Ricardo Ruiz de la Serna

Human rights | journalism | humanities | global governance | technology

Personal views. RT/FAV/ no response are not endorsements. Spanish profile @RRdelaSerna

[Bruges Group 🇬🇧 @BrugesGroup]

Democracy in the EU.

[Prosperity Institute @Prosperity_Inst]

🏹 Our @defossardf commented in @Daily_Express today on wasteful use of taxpayer money on DEI in government departments

Link below

[Dr Helen Fry | WWII Historian @DrHelenFry]

https://t.co/Idw2zLg7Yn

[Daily Romania @daily_romania]

Poland's President Karol Nawrocki vetoes the implementation of the EU's Digital Services Act which aims to censor Europeans online:

"A situation in which a government official decides what is permitted on the Internet is reminiscent of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984."

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Polish resistance fighter and Warsaw Uprising veteran Wiesław Lechowicz codename. "Anchor" died this morning aged 100.

He was the last survivor of the legendary “Miotła” battalion which went through the full 63 days of the heroic Uprising in 1944.

We will not forget you! 💔🇵🇱

[Edward Reid @ReidEdwardII]

There are nations that prefer comfort over truth, nations that soften their own past until it becomes an easy story to repeat, a story that protects pride rather than confronts reality. In many places history is shaped not by what happened but by what people wish had happened. It becomes a curated memory, free of guilt, free of responsibility, free of the uncomfortable details that demand humility and honest reckoning. Yet there is a country at the heart of Europe that resists this instinct completely. Poland refuses to hide behind comforting myths. Poland insists that its history must be remembered as it truly was, with its wounds exposed and its suffering acknowledged, because truth itself is a form of loyalty to the dead.

Poland stands today as one of the last nations willing to speak clearly about the moral realities of the twentieth century. In an age filled with relativism, when everything is said to be “complicated” or “open to interpretation,” Poland remembers that some facts are not ambiguous at all. There was a perpetrator and there were victims. There was a system of German terror that targeted entire populations, including Jews, Poles, Roma, and many others. There was a structure of occupation built on brutality and annihilation. To blur these distinctions is not nuance but cynicism. Poland refuses to take part in that.

This is why Poland rejects any attempt to shift blame for the Holocaust onto its soil, as if the land itself were responsible for the crimes committed upon it. The truth remains unchanged. Germany built the camps. Germany operated them. German authorities guarded, administered, and expanded this machinery of death. Poland as a nation did not collaborate in creating these institutions. Poland as a nation did not govern anything during the occupation because Poland as a state had been destroyed - to imply otherwise is not a historical claim. It is an evasion of responsibility.

In a Europe that often prefers to forget its own wartime complicity, Poland stands as a witness. It remembers the villages burned to the ground, the millions of its citizens murdered or starved, the deportations into forced labor, the executions, the mass graves hidden in forests and ravines. It remembers the deliberate destruction of its intellectual and cultural leadership, which historians identify as a targeted attempt to cripple the Polish nation permanently. It remembers that ethnic Poles were not simply observers of someone else’s tragedy but victims of a genocidal policy that sought to eliminate them as a people. Yet the world rarely speaks of this suffering, perhaps because acknowledging it would require confronting uncomfortable truths about other nations and their failures.

Poland refuses this silence. It insists that historical responsibility remain exactly where it belongs. It insists that memory must not be weakened by euphemisms or shaped by contemporary political pressures. It insists that the suffering of its people be recognized as part of the war’s moral landscape rather than something pushed aside to create a simpler story. Poland knows that the integrity of history is not a matter of national vanity. It is a matter of justice.

Poland is not perfect, and it does not pretend to be. Yet it is one of the few countries that understands that truth is not only a historical principle but a moral one. To remember accurately is to honor the dead. To speak clearly is to resist the slow decay of cynicism. To defend history from distortion is to defend the dignity of those who can no longer speak for themselves.

In a world where the past is often treated as something flexible, something to be reshaped or softened depending on the needs of the present, Poland stands firm. It stands as a barrier against forgetting. It stands as a reminder that truth matters even when it is painful. It stands as the last line against the moral cynicism that grows wherever memory is allowed to fade

[Edward Reid @ReidEdwardII]

On December 4, 1942, in the darkest period of the German occupation, a unique organization emerged in Warsaw. Żegota, officially known as the Council for Aid to Jews, was created for a single and uncompromising purpose: to save Jews from extermination. It operated under the authority of the Polish Underground State and the Polish Government in Exile, bringing together Catholics and Jewish activists in a rescue mission carried out under the constant threat of death.

Żegota’s members worked entirely in secrecy as they navigated a city controlled by German military police and the Gestapo. Their work began with the most essential task, which was providing false identity papers. These documents included birth certificates, baptismal records, and residency permits that gave thousands of Jews a chance to survive on the so called Aryan side. Their efforts went far beyond the creation of forged papers. Żegota organized hiding places in apartments, basements, attics, and rural homes, and ensured that people living in hiding received food, financial assistance, and medical care.

Some of the most daring work involved children. With the help of couriers and caregivers such as Irena Sendler, Żegota smuggled more than two thousand five hundred Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and placed them in convents, orphanages, hospitals, and Polish family homes. These children received new names, new identities, and most importantly a chance at life. Żegota also distributed funds from the Underground State in the form of monthly payments for Jews in hiding. This financial support was often the difference between survival and discovery, because life outside the ghetto required resources that many people no longer possessed.

The obstacles faced by Żegota were immense. In occupied Poland, helping Jews carried the harshest penalty in Europe. The Germans imposed immediate execution on anyone who sheltered a Jew, and this punishment frequently extended to the rescuer’s entire family. Żegota activists often lived under assumed names and moved frequently for their own safety, because a single mistake could bring fatal consequences. The organization struggled constantly with shortages of money, forged documents, medicine, and safe houses, since the scale of German violence overwhelmed every humanitarian effort.

Despite these difficulties, Żegota continued its mission with determination. Doctors, priests, pharmacists, couriers, and ordinary civilians played their part in sustaining a network that operated across the General Government. It was a humanitarian effort carried out under the most brutal conditions imaginable.

The impact of Żegota was profound. Historians estimate that the organization provided assistance to tens of thousands of Jews in hiding. It supported clandestine medical care, distributed forged identity papers on a large scale, and rescued more than two thousand five hundred children from certain death. Today, Żegota stands as a testament to the moral courage shown by those who refused to accept the destruction occurring around them. It remains one of the most remarkable rescue efforts of the Second World War and a powerful example of compassion, bravery, and resistance in the midst of genocide.

[Sir Humphrey @pinstripedline]

This account of Swedish cold war planning looks incredible and will be published in English next year. Definitely going to be a 'must read'!

Of note, the UK would have housed evacuated monarchs from Sweden, and many other nations in WW3.

https://t.co/7d3Aq5AeAu

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

BREAKING:

Geert Wilders suspends his campaign after having been informed by the country’s security agency that he was one of the targets of a planned drone attack by an Islamist terror cell.

The Dutch parliamentary election will take place on October 29th 🇳🇱

[Len Khodorkovsky @MessageFromLen]

This you?

[The Jerusalem Post @Jerusalem_Post]

Israel will not participate in the United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday, as it coincides with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon announced.

https://t.co/FlAHjfgzfS

[Mark Steyn @MarkSteynOnline]

"...'Secular humanism' is the problem not the solution.

As I wrote all those years ago, every enduring society needs a transcendent meaning.

It's not hard to figure out: entire areas of human achievement, from music to architecture, have died with the collapse of faith.

Charlie Kirk was brilliant at the politics - who's two points up in Iowa - but his legacy is far beyond such trivia: get married, he urged; have children..."

[GB News @GBNEWS]

Patriotic Britons 'could be DEBANKED just for raising Union Jack' as urgent warning issued https://t.co/bJ4moSxYoC

[Orbán Viktor @PM_ViktorOrban]

The European Union is teetering on the brink, with debt, migration, violence, and failing policies everywhere. Hungary stands firm: migrant-free, pro-family, providing opportunities to those willing to work. We need courage - intellectual, political, and personal - to recognise that the West is no longer a role model to follow, and to show that there is a better way. 🇭🇺

[Klaas Meijer @klaasm67]

During the Battle of Arnhem, 12 Dutch commandos fought alongside the Allies. One of them was Tom Italiaander, attached to the 1st Airlanding Reconnaissance Squadron. In November 1944, he also participated in the Battle of the Scheldt. He was awarded the Bronze Cross.🫡🇳🇱

[Prosperity Institute @Prosperity_Inst]

🇬🇧 Proud to launch our most recent report - Why and How to Leave the European Convention on Human Rights by @dampierguy and @suellabraverman.

The ECHR is holding Britain back.

Find out why 👇

[The Spectator @spectator]

On this week's episode of The Edition podcast: Michael Gove warns of Weimar Germany echoes in Britain, and Matt Ridley bemoans the 'cultification' of science. Tap to listen 👇

@michaelgove @mattwridley
https://t.co/ibOTgMKUvC

[Estonian World @EstonianWorld]

Why NATO held fire on Russian jets – and why Estonia may need its own https://t.co/CoQCGZp0Jg via @estonianworld #Estonia #Russia #NATO #ItalianAirForce

[Heritage Foundation @Heritage]

Pat Buchanan was right about America First before anyone else saw it. On trade, immigration, and sovereignty, he sounded the alarm decades ago. He is principled, conservative, and has never wavered. He deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Watch here ⬇️

[Heritage Foundation @Heritage]

5 years since President @realDonaldTrump brokered the Abraham Accords, these agreements remain one of the most important American foreign policy achievements in history.

Watch our special video on the past, present, & future of the Abraham Accords, narrated by U.S. Ambassador to Israel @GovMikeHuckabee.