[dragonwriter]

Poland, on top of all the statehood problems, also lost 1/5 of it's population to WWII (6 million), which is a substantially larger share of the prewar population than the ~26.5 million Soviet losses were for the Soviet Union, and (again compared to population) Russia wasn't even the worst off of the Soviet Republics in thar.

So, no, Russia's WWII losses don't make Poland's problems a "walk in the park".

[giardini]

My sincerest apologies for that unthinking statement - losing statehood is always much, much more than simply the words 'losing statehood' - it almost inevitably includes war, strife and famine. And certainly every one of Poland's six million or more lost souls, each of those dislocated, wounded and in all ways harmed by war, was a loss to someone's mother, brothers, father, sisters and friends. Were we able to find these lost souls and somehow bring them back we would certainly do so. But words and acts fail: we are but human, not gods, and so Poland's loss, as well as the losses of all involved, will always weigh upon us heavily. What was lost was incalculable and irreplaceable. Who knows what we could have been had only it not happened?