„Historia magistra vitae est”

History is the teacher of life

These two quotes, repeated on various occasions, celebrations and remembrance days are supposed to remind us to learn from the past and avoid the mistakes our ancestors made.

When one picks up a history
book and tries to analyse the causal relationship behind the outbreak of wars
throughout the centuries, it’s hard not to wonder why the key players of those events did not notice them at the time.
After all, for a reader armed with the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of
the final course of events, they often seem all too obvious.

Why wasn’t Hitler stopped when there was still time, allowing for an unprecedented extermination of civilians in concentration camps? Why did the politicians of the early XXth century did not realise the unavoidable consequences of their actions (or lack thereof), why were they seemingly so naïve?

Looking at the dynamics
of events in Ukraine and the world’s response over the course of the recent
weeks, we often reflect on what tomorrow brings. In the information chaos and
in the face of what Dr. Jacek Bartosiak calls “fog of war”, it is often difficult to say what the
reality looks like.

Some claim that Russia grossly
overestimated its chances for a quick success, it is surprised by the
resistance of the Ukrainians and the harsh reaction of the West, it is
practically broken economically and at this point, mostly hoping for “saving
face” through peace talks. Others are waiting for (imminent and inevitable in
their eyes) full Russian occupation of Ukraine, and yet others are afraid of
the possible escalation of the conflict and the spark that will start a World
War III.

I decided to conduct an experiment and examine how the events of the first days of World War II were commented in the press. I compared the headlines of polish newspapers from 1939 with the headlines of news websites from 2022. It is not my intention to make any assertions, jump to conclusions or doomsday announcements that World War III has just begun. I think that there are certainly many possible scenarios ahead, but in order to avoid the most terrible ones, we have to take them into account and truly understand how to counteract them.

I leave what I found below, and invite you all to take a minute and reflect on those striking comparisons.