Soviet press and propaganda agencies attacked Polish
claims unceasingly. Soviet officials insisted on treating all Polish citizens of
Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Lithuanian, or Jewish nationality as if they were Soviet
subjects; and Soviet diplomats launched a campaign for the recognition of the
Curzon Line frontier. The difficulty of getting a simple answer to simple ques-
tions was evident in every approach which the Poles made:
Conversation with Stalin. In the Kremlin. 14 November 1941
Ambassador You are the author of an amnesty for Polish citizens in
KOT: the USSR. You made that gesture, and I should be grateful if you would
bring influence to bear to ensure that it could be carried out completely.
STALIN: Are there Poles still not released?
KOT: We have still not seen one officer from the camp in Staro-
bielsk which was dissolved in the spring of 1940.
STALIN: I shall go into that...
KOT: We have names and lists; for instance General Stanislaw Haller has not
been found. We lack the officers from Starobielsk, Kozielsk, and
Ostashkov, who were transferred from those camps in April and May 1940.
STALIN: We have released everybody, even people whom General Sikorski sent to
us to blow up bridges and kill Soviet people...
KOT: All the names are registered with the Russian camp commanders, who
summon all the prisoners to roll-call every day. In addition, the
Narkomvnudziel interviewed each man separately. Not one officer on
the staff of General Anders' army which he commanded in Poland has
been handed over.
(Stalin for a minute or two has been pacing slowly up and down by the table, smoking a
cigarette, but listening closely and answering questions. Suddenly he goes swiftly to the
telephone on Molotov's desk and connects with the Narkomvnudziel. Molotov gets up
and also goes to the telephone.)
MOLOTOV: This is the way.
STALIN: NKVD? This is Stalin. Have all the Poles been released from the prisons?
(He listens to the answer.) Because I have the Polish Ambassador with me
and he tells me they haven't all been released. (He listens again then