Dr. Alfred Fiderkiewicz, Minister of Poland
I have the honour to report as follows:-
On receipt of your telegram 49 of the 29th July1 I made arrangements to receive Dr. Alfred Fiderkiewicz, the new Polish Minister.
He came on Friday the 2nd August at 11 a.m.
Dr. Fiderkiewicz is a man of medium height, of stockish build, of marked Jewish appearance and sixty years of age. He is a physician by profession and practised for ten years (from 1914) in Boston.
We first spoke about the beautiful July weather. He said that he had been warned that he would die of heat in Ottawa in the summer or of cold in the winter. I said that I had survived - but only just survived - seven years of the rigour of the Canadian climate. 'We were fortunate' I said 'in having such lovely clear fresh days as we have been enjoying. There is less humidity than we had in June and now it is August and we are promised a gala display of Northern Lights this weekend: that means the autumn is coming. So you need not fear for this summer'.
The Minister said that anyone who had lived in Europe these past years would welcome the change to Canada. 'Nineteen months in a German concentration camp in Poland make you appreciate the gifts of sun and air and freedom and food' he added.
Oswiecim
He then went on to give me an account of his life in the concentration camp at Oswiecim where he had been interned. He had seen the chambers in which 5,000 Jews a day were cremated. That was in 1943. The number of victims a day had increased to 25,000 by the end of that year. These were not cremated in the chambers but burned in pits flooded with rivers of blazing oil.
Dr. Fiderkiewicz has a long scar on his left jaw the bone of which has obviously been broken. 'This' he said 'was all they did to me. I was of use in the camp as a doctor'.
'I hate the Germans', he exclaimed suddenly shutting his fists and bringing them down on the arms of his chair. 'I never hated any living thing until this war. But now I hate the Germans. I know it is wrong to hate. But I can do nothing else but hate and hate and hate these people as long as I live'. The pallid face of the stocky little man went whiter as he spoke. He sat back for a moment overcome by his outburst. Then he resumed: 'Forgive me, my dear colleague, that is how I feel. There is no such thing as a decent German'.
I said that everybody sympathised with the people of Poland in their terrible sufferings. I told Dr. Fiderkiewicz of the recent visit of Irish Red Cross representatives to Warsaw and of the plans for the construction of an Irish Hospital there. 'You have done that for Poland?' he said, and, placing his hands over his eyes: 'Oh, how good Ireland is'.2
Irish associations in Boston
The Minister then told me of his life in Boston and his Irish friends there. His best assistant had been an Irish lady, Miss Fenelon, who was, he said, one of the first lady doctors to be qualified in Boston. She had sold him a Bond in the Irish Bond Drive. He had kept it until 1924 when it was burned in Warsaw where he had then returned. I interrupted to say that if he had had it later on he would have been repaid with interest of 10 cents on the dollar. 'You mean you paid back the whole loan with interest?' I said 'Yes. It was regarded by Mr. De Valera as a debt of honour and a first charge upon us when partial freedom came and he had legislation enacted to pay back the bondholders'. 'My, but I would not have wanted it back. I bought that Bond as a small contribution to the Irish cause. And I may tell you that if I hadn't bought it I'd have lost Dr. Fenelon'. Then he added 'I know something about the Irish struggle for freedom. You are independent now and you owe it to yourselves only'.
I said that we owed a lot to the Dr. Fenelons all over the United States and their friends.
[matter omitted]
Poland and Communism
'The world is being told that the Polish Government is Communist: it is not', the Minister said with great emphasis (no doubt for my edification). 'There is no Communist Party in Poland. There are Communists in all Parties: but they are not in a majority in the country'.
I said that Poland's friends throughout the world wanted to see her independent of all her neighbours.
'But so she is, and will remain' he urged. 'But she must have friends. Russia is Poland's friend. The mistake we made was in 1933. Pilsudski3 was a great Polish patriot but he made the mistake of thinking that we should make friends with Germany. Why we were in Germany's path of expansion then: as we will be again in twenty years time. We must consolidate our friendship with Russia before Germany rises to power again'.
I asked what the likelihood was of Germany rising again to challenge the sovereignty of Europe.
'Look, my friend, at what is happening at this very hour. Germany is to be put on a sound economic basis. That is the major policy of the Western Powers. What will their policy be next year, in ten years, from now? We are taking no chances. Will England save Poland from Germany in, say, twenty years time? Will France? We were 34 million people in 1939; today we are 23 million. The Germans did that to Poland in five years. We have to have a powerful friend beside us. It can never be Germany. It never was Germany. We did not know who our friends were. We do now. And our independence is assured'.
Thus Alfred Fiderkiewicz.
