As a result of World War II, humanity suffered unimaginable losses. The conflict affected dozens of countries, and hostilities were carried out in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the oceans and almost all the seas of the world. According to various estimates, from 50 to over 70 million people could have died there, mostly civilians. Among them, there were 6 million Polish citizens.

World War II began on September 1, 1939 with the attack of Germany on Poland. On September 3, 1939, after the Third Reich ignored the ultimatum regarding the immediate withdrawal of troops from Poland, France and Great Britain with the dominions: Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa and Canada declared war on the Third German Reich. Earlier, the Soviet Union, under the secret Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, divided the sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe with Germany. As a result, the USSR attacked Poland on September 17, 1939. The consequence of this situation was the Fourth Partition of Poland by Adolf Hitler and Józef Stalin. In the historiography of the USSR and contemporary Russian, the concept of the so-called the Great Patriotic War – from June 22, 1941, the attack of the Third Reich on the USSR to May 9, 1945 – repeated surrender of the Third Reich in Berlin (after Reims). Soviet and contemporary Russian historiography rejects the participation of the USSR in the war on the side of the Third Reich in 1939-41 – from the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 23, 1939 and the German-Soviet treaty on borders and friendship of September 28, 1939, to the Third Reich’s attack on USSR. The United States entered the war on December 7, 1941, following the Japanese attack on the American Navy base at Pearl Harbor. On December 11, 1941, the Third Reich declared war on the United States.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the start of this greatest war in human history. At 4.35 am the Germans bombarded Wieluń, and 10 minutes later the battleship “Schleswig-Holstein” attacked the Polish outpost on Westerplatte. The German plan envisaged a lightning-fast war based on the might of an army against the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Its overture was the occupation of Austria and the Czech Sudetes, and later also the Czech Republic, and the subjugation of Slovakia. This paper presents the issues related to the fate of Poles before the outbreak of World War II on the territory
of the USSR and in the first months of the war in Pomerania. The subject of the use of weapons seized by the Wehrmacht from the Czechoslovak army in the Polish campaign of 1939 was also discussed. The work also includes articles relating to the activities of the Redemptorist Order during World War II and the Soviet terror in Poland at the end of World War II. The Varia section contains a number of articles on history, political science, theology and economics. We hope that they will arouse the interest of readers and broaden the knowledge of some topics related to our history and life.