Losers, Winners, and Their Crimes in the Context of the Themes of Józef Mackiewicz’s Selected Works

The article gives an overview of Józef Mackiewicz’s outlook on the ambivalent status quo of World War II "winners" and "losers." The author of The Triumph of Provocation suggests that the only real winner in 1945 turned out to be communist ideology because after the war there were disproportions in perceptions of Nazi and communist war crimes. Mackiewicz, who was "a witness" to both German and Soviet murders (at Ponary and Katyń), also referred in his works to little known war facts about which it was "better not to talk aloud" and crimes and abuses of the Allies.