"Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again."

That is an extract from a poem written by the admired English poet W.H. Auden entitled SEPTEMBER 1, 1939, which portrayed the impending danger and misery about to unfold in Europe, and most immediately in Poland. Suffered again, only 20 years after World War I. Written on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II, it was first published in magazine The New Republic's issue of October 18, 1939, and first published in book form in Auden's collection Another Time in 1940.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II when Nazi Germany attacked Poland from its south west border, citing border hostilities with the Poles, as the Chicago Daily Tribune reported it in a despatch from Assocciated Press (see above). Those hostilities were manufactured by Germany. The attack began with an attempt to take Gdansk, known to Germany as the former Prussian capital Danzig, on the Baltic coast.

What is perhaps most significant is that Germany never declared war on Poland. It just attacked in its first blitzkrieg. Poland stood to defend the mighty aggressor and paved the way for the UK and France to declare war on Germany two days later. Millions would later die defending their country or themselves from an anti-semitic, anti-slavic western neighbour. On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east as the two superpowers carved up Poland between them.

Today, Poles and others will commemorate the beginning of World War II. In London, the Polish embassy holds a memorial outside the General Sikorski statue in Portland Place.

Although we live in a new, less dangerous Europe, it is only by remembering the past that we can prevent the past happening again.