I have several Polish friends and acquaintances from various parts of my life. I lived next door to a Polish family whose Grandfather lived with them and had was a veteran of the World War. I had friends in University from Poland and now my cleaner in school is Polish (I'm teaching her English) and I have taught several Poles in school over the last ten years.
I've brought up the opinions that Poles have about Germans and Russians on several occasions and all the people I have spoken to all agree that the Poles hate the Russians more than they do the Germans. In fact, Old Mr. Dubrowski told me a joke about a Polish unit in the last days of fighting.
Their officer said, "We're surrounded with the Germans on the left and the Russians on the right. Which should we attack first?"
The Senior NCO replied, "We attack the Germans, Sir, we always conduct business before pleasure."
This was confirmed by my University friends who had lived through Communism and were just seeing freedom, granted they were probably the most Pro-West of their generation, but they resented the East more than the Germans.
More recently I've been able to speak with a wider range of people from academics to blue collar workers and they all hate the Russians more than the Germans. Blata, my cleaner, put it best: she said that the Poles didn't really understand the German mind set and treat them like a force of nature more to be endured rather than resented; the Russians are fellow Slavs and it is more like an on-going family feud. It may be put aside temporarily but eventually you go back to the feud with renewed vigour.
Now, that doesn't mean that the Poles would be deserting en mass, especially as everybody took a massive dump on them during the war but it does probably explain the situation in the game where groups of Western troops get a less-than-hostile reception in many parts of the country.
As for the Russians having three years to convince the Poles that it was all the West's fault, another Pole told me they have a saying, "How can you tell a Russian is lying? His mouth is moving and words are coming out."
Does that mean that there would be whole units of defected Polish Marines in the US roster? I doubt it: the Polish Marines are an elite unit still under the command of the Polish Government (pro-Soviet, true, but still "the Government"), I can see small numbers defecting (enough for flavour at least), but the majority are going to hold together for now especially as existing material suggests they've been held in reserve and may not have the feeling that some faceless bureaucrat is frittering their lives away in a pointless war in the way that most defecting units seem to have been treated.
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