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Post by Bonobo on Sept 11, 2009 21:11:27 GMT 1
German cardinal says Germans, Poles must recognize WWII grievances
By Jonathan Luxmoore
9/4/2009
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- A German cardinal said his country will not achieve full reconciliation with neighboring Poland until both nations recognize the grievances of millions of civilians who lost everything in deportations during and after World War II.
"We should remember the present generation doesn't carry the blame for these events, but bears responsibility for them," said Berlin Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky.
"The challenge of approaching others without prejudice and working for a united Europe will not be met until Poles expelled from their prewar eastern territories are understood in Germany, as are the reasons why Germans were expelled from lands now belonging to Poland. This is causing many unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts," he told the Polish Catholic news agency KAI Aug. 30.
The same day, Polish and German bishops celebrated a Mass in Berlin to commemorate the Sept. 1, 1939, German attack on Poland that began World War II. Church leaders from both countries called for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation at the Mass at St. Hedwig Cathedral.
Cardinal Sterzinsky told KAI that in 1946 his family was expelled from Warmia, in what is now Poland, adding that he had been warned by his mother that "love of enemies" was the "hardest obligation for a Christian."
However, he said, Polish deportees farther east had "faced the same losses as Germans," and he cautioned against using national sufferings "in a political game."
"A part of German Christians are led by emotions and seeking legal justifications for them, which is why I repeat that we still haven't fulfilled the task of reconciliation, " Cardinal Sterzinsky said.
"If we aren't able to forgive, even the whole Polish nation, we cannot go to confession, receive absolution or, in consequence, the sacrament of the Eucharist. Nor will God himself forgive us," he added.
The German army invasion of western and northern Poland began a six-year occupation that cost Poland a third of its national wealth and a fifth of its population, including 90 percent of its Jewish minority.
Although both countries are now members of NATO and the European Union, periodically ties have been tense over compensation demands for deportees.
Polish politicians reacted angrily when Germany's governing Christian Democrat Union called for expelled Germans to have a "right to a homeland" during its campaign for elections to the European Parliament in June.
However, in an Aug. 22 speech in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the expulsions were a "direct consequence" of Nazi crimes and warned against "falsifying history."
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 19, 2009 21:08:25 GMT 1
Czechs praise Kaczynski’s apology for 1938 annexation
03.09.2009 09:43
Jan Sechter, the Czech Ambassador in Warsaw, has praised remarks by President Kaczynski, describing Poland’s part in the annexing of Sudetenland just before WW II as “a sin”.
“Poland’s participation in the annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was not only an error, but above all a sin,” Kaczynski told an audience of world leaders, including Prime Minister Putin and Chacellor Merkel on September 1. “This was and shall forever remain a wrong,” he added.
President Kaczynski’s remarks were made in speeches commemorating the 70th anniversary of the start of WW II on September 1 and refered to the occupation by Poland of the Zaolzie region following the 1938 Munich Agreement, which allowed Nazi Germany to annex Sudetenland, previously in Czechoslovak territory.
In October 1938, Polish troops annexed an area of 801.5 sq km with a population of 227,399 people. The Polish government at the time argued that Poles in the area should have the same rights as Sudeten Germans.
President Kaczynski also said that the Munich Agreement, signed by France, Germany and Great Britain had “violated Czechoslovak territory.”
The area, returned to Czechs after WW II was disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia ever since. But since Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia joined the EU in 2004 and the Schengen Zone in 2007, the matter has lessened in importance.
Czech Ambassador Sechter said yesterday that President Kaczynski had made a unique gesture in front of so many foreign guests at the Westerplatte ceremony, however.
Asked whether Poland should also apologize to the Czechs for Polish troops being part of the pacification of the Prague Spring in 1968 – when Warsaw Pact nations jointly brought down the anti-communist uprising - the ambassador said that this was a completely different situation. “Back then, Brezhnev treated us all like satellites. This was consistent with his theory of limited sovereignty for countries of Central Europe. If Moscow decided on a similar action in Hungary, for instance, then the Czechoslovak Army probably would have also taken part in the invasion,” said the ambassador.
“So we do not treat what was done by the Polish Army in 1968 as a Polish initiative. For us, the true attitude of the Poles was symbolized by Richard Siwiec,” Jan Sechter said.
On 8 September 1968 Siwiec set himself on fire in protest against the invasion during a harvest festival in Warsaw. (pg)
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 21, 2009 21:48:07 GMT 1
I have found a Pol Am man with the same views as me. It is nice to know that you are not alone among your compatriots most of whom profess a different opinion. Read a post from his forum:
To: Mark Kohan, Editor, Polish American Journal
Re: 'Jewish accounts often allege Polish complicity in the Holocaust'
Dear Mark, After reading Robert Strybel's response to my letter to the editor in the September issue, in which he attempted to justify the anti-Jewish, Zydokomuna theory, it was discouraging to see additional inflammatory remarks in his article, "70th Anniversary of the Outbreak of World War II: Poland Didn't Start the War but was First to Fight."
In the article Strybel states that Jews are "helping to diminish Germany's blame" for the Holocaust. He states that "Jewish accounts often allege Polish complicity in the Holocaust and copiously repeat the words "Polish," "Poles" and "Poland" in that context." Strybel's comments illustrate why the examination of Polish-Jewish relations is best left to objective historians and commentators without an ethno-nationalistic axe to grind.
Certainly, many Jews have bitter memories of their experiences in Poland. The Second Republic was rife with anti-Semitism including university quotas, educational segregation, boycotting of Jewish businesses, exclusionary hiring and promotion practices in the public and private sectors, discussions of deportation, along with violence and murder. Much of this anti-Jewish sentiment continued into the war years. It is true that thousands of Polish Christians risked their lives and the lives of their family and neighbors during the war by harboring Jews from the German Nazis. However, there were also many Poles that either betrayed Jews to the occupier or were indifferent to their plight. Let's keep in mind that of the four political parties that comprised the governing body of the Polish underground, the Delegatura, the largest of these, the National Party, comprised of Catholic conservatives, refused to support the Council of Aid to Jews, Zegota, in any way.
Yes, many in the Jewish community have an extremely negative opinion of Poles and Poland. However, there are also many that have a more balanced and even positive view. Many Jews have taken notice of the remarkably substantive efforts made by Poland in recent years to improve Polish-Jewish relations.
Traditionalist pundits like Strybel thrive on the continuation of historic prejudices, mistrust, and confrontation between Poles and Jews. Readers of the Polish American Journal deserve thoughtful, objective, non-inflammatory reporting and commentary, not the provocative, shallow, populist rhetoric that comes from Mr. Strybel.
Sincerely,groups.yahoo.com/group/polishamericanforum |
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 25, 2009 22:46:28 GMT 1
War over distortions of history
The Guardian
Saturday 12 September 2009
Loth as I am to agree with Niall Ferguson (Why did the second world war begin?, 5 September) www.guardian .co.uk/world/ 2009/sep/ 05/second- world-war- background- causes his comparison of the Polish Second Republic with Nazi Germany is entirely legitimate. Besides not being a "model democracy" www.guardian .co.uk/world/ 2009/sep/ 11/poland- war-fascism the Polish Second Republic persecuted its Jewish minority in a manner precisely comparable to the policies of the Third Reich. There were "ghetto benches" in Polish universities, with quotas restricting the number of Jews able to attend university; Polish Jews were excluded from public and professional sectors of employment; there was recurrent anti-Jewish violence and murder, the boycotting and plundering of Jewish shops, and a rampantly extremist rightwing party, the National Democrats, which advocated the stripping of Jewish citizenship and forced emigration, and issued a barrage of racially inspired and hateful propaganda. In January 1939 the Polish government planned to implement legislation akin to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws – only the intervention of war prevented this. Unspeakable horrors were inflicted upon Poland during the war, but to tacitly assert that minorities in the Second Republic were not subject to discrimination and the kind of violence manifest in Nazi Germany in 1938 is a sickening falsehood.
Dr Sam Johnson
Manchester Metropolitan University
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 29, 2009 22:25:53 GMT 1
Our Class and the bloody history of Poland that refuses to die
How could one half of a community kill the other? A Polish play explores a dark era
John Nathan
timesonline. co.uk
9/11/09
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View of the monument at the site of pogrom of Jews, where the wooden barn was burnt. Jedwabne, North-East Poland, was on July 10, 1941 a site of massacre of 1600 Jewish inhabitants of this village, most of which were burnt in a wooden barn. Jedwabne, Poland
The pogrom memorial
History is not dead. It is alive," says Tadeusz Slobodzianek. We are sitting in a train as it rattles north-east out of Warsaw, talking about the previous day's ceremony in Gdansk that marked the outbreak of the Second World War, and how Vladimir Putin acknowledged the suffering caused to Poles by the Nazis without recognising the suffering caused to Poles by the Soviet Union. "No one apologised," observes Slobodzianek.
One of Poland's leading playwrights, Slobodzianek is the son of a Roman Catholic father and Russian Orthodox mother who, like countless other Poles, were deported by the Soviets to Siberia, where their son was born. Today in Warsaw he runs the Laboratorium Dramatu, a theatre with a reputation for new writing that is the Polish equivalent of the Royal Court in London.
By the time we reach our destination the talk has turned to Polish suffering in the remote northeastern borderlands — the subject of Slobodzianek' s play O ur Class, which receives its world premiere later this month at the National Theatre in London.
"This is where they were beaten," says Slobodzianek, surveying Jedwabne's main square. From doorways, passing cars and park benches, the 55-year-old playwright is watched by a few of the town's 2,000 residents. But Slobodzianek, a fearless planet of a man at over 6ft (1.9m), is impervious.
Pronounced Yedvabne, this ghostly, isolated place is one of a handful of torpid towns scattered across the plains of northeast Poland. The nearest city, where Slobodzianek was raised, is Bialystock — yes, the name of Mel Brooks's hero in The Producers, though in Poland it's the gateway to a region of vast forests, slow-moving rivers and swamps.
Jedwabne is not mentioned in Slobodzianek' s play, nor the nearby village of Radzilow, but by the time Our Class finishes its London run, both are bound to become more renowned. As will the events that took place there — particularly in Jedwabne, where on July 10, 1941, the town's Jews were murdered during an eight-hour pogrom that climaxed with almost all those still able to stand being herded into a barn and burnt alive.
There can be no more disturbing subject for a play. But Our Class will resonate for reasons beyond its examination of how half a town ends up murdering the other half. Until 2001, the Jedwabne memorial on the site of the barn referred to the atrocity as yet another Nazi crime. The one at Radzilow, whose Jewish inhabitants were also burnt in a barn, still does. But a reassessment of the massacre, much of it by the Polish-born American historian Jan T. Gross, tells another story — of Catholic Poles killing 1,600 Jewish Poles with hideous cruelty and with little or no encouragement from the Nazis.
Although a subsequent official inquiry confirmed many of Gross's findings — the number of victims remains in dispute — political lines have been drawn between these opposing versions of Jedwabne's recent past. As Slobodzianek says, history is alive.
Set between 1925 and 2002, Our Class follows a school class of ten Jewish and Roman Catholic children who grow up together and grow apart during a period when this part of Poland went from independence to repeated occupation — first by the Soviets, then the Nazis, then by the Soviets again.
Against this brutalising backdrop Slobodzianek weaves a tale of Polish-Jewish relations buffeted by communism, nationalism and ultimately destroyed by Nazism and anti-Semitism. The play is fictional, but many of the characters bear similarities to the real-life victims and perpetrators.
An early attempt to stage the play in Warsaw was aborted. But Our Class was never going to be easy to produce in Poland. When, in 2001, a memorial to the Jews of Jedwabne was unveiled and the-then Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski apologised to Jews for the massacre, the gesture was criticised by some Poles, including the priest and the people of Jedwabne who boycotted the ceremony. They founded the Committee to Defend the Good Name of Jedwabne, which is supported by the Polish politician Michal Kaminski, recently appointed, amid accusations of anti-Semitism, as leader of the European Conservative and Reformists Group, which is backed by David Cameron. Never one to back away from a row, Slobodzianek compares the Jedwabne committee to the Ku Klux Klan.
If there is a lesson from Jedwabne, it is that the Holocaust was not only the result of meticulous German planning and high-tech killing, but also in some cases, of communities turning on their neighbours with axes, fence posts and farming equipment. This is why Gross's book is called Neighbours, a title that brings to mind the cosy Australian soap opera. While anti-Semitism was rife, Poland once had Europe's biggest Jewish population.
"This square was full of Jewish and Polish traders," Slobodzianek says. "Think of Bruno Schulz," he says, recalling the Polish writer whose novel The Street of Crocodiles gives the mu ndane lives of his fellow citizens in the Polish-Ukrainian town of Drogobych a teeming richness.
"This is where the Jews were made to kneel and pick the weeds out of cobblestones, " Slobodzianek says as he walks towards a grey, two-storey building. "That was the school. When I wrote Our Class, I was thinking of this building."
There is a remarkable fluidity to the play, on the page at least, as the classmates tell and act out their version of events — as children, adults, and as the dead.
"I hadn't read a play like it," says Bijan Sheibani, the director, during a break in rehearsals. "It's unique in the way the characters listen to their own stories told by others." Sheibani recalls his own research visit to Jedwabne. "I felt this hostility. One man revved his car at me, a drunk woman shouted in my face, about six people came out of their shops and watched."
The memorial is on the town's outskirts. This is the short route that the Jews were made to stagger to the barn. Standing in front of the memorial is a family from Gdansk, 55-year-old Andrey, his 21-year-old daughter Kasia and niece Agnieszka, 19. They are visiting Andrey 's father who lives about 20km away. "He doesn't like to discuss what happened to the Jews," Andrey says. "I heard about it and want to get some information, " Kasia says.
On the way back an elderly man is working in his yard. I ask if he is willing to talk about what happened in 1941. He gets straight to the point. "There is no question the Germans are guilty, not the Poles." He is 70, was born in Jedwabne, and as a boy remembers playing with bullets from an SS officer's gun. "Gross should change the book," he says. He points an imaginary gun at me. He says I'm a Pole and he's a German. He tells me to take the Jews to the barn. "What do you do?" he asks.
Back in the square Slobodzianek stops in front of another memorial near Jedwabne's huge church. The memorial is dedicated to those who were deported to Siberia by the Soviets and died of hunger and cold. Even though Slobodzianek' s parents were among those deported, the playwright has no respect for the monument. It was, he says, erected in defiance of the new Jewish memorial. "Its message is clear," he says. "That it is worse to die of cold than of fire."
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 20, 2010 10:22:18 GMT 1
In short. In early 18 century Napoleon sent a contingent of his army, including Poles, to then Santo Domingo, an island in the Caribbean, to pacify the rising of slaves and Indians. The invaders were decimated and had to leave, thus Haiti came into being, the first independent state in the region. What does the legend say about Poles in Haiti? Most Poles believe this version: Polish-Haitian Connection Part 1: For Your Freedom and Ours
I happened across the subject of Poles in Haiti in Riccardo Orizio's "Lost White Tribes: Journeys Among the Forgotten". The Polish Legions serving under Napoleon were sent to put down the Haitian Revolution there in 1802. For those that subscribe to the ideal of a multicultural and tolerant Polish nation, what happens next goes like this: The Polish soldiers sympathised with the rebelling slaves since they, like the Poles, were fighting for their own independent state (Poland had by this time been carved up by its' neighbours and had ceased to exist). Resentful of Napoleon's decision to send them West to the Caribbean instead of East towards Poland, the legionaries defected to the side of the former slaves and fought alongside them to eventually establish the world's first Black republic. Following independence they took wives and passed on their surnames (e.g. Potenski) and fairer complexions, both of which can be witnessed to this day in rural Haiti.
By most accounts only up to 150 out of the 5000 legionaries sent to the western hemisphere switched sides. A proportion of those would no doubt have done so under duress. Most of the rest died from yellow fever or combat with the Black forces. Still, the legend endures among Haitians and some Poles (including my family) that many Poles fought for Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the liberation of Haiti. The Haitian Constitution of 1805 bars all "whitemen" from ownership of property in Haiti. An exception is given to the "naturalized Germans and Polanders", who are from thenceforth to be classified as Black:
12. No whiteman of whatever nation he may be, shall put his foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor, neither shall he in future acquire any property therein.
13. The preceding article cannot in the smallest degree affect white women who have been naturalized Haytians by Government, nor does it extend to children already born, or that may be born of the said women. The Germans and Polanders naturalized by government are also comprized [sic] in the dispositions of the present article.
14. All acception [sic] of colour among the children of one and the same family, of whom the chief magistrate is the father, being necessarily to cease, the Haytians shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks.
[Haitian Constitution of 1805 as published in English in the New York Times that same year, full text on Professor Corbett's page here]
Orizio's book, too, contains some great evidence (including photographic) that these guys settled down and cast their seed to the present day. The Pope even met some of the "Haitian Poles" when he visited the island in 1983.barrister.typepad.com/barristerorbankrupt/2006/10/polishhaitian_c.htmlWhat is true about it? Read the site`s content, it is a book review: webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/bookreviews/pachonski.htmSome excerpts:
In short, the story of the Poles as friends of Haiti and as settlers is greatly exaggerated to understate the case. However, Pachonski and Wilson do address the interesting question of how the myth grew, and they attribute it in great measure as being a creation of Jean-Jacques Dessaline himself. On Pachonski and Wilson's view, Dessaline was much taken by the fact that the Poles tended to treat the Haitians better than other Europeans and to have less regard for the French. The Poles did not want to be in Saint Domingue and, in general, opposed the war, however, they did follow their own orders and fought for the French cause. At the same time they expressed strong criticism for the French, had great sympathy for the Taino/Arawak Indians whom the Spanish had eliminated, and were not at all as racist as the French.
With Dessaline's prodding, the Haitians tended to treat the Poles much better when they captured them. On one Pole's account this meant that they killed them straight off rather than torturing them as they did the French!
In sum there were about 5200 Poles sent to Saint Domingue by Napoleon. More than 4000 died, primarily of yellow fever. Some returned to France, some were subsumed into the British Colonial Army, and only about 400 remained in Haiti. Even then, 160 of those received permission from Dessalines in 1806 to return to France, and were even sent there at Haiti's expense. Thus, only about 240 Poles actually became and remained Haitian citizens.
Likewise the stories of Poles deserting the French for the Haitian cause are grossly exaggerated with only 120 to 150 Poles ever going over to the Haitian cause, and those are more likely to have do so to save their own lives than as a matter of principle.
I came away from the book having a better sense that the Polish story is one of those myths which every country's history has, based more in wishful thinking than fact, but interesting nonetheless. What is most interesting is the fact of how vigorously Haitians believe the myth and perpetuate it, and the history of its roots and origins.
Certainly the Poles had little desire to be in Saint Domingue, and also had a natural sympathy for people fighting for their own independence, which probably gave true cause for Dessaline's beliefs that the Poles were a cut different from the French. (Much of what is said of the Poles in this book also applies to the German and Swiss troops. In general, if the Haitians discovered that captured troops did not speak French, they were automatically singled out for better treatment.)
But the Poles did obey orders, came to Saint Domingue and did their duty as best they could.
In the second last chapter, which addresses directly the question of Polish descendants in Haiti, the authors find that there is much more rumor than documented fact. Various journalists and anthropologists, many of them Polish, have attempted to find and document modern day Polish Haitians. Their main suspected regions are: Cazale, La Vallee de Jacmel, Fond des Blancs, especially the near-by village of La Baleine, Port Salut and St. Jean du Sud. But little of substance is found. Again, rumor, a few Polish sounding names, some vague reports of blond, European-looking Haitians, but no photos or documented evidence.
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Post by tufta on Jan 20, 2010 11:00:47 GMT 1
Interestring! A long time ago I read a book "Flibustierowie" by Władysław Umiński. It tells a story of two Poles who as castaways find themselves on Cuba and join the anti-Spanish rebellion. Umiński should have of course written the book about Hispaniola but it was not politically correct at that time in Poland I guess...
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 23, 2010 22:29:42 GMT 1
Interestring! A long time ago I read a book "Flibustierowie" by Władysław Umiński. It tells a story of two Poles who as castaways find themselves on Cuba and join the anti-Spanish rebellion. Umiński should have of course written the book about Hispaniola but it was not politically correct at that time in Poland I guess... I never heard of the book. I did about the author but very little. |
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Post by tufta on Jan 26, 2010 15:04:52 GMT 1
Interestring! A long time ago I read a book "Flibustierowie" by Władysław Umiński. It tells a story of two Poles who as castaways find themselves on Cuba and join the anti-Spanish rebellion. Umiński should have of course written the book about Hispaniola but it was not politically correct at that time in Poland I guess... I never heard of the book. I did about the author but very little. Look what I have found for you! ;D chomikuj.pl/Eternalek?fid=175205206 |
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Post by Bonobo on Jun 25, 2010 22:57:37 GMT 1
In short: 1920 - Polish - Bolshevik War. Poles won a few battles and captured Russian prisoners. Put them in camps where conditions were tragic, partly due to general poverty and inefficiency, partly caused by Polish indolence and mismanagement. Several thousand Russians died. Today, Russian politicians and historians point to it as an act of Polish barbarism which provoked Katyn 20 years later. An article appeared in a few Polish magazines. Translated electronically and not proofread afterwards, so sorry for mistakes. Polish version: niniwa2.cba.pl/pieklo_za_drutami.htmHell behind barbed wire
The truth about fates of Soviet prisoners of war 1920 year is not comfortable for no from sides: nor for Russians, nor for Poles. About executing by firing squad there is no speech. However documents with that time show the shocking painting of barbarity in labours II Republic.
When in 1990 r. president Gorbaczow admitted that Katyń had been Soviet crime and gave recommendation of beginning in this matter investigation, he recommended simultaneously: "Academy of Sciences, the Publicprosecutor's office of, MON, the KGB with different offices have to conduct together the investigative prace the disclosing archival relating with history of relations the events and facts documentsSoviet - Polish, the Soviet side in which result bore the damage. Received data will be used when this necessary will be in negotiations from Polish side on subject of white stains". Searches began Russian so anty - Katyń. The problem of Soviet prisoners of war after 70 years the oblivion came back 1920 year.
Since then , when tylko the subject of pact appears the Ribbentrop - Mołotow, 17 September 1939 r. and Katynia, some of Russian politicians or court historians of Kremlin begins almost immediately to tell about thousands the Soviet murdered by Piłsudskiego prisoners. The indignation and accusations are the reaction of Polish side about forging the history, because in Poland all be convinced that Soviet prisoners died on spotted fever and cholera. And so this mechanism goes round to today.
When Prime Minister Władimir Putin in published before visit on Westerplatte letter wrote: "Both the cemeteries of memory of Katynia and Miednoje, as and the Russian soldiers who be gave to captivity during war 1920 r.'s tragical fates should stand with symbol of common sorrow and mutual forgiveness", among politicians and journalists, especially rightist, the turmoil raised. The boss of club the parliamentary PiS Przemysław the Gosiewski affirmed, that the comparison of katyńskiej crime "with events 1920 r., where it at all was not the cases of crime made on soldiers", it is the exacting matter very sharp the explanation.
Namely explanation this not at all is difficult. And it became already conducted practically.
Under end of last age the Russian line assigned on search the anty - Katyń the disputes the grant. It it was appointed was Polish - historians and archivists who by 20 months dug archives in both countries' Russian group. It in effect in calculating study almost thousand sides, given in year 2004 in Russian, it was collected was 338 documents relating Soviet prisoners' fate. Historians agreed also from fatter what to number krasnoarmiejców which got lost in Polish captivity - was them about 20 thousand. Second volume of documents had to be given soon, ale oneself he did not show. Meanwhile the this which was published lies the forgotten at Chief Management of State Archives and Federal Agency ds. Archives of Russia. And to reach nobody niespieszno to these documents.
Turns out, that the truth about Soviet prisoners of war 1920 r. is useless and uncomfortable in tzw. the historical policy both for Russians, as and Poles. Jakkolwiek this would sound trivially, truth this lies in the middle. From one side Russians did not get this, what they look for - to balance proofs on mass executing by firing squad and Polish crime war can czerwonoarmistów Katyń. From second - Poles came across on shocking painting of barbarity in labours II Republic.
It on 1400 prisoners at all has not healthy
In year 1919, when first prisoners appeared, the Ministry of Military Matters gave instructions which had in the smallest details to regulate in captivity their stay: from nutritional norm after number of beds and staff in camp hospitals. It it in hurry was started was remembering again And war, intent after invaders camps in Strzałkowie, Dąbiu, Pikulicach and Wadowicach. Czerwonoarmiści should theoretically hit to places fully fulfilling of the the time international standards.
"All healthy prisoners with transportations have to be immediately serfs delousing, entirely shaven: the head of, pachy, of groin the, moustaches, the beard, and the shaven besmeared with oil places - the Ministry of Administration ordered in December 1919 r. they - arrived Every newly it has to become the same day bathed yet, and his exactly disinfected things. (...) All healthy be steered on obligatory 14 - dniowy quarantine. (...) The of newly newcomer meringues of quarantine severely illicit Quartering (...). The change of underwear more not seldom than once on two weeks, (...) the disinsection of sienników, mattresses, blankets, pillows - once in week, once in week the barracks have to be cleared exactly - swept, the, cleaned toilets covered up with detergent myte of floor".
The prisoner-of-war nutritional norms foresaw daily 500 g of bread, 150 g of meat, 700 the potatoes' g, 150 vegetables or flour and 100 g of coffee's g. Chorym and directed to pracy larger right be entitle to - identical how Polish szeregowcowi. Little this, soldier's pay belonged prisoners - 30 fenigów soldiers and 50 fenigów officers.
The ministerial recommendations were ambitious very and - how it turned out - no kids to realizing already on only beginning of war, practically before yet on good she started and 10 the Soviet prisoners' tys. in camps sat only just.
They in Central Military Archive kept from this period the particularly dramatic letters Zdzisław's gen. the Hordyńskiego - the Juchnowicza, military doctor and boss of department of sanitary Ministry of Administration. In December 1919 desperate r. related the chief doctor of Polish Army on distributive station visit in Białymstoku: "Encourage to turn to general's mister with description this terrible painting, which stands up before eyes every, who arrives to camp. It in camp reigns impossible to description dirt and slovenliness. Before the doors of barracks of heap the human excrements, which be the trampled under foot and spread after whole camp by thousands feet. Ill these are weak so that they are not able accesses to latrines, meanwhile they are able such that do not sposobić to to bring nearer to seats because the fat layer of human faeces floor be covered. Barracks be overcrowded, among healthy it is chorych plenty of. According to me on these 1400 prisoners at all have not healthy. Covered with rags they cuddle to me, trying to warm oneself mutually. The stench stifles, beating from chorych on dezynterię and infected with hunger of legs with gangrene, opuchniętych. Two lay in own trickling through torn breechess faeces chorych particularly heavily. They had not already strengths to to shift in dry place. Which this horrendous painting".
Prisoners' position was on tyle serious, that in September 1919 r. the Legislative Lower house of parliament appointed special committee, which had to examine in camps situation. Committee finished pracę spring 1920 r., near at hand before beginning kijowskiej offensive. She recognised that military powers bore for fact fault, "that mortality on spotted fever be brought to the highest degree". It bad sanitary conditions were have pointed out was in camps: the lack of delousing station, baths, laundry of, soap, the dirt in rooms, the lack of clothes and underwear on exchange, the lack of fuel, and the reigning among prisoners also hunger.
All in this camp will die
It year later, after kijowskiej operation, and first of all after Varsovian wiktorii it, when it was taken was was to captivity of ten thousand new prisoners, situation in camps she escaped from under control. Could not to be differently, since number captured 10 enlarged - krotnie! Prof. Zbigniew Karpus estimates that in moment of suspension it protects in October it 1920 r. was them in Poland about 110 thousand.
It the prisoners were packed was where it let, not tylko in new camps, np. in Tucholi, but also in hitherto exist distributive stations, the points of concentration and in the most different military objects, as the fortresses the Brześć czy the Modlin. Nobody expected such their number. The representative of Russian Red Cross Stefania the Sempołowska 19 October 1920 r. writes from camp in Strzałkowie: "Barrack for communist is overcrowded so that squeezed prisoners were not able have put and they be forced to stand, supporting one second".
Dramatic reports inspecting and organization, also international, persons' camps as YMCA czy Red Cross, they flowed to Ministry of Administration by whole war. She be interested in prisoner-of-war camps with situation and organizations charitable of the the time press. All this on little passed. Department produced new instructions and recommendation tylko. The hell it for wires reigned after break of fights yet long, until to Polish - the prisoners' Soviet exchange in 1921 r.
In January 1921 r. rosyjsko - the Ukrainian sended to camp in Tucholi in led in Riga of peaceful conversations frames delegation described in report the same, co year earlier gen. the Hordyński: "Prisoners be placed in buildings not to flat. Lack completely equipments, devices to sleeping, prisoners sleep on floor, without materacy and kocy, window without panes, in walls of hole (...), wounded they lay without dressings after 2 weeks and in mornings worms bred, in these conditions prisoners die quickly. If to take under reigning attention mortality here, then in draught 5-6 months all in this camp have to die".
Why was until so bad? The historians' and majority Polish journalists show first of all on lack of money. She gave dissuading Republic advice hardly to dress and to feed own soldiers. It on prisoners was not enough because to to be enough it could not.
Worth life tyle what shoes
However not all will give to explain with lack of centres. Problems of prisoners of this war did not begin as for wires of camps, ale on front, on first line when they threw protect, or yet earlier - when they took her to hand.
Writer Izaak Babel, in 1920 r. police officer in Horse Army Siemiona Budionnego, describes: "Broken Poles we, go on field of battle, drobniutki Polaczek disguises among thin hair with polished nails on pink head; it answers evasively, it wrings, it mutters. Inspired Szeko and pale: speeches what have rank - I he, mixed, am in warrantofficer's kind something; we walk away, they accompany that, for his backs boy about pleasant face repeats protect, I shout - companion Szeko! Szeko pretends that it does not hear, it goes further, shot, Polaczek in long johns rains in convulsions on the ground. (...) I Went from wojenkomatem along first line, we beg not to kill prisoners Apanasenko it washes hand, Szeko mumbled, why not, it played this terrific part. I did not patrzyłem them in faces, they pierced swords, dostrzeliwali on corpses corpses,, groans, finish off one yet shout, hoarse voice...".
Such was war 1920 year. Blow for blow, he had for eye eye, man's life was often worth what shoes tyle, which on me. Cruelty gave birth cruelty. It was driven mutually.
It Mławy in neighbourhoods in retaliation for murder over hundred taken to captivity in Polish soldiers' field hospital from 49. Regiment of Infantry was executed by firing squad was 200 Cossacks - prisoners from trunk Gaja. Tadeusz Kossak remembered, that in 1919 year on Wołyniu uhlans of 1. Regiment executed by firing squad 18 czerwonoarmistów, which plundered manor. Kazimierz marshal's, personal secretary Świtalski Piłsudskiego, in journal writes, that voluntary surrendering czerwonoarmistów disturbs "cruel and merciless liquidating by our soldiers prisoners". Marceli Handelsman, Polish historian, in 1920 r. volunteer, remembered, that "police officers our at all did not take alive". It confirms then the participant of Varsovian battle Stanisław the Kawczak, which in book "Falling silent echo. Remembrance with war 1914-1920" it describes as commander of 18. Regiment of Infantry hung all taken to policeofficers' captivity.
The Central committee of Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia in 1920 r. collected for Russian Red Cross Bolsheviks' reports, former prisoners in Poland, about executions the czerwonoarmistów. Tow. Camcijew remembers: "The commander of regiment collected all occupants of hamlet and told to spit and to beat led through prisoners' village. This lasted about half hour. After settlement of identity, and it turned out that they were then soldiers 4. the hussar regiment the Red Army, the poor things were naked to naked the whips and in movement went. It later was put them in ditch and execute by firing squad so that they had abstract some parts of body. (...) Shout: police officer, police officer (..) Churgin Brought dressed Jew about surname well and though poor thing entreated that he nowhere had served, nothing this it did not give. Took apart him to naked, they executed by firing squad and abandoned, claiming that Jew was unworthy to to lie in Polish the ground".
This, what cannon oneself in camps, it was the only mirror of front. Customs of this war hit in trace for her soldiers inevitably - for first line, to trains with prisoners, deeply on backs and in end for wires of prisoner-of-war camps.
You wanted to take us the ground so you will get the ground
20 December 1919 r. on session of chief command of Polish Army the major the Jakuszewicz registered: "Arriving in transportations with galicyjskiego front prisoners be emaciated, famishing and ill. From one sended from of transportation calculating 700 prisoners Tarnopola tylko 400 approached only just".
The J. Podolski, tzw. the kulturrabotnik of the Red Army which be gave to Polish captivity spring 1919 r. in published in 1931 r. in "New Esteem" "Notes with Polish captivity" remembers that he in prisoner-of-war transportation spended 12 days, from this eight of any food. "After road, on stops which be able to last day even misters approached to train from clubs and lady from the company which bullied on wybranych prisoners".
The doctor of Army the Red Łazary the Gingin (in captivity since September 1920 till December 1921 r.) he wrote in letters to Olgi's wife: "They took me whole clothes and shoes, instead of what distance rags. They led on station through village. Poles ran up, prisoners' billiard ball, they abused each other. Escorts did not disturb them".
"Just the most tragical the fate is newly newcomer, which it was transported in ogrzewany cars of meringues of suitable clothes, cooled, hungry and tired, often with first symptoms of diseases, they lie on naked boards listlessly - Natalie described the Bieleżyńska from Polish Red Cross. - Therefore after such trips many hit with them to hospital, and what weaker they die".
Autumn 1920 year the commander officer of camp in Brześciu declared newcomer to camp prisoners: "You, Bolsheviks, wanted to take back us our the ground so you will get the ground. He I had not right you to kill ale will be so fed, that only wyzdychacie".
The minister of military matters Kazimierz the Sosnkowski 8 December 1920 r. gave the dispositions in matter of the prisoners' and chorych hungry transportations the investigation. Information about transportation was direct reason 300 prisoners from Kowla to special vestibule of camps - concentration station and distributive prisoners in Puławach. 37 prisoners in train died, and 137 arrived chorych. "(...) They Were 5 days in road and by whole this time of even once they did not get to eat. It how they were unloaded was in Puławach tylko, prisoners threw on dead horse and ate raw carrion". Gene. The Godlewski writes to Sosnkowskiego about this transportation, that calculated in day of departure 700 men, which would mean that 473 persons in road had died. "Majority was famishing so that she been not able samodzielnie to get out from cars. 15 persons died already first day in Puławach".
The " New Courier" he 4 January 1921 r. described in loud in those days the article "Czy then the truth" the shocking fates of kilkusetosobowego squad the included to Red Army with strength Łotyszy. Soldiers deserted you on czele with officers and passed on Polish side to to come back to motherland with this way. They became received through Polish squads and before dispatch to camp very życzliwie they received certificate that they had passed on Polish side voluntarily. However plunder after road to camp started. All from Łotyszy was has taken off except underwear. It this which pretended to keep though part of one's things, it was has taken back was in camp in Strzałkowie. They became in rags barefoot.
Ale this nothing in comparison from systematic abuse. It had started since 50 they were said that they as Jewish hirelings will not go out from camp alive hitting twig from prickly wire, near what. It over 10 died with reason of contagion of blood. It later on three days was left the prisoners without food and forbid under punishment of death to go out after water. Two execute by firing squad without any cause. The threat was fulfilled probably and no from Łotyszy would go out from camp lively, the administrator of camp - the captain the Wagner and lieutenant the Malinowski they - if would did not become the aresztowani and devoted under court by inquiry committee.
Prisoners during peaceful prognoses' in Riga were already Arrow they in collective list wrote to the court which considered matter Malinowskiego: "He walked after camp in corporals' company armed in plaited from prickly wire whips. He did not spodobał this, who him, he told to lie down to ditch, and the corporals of billiard ball tyle, they were told how much. These which asked about mercy he killed from revolver with shot. It happened also to shoot to prisoners Malinowskiemu without cause from watch towers".
The minister the Sosnkowski 6 December 1920 r. gave the order "about ways of cardinal improvement of position war prisoners": he told commissariat to enlarge in camps the wrestlings of food, to pass on prisoners 25 tys. of sets of bedding as well as suitable quantity of dressing - centres and disinfecting.
What from this, when - how one of control affirmed - prisoners were the most ordinarily in world robbed m.in. just by commissariat. "Horrendous hunger reigns, which forces them to food of anything: grass, lists. Store-houses candle emptinesses. Prisoners receive these products, which exactly they will hit given day to camp with commissariat. Near what from this, which will hit, prisoners receive with reason of dishonesty of staff modest part. It according to allotment 150 grams of meat on person was brought to store-house 420 identifier. It (...) it In kitchen was have provided for was that they received 405 identifier of meat, 15 identifier disappeared somewhere. Next day (...) it disappeared more far 13 identifiers".
Poland shame
"It by lack of discipline in the our army which would permit to exact already persons', kilkaset basic duties paid with its life, and kilkaset will die soon - wrote already in 1919 year gen. Hordyński. - Sinister disrespect by all acting in camp organs its duties covered shame Polish soldier's good name".
For wires of Polish camps the Soviet prisoners rained how the fly. Collective graves growed. In Tucholi neighbouring occupants remember that place in summers 30. were yet, in which the ground collapsed under alloys. Human remnants from under the ground stood.
In camp in Strzałkowie mortality 100-200 persons was norm monthly, in najstraszniejszym for prisoners period - winter on breakthrough 1920 and 1921 year deceases - were calculated already in thousands. In Brześciu in second half 1919 year had died since 60 to 100 persons daily. In Tucholi under end year 1920 died 400 persons in two months. Poland journalism acknowledges receipt these numbers so: prisoners dragged to camps the epidemi of lethal infectious diseases: spotted fever, dezynterii, cholera and influenza of flu. Then truth and from this to dispute hard.
They walked in the nude Tylko that if prisoners, they were dirty, they starved, they had not the bed of boards nor blankets, and contagiously chorych who settled under me does not separate from healthy then mortality had to be terrific with result of such treatment of men. Russian authors on this pay back attention often. They ask or she was not this the sensible extermination, it can not on level of government, ale at least on level of powers of individual camps? And from this is dispute also hard.
Peter Zychowicz - Forgotten Polish prisoners 1920 year
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tomek
Nursery kid
Posts: 256 
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Post by tomek on Jun 26, 2010 8:02:02 GMT 1
In short: 1920 - Polish - Bolshevik War. Poles won a few battles and captured Russian prisoners. Put them in camps where conditions were tragic, partly due to general poverty and inefficiency, partly caused by Polish indolence and mismanagement. Several thousand Russians died. Today, Russian politicians and historians point to it as an act of Polish barbarism which provoked Katyn 20 years later. An article appeared in a few Polish magazines. Translated electronically and not proofread afterwards, so sorry for mistakes. [/i][/quote] What for they come to Polish land? Thye invaded Poland, if not, there won`t be settleing camps for them. War is their cause. |
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Post by Bonobo on Jun 29, 2010 22:05:18 GMT 1
In short: 1920 - Polish - Bolshevik War. Poles won a few battles and captured Russian prisoners. Put them in camps where conditions were tragic, partly due to general poverty and inefficiency, partly caused by Polish indolence and mismanagement. Several thousand Russians died. Today, Russian politicians and historians point to it as an act of Polish barbarism which provoked Katyn 20 years later. An article appeared in a few Polish magazines. Translated electronically and not proofread afterwards, so sorry for mistakes. [/i][/quote] What for they come to Polish land? Thye invaded Poland, if not, there won`t be settleing camps for them. War is their cause. [/quote] Even in war there should be some rules abided by. It makes this hell that war is easier to bear. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 7, 2011 21:54:56 GMT 1
Recent books by Gross and the ferment they cause prove that we still can`t believe that some Poles murdered Jews, robbed them, betrayed them for money etc. And the majority were indifferent to it and murderers or robbers were not stigmatised in the Polish society. On the opposite, Bo. Recent book by Gross demonstrates that even something which can easily be called as pack of lies, based on one misinterpreted photo and leading to completely unjustified generalizations, can and did cause another round of a very deep and open national discussion about Polish individuals who took advantage of holocaust performed by the Germans. And to another round of stigmatization of the murderers and robbers. Who were btw, prosecuted by the state. Putting them in one context with Germans, who were paid by their state to kill and rob the Jews, is contraproductive and can only stenghten the position of those who are of the opinion that Poles always behaved as angels. What is more, such putting in one context raises justified suspicion that it is not done for the sake of truth but for the sake of 'Holocaust industry', to enable pressing Poland for money. Also it greatly helps those circles in Germany who are very eager to dilute past German guilt in "European guilt". Which already happens in the USA. The things described in Gross`s book Golden Harvest are documented and corroborated by historians as well as witnesses who are still alive. On the margin of the discussion focused on The Golden Harvest, here is an interview with an expert on Holocaust.
Barbara Engelking-Boni
Psychologist, associate professor in the IFiS PAN, director of the Centre.
Born 1962, graduate of the Psychology Department the University of Warsaw (1988). Ph.D thesis "The Experience of the Holocaust and its Consequences in Autobiographical Accounts" (1993). Since 1993 - assistant and associate professor in the IFiS PAN.
Research interests:
The Experience of the Holocaust in survivors’ accounts and in the light of other primary sources. The history of the Warsaw ghetto, its every-day life, every-day life of the occupied Warsaw, the challenges and moral dilemas of the time of the Shoah.
Teaching:
lectures and seminars concerning the Holocaust (some of them given jointly with Prof. J. Leociak), the Warsaw ghetto and the experience of the Holocaust.
www.holocaustresearch.pl/
Books:
* „Na łące popiołów”. Ocaleni z Holocaustu, ("On the filed of ashes. The Survivors of the Holocaust"); Cyklady 1993
* „Zagłada i pamięć” (na podstawie rozprawy doktorskiej) IFiS PAN 1994, II wydanie 2001
* „Czas przestał dla mnie istnieć" (analiza doświadczania czasu w sytuacji ostatecznej) - ("Time Ceased to Exist For Me"), IFiS PAN 1996
* „Getto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście” (together with z J. Leociak) IFiS PAN 2001
* Warsaw Ghetto. The Guide through the Perished City, (with Barbara Engelking), [forthcoming in Yale University Press, 2008]
* „Holocaust and memory” (English translationof „Zagłada i pamięć”), Leicester University Press, London, New York, 2001
* Chapter in: “Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath” J. Zimmerman (ed.) "Psychological differences between Poles and Jews during World War II from a Warsaw Perspective" , Rutgers University Press, 2003
* "Szanowny panie gistapo. Donosy do władz niemieckich w Warszawie i okolicach w latach 1940-1941" ("Dear Mr Gestapo. Denunciation sent to the German Authorities in Warsaw, 1940-1941"), IFiS PAN 2003
* Pamięć, Historia Żydów Polskich przed, w czasie i po Zagładzie (Memory, History of the Polish Jews before, during and after the Holocaust), SHALOM Foundation, Warszawa 2005
* Prowincja noc. Życie i zagłada Żydów w dystrykcie Warszawskim (Province Night. Life and destruction of the Polish Jews in the Warsaw District) Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów i Wyd. IFiS PAN, Warszawa 2007; ed and chapter
* Warsaw Ghetto. The Guide through the Perished City (with Jacek Leociak), Yale University Press, July 2009www.tvn24.pl/12840,4,kropka_nad_i.html The main points of the interview: 1. Helping Jews was punished with death, giving them away was rewarded. Some Poles cooperated with Germans in Holocaust by informing about hiding Jews. 2. Killing a Jew was left unpunished. An unknown number of Jews were killled by Poles, especially in the countryside. Killings were cruel - with a stone, plank, pitchfork, axe. Reasons - mostly greed and desire to take Jewish property. 3. Polish Blue Police participated in killings. 4. We all bear metaphysical blame for what some Poles did to Jews during the war. A magazine interview with her: www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=180071358680386&comments&ref=mfWere we hyenas? Let`s face the truth: Its main message: Though J. Gross generalises and exaggerates a lot, he still tells the truth. Unfortunately. She describes cases how Jews were hunted down and denunced or even killled by Polish peasants during Easter time. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 7, 2011 22:08:25 GMT 1
On the other hand: This publication Patterns of Cooperation, Collaboration and Betrayal: Jews, Germans and Poles in Occupied Poland during World War IIby Mark Paul fully available here www.glaukopis.pl/pdf/czytelnia/PatternsOfCooperationCollaborationAndBetrayal.pdfis quite mild about Poles and claims that the main danger to hiding Jews were, apart Germans, other Jews.
The actions of these individuals, often carried out in extreme conditions and under duress, facilitated the Holocaust much more than the activities of their Polish counterparts, which areall too frequently blown out of proportion, while the former are glossed over. Jews played an ncomparably larger role than Poles in the ghettoization of the Jews, the day-to-day functioning of the ghettos, and their liquidation.7 The role of Jewish collaborators (police, councils) in the actual liquidation of the ghettos, however, was probably smaller than that of collaborators from among the neighbouring, non-Polish population, primarily Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Latvians, operating in the lands of occupied Polish. On the other hand, Poles, in particular the Polish police, did not take part in the liquidation of any of the larger ghettos on prewar Polish territories (such as Warsaw, Łódz, Lwów, Wilno, Białystok, Lublin, Sosnowiec, Kraków (Cracow), Kielce, Piotrków Trybunalski, Grodno, and many others), nor did Poles works as guards at the infamous death and concentration camps.
The Poles did not play a pivotal, or even significant, role in the Holocaust of the Jews. (This is in stark contrast to the situation that existed in almost every other occupied country, for example the Baltic States,
Holland, Norway, France, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary, where the Germans relied very heavily on local collaborators to carry out round-ups of Jews, deportations, and even mass executions.)
Many, if not most Polish Jews, were readily distinguishable from Poles, even to Germans, by reason of their distinctive dress, beards, physical appearance, and lack of knowledge of the Polish language. Jews
tended to live among fellow Jews and their homes bore mezuzahs so there was no particular need for Poles to point them out. The creation of ghettos and deportation of Jews to death camps were not dependent on
Polish collaboration. These tasks were assigned for the most part to the German-appointed Jewish councils (Judenräte) and the Jewish ghetto police (the so-called order police or Ordnungsdienst—OD).8 Jewish
officials compiled accurate and detailed list of Jews in a particular town, carefully noting such matters as their wealth, residency status, age, sex, and occupation, with changes of residency being reported monthly.9
The indictment against the ghetto police, authored by historian Isaiah Trunk, is particularly damning: The Jewish police collected cash contributions and taxes; they assisted in raiding, guarding, and escorting
7 During hungry, mentally exhausted people on their way to places of forced labor; and it was the ghetto police who often were ordered to enforce discipline in the presence of German officials. The ghetto police sentries formed the inside guard at the ghetto fences. Both the Germans and the councils used the ghetto police to carry out confiscation of Jewish property and to combat smuggling, the only means of overcoming constant hunger in the ghettos. The Jewish police carried out raids against and arrests of inmates for offences against draconian ghetto rules. Last but not least, in the final stages of the ghettos the Jewish police were called upon to assist in “resettlement actions.”10 The liquidation of the ghettos was overseen by the Germans who
employed numerous German forces, the Jewish police, and auxiliaries of various nationalities (Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian) brought in for that purpose. The involvement of the Polish “blue” police was, in the assessment of leading Jewish historians such as Szymon Datner and Raul Hilberg, marginal.
Paradoxically, it was in Poland—where the Germans built their largest death and concentration camps for purely logistical reasons—that Jewish collaboration became most visible and lethal. (No major Holocaust
historian—not Raul Hilberg, not Yisrael Gutman, not Lucy Dawidowicz—accepts the notion that the decision to locate the camps in occupied Poland had anything to do with alleged Polish anti-Semitism or
anticipated collaboration.)
There is no question that, on the whole, Jews had to contend with Jewish collaborators far more frequently than with Polish ones, and that those Jews who did not venture out of the ghettos—and the vast majority did not—would likely have never encountered a Polish collaborator or denouncer. Generally speaking, there were four large internal sources of danger for the Jews: the Jewish councils, the Jewish auxiliary police, Jewish agents and informants, and miscellaneous Jewish betrayers.
The fate of Polish Jews was not dependent on the Poles, nor were Polish attitudes something that the Germans troubled themselves with. As Raul Hilberg notes, “There was no imperative to be mindful of the welfare of Poles,” and thus “no need for precautions whenever anti-Jewish measures could have painful repercussions for the non-Jewish population.”13 Contrary to what is often claimed, the Polish population was not supportive of German policies towards the Jews. General Johannes Blaskowitz, commander of the Eighth German Army during the September 1939 campaign and subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the
Eastern Territories, wrote to Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, in his report of February 6, 1940: “The acts of violence carried out in public against Jews
are arousing in religious Poles [literally, “in the Polish population, which is fundamentally pious (or Godfearing)”] not only the deepest disgust but also a great sense of pity for the Jewish population.”
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 7, 2011 22:57:17 GMT 1
An interview with J. Gross, the authour of the book Golden Harvest in which he claims, among others, that Poles who lived near death camps used to dig for Jewish gold in the mass graves. Whole villages participated in it. www.tvn24.pl/13178,2,kropka_nad_i.html   Main points: 1. Yes, the picture of gold diggers detained red-handed, though it is not clear where and how it was taken, is still the main inspiration of the book and a good illustration of the whole situation during and after the war. 2. The book is based on documents and the photo is only an illustration. 3. War and poverty are not an excuse to denuncing Jews, robbing them and murdering. 4. Material reasons were important in denuncing Jews. 5. Poles treated Jews as big game. 6. Though most anti-Jewish acts took place in the countryside, attacks on Jews were performed by members of all classes of Polish society, not only peasants. The society viewed hunting down Jews as sth normal, people who did it were not rejected by their family or neighbours, were still respected. 7. Germans were major murderers, but the atmosphere they created allowed them to easily find collaborators and helpers among Poles. 8. Poles who hid and helped Jews were viewed with suspicion by other Poles, sometimes were attacked and robbed. 9. The majority of Poles were neither helpers nor hunters. |
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Post by tufta on Apr 8, 2011 6:53:48 GMT 1
Very nice presentation how deep and open goes the discussion in Poland. I am proud of my compatriots. And - at the same time, a good proof how dilettantish is the last book of Gross, where lies are mixed with truth, and the foundation of the book is built on fallacy (see below). The book has no historical value. Main points: 1. Yes, the picture of gold diggers detained red-handed If so, it is the first time I see someone caught red-handed who looks so relaxed, even satisfied. As if these someones were not gold-diggers but _cleaners_ of the tomb area. That's exactly how Gross now explains his mistake of building the book on the misinterpteted photograph. However - in the 'visual culture' we live in, where most people don't read at all, such an image 'grave diggers - see for yourself! has great power. Thus it was chosen, I am afraid. And here comes the main foundation of the fallacy: Direct and illogical link is being formed between grave diggers and denouncing, robbing, murdering Jews. Grave digging is really awful, it is against our culture but - maybe I am really too old-fashioned? it is not equal to murder and robbery. And - to my knowledge most of the grave diggers did not get rich. Why? Because most of the Jews were already completely robbed, including golden teeth, by the Germans. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 9, 2011 21:00:29 GMT 1
And - at the same time, a good proof how dilettantish is the last book of Gross, where lies are mixed with truth, and the foundation of the book is built on fallacy (see below). The book has no historical value. Yet, the book tells the truth in general. Diggers were not afraid because nothing happened to them - they were released by the militiamen. They all knew each other well because they lived in the same area, came from the same villages, were probably related this or that way. It doesn`t matter whether the photo is true or not. Documents and witness testimonies, including the modern ones, prove that Poles did look for gold in Jewish graves. Serious trustworthy people who visited the area near Treblinka after the war saw all those holes in the ground, which looked like miniature mines. Gold mines. They also spotted diggers who were not ashamed of their activity. It doesn`t matter how rich they became - what matters is that they were so eager to acquire anything left after victims. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 9, 2011 21:06:11 GMT 1
There was mass grave searching, there was also murdering and robbing. At last I have run into a good source - an article from 2005 by Polish authors who seem to corroborate Gross`s main thesis about Polish nasty attitude to Jews during the war. It is really sickening to read all this stuff: www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/studies/vol35/Skibinska2.pdf
The Participation of Poles in Crimes Against Jews in the Świętokrzyskie Region
Alina Skibińska and Jakub PetelewiczExcerpts from the article
When the Red Army entered the Kielce province in January 1945,
there were still some 7,000 Jews (2 percent of the 1939 population)
living in the area; they were survivors of the forced-labor camps and
those who had been hiding on the “Aryan side.”16 Many of those who
survived owed their lives to Poles who had offered them shelter and
assistance. Unfortunately, many of those who did not survive the war
died either directly at the hands of Poles, or with the help of Polish
neighbors. It should also be noted that both during the liquidation operation and after, the Germans, together with the “blue” police, local
fire brigades, and others, carried out large-scale manhunts for escapees
from the ghettos and labor camps in the rural areas of the province. It
was during this period that the crimes that are the subject of this article
reached their peak.
(6) Denunciations to the Polish police or the German authorities
against Poles suspected of assisting Jews or sheltering them.33 The most
important motivation for denunciations was revenge, or “settling” local
conflicts and accounts between neighbors. Threats and blackmail
against farmers sheltering Jews was a permanent fixture of the crimes.
In this context, we should also take into account ordinary human envy.
Knowledge about sheltering Jews by one’s neighbors most often went
hand in hand with the myth of Jewish riches and profits that could be
gained from them. Similarly, rewards promised for “uncovering” a Jew
could provide opportunistic motivation for informing on the Jews or
their protectors. In the poor villages of the Świętokrzyskie countryside,
50 kilograms of sugar were no less desirable than a gold watch.
2. SAK 229, pp. 13–14. Testimony of the defendant Zygmunt
Wiśniewski:
As my brother Edward has said, the NSZ organization’s goal was to
murder Polish citizens of Jewish extraction, but I don’t know what its
other goals were. I confess to taking part in murdering Jews between
the villages of Wysokie Małe and Wysokie Średnie, village district Jurkowo, county of Sandomierz.
The murder was carried out as follows:
it was summer time, 1943, I was at home at the time and heard
a shot, so I went out, and headed for the site, and in the field, as I approached the location I noticed five or six Jews shot to death, and one
Jewess and one Jew still alive. In my presence, the Jewess and the Jew
were told to take five steps, after which Kazimierz Domagała shot the Jewess twice, she was hit in the stomach and fell to the ground. Teofil
Mroczek, resident of Moszny, Jurkowice village district (shot to death
during the occupation), shot the Jew from his pistol four times, first hitting
him twice in the head, but the Jew didn’t fall, so he shot him for the
third time, hitting him on the side, and then the Jew lowered himself
to the ground, kneeling, and only after the fourth shot, in the stomach,
did he fall to the ground. Szamański, first name unknown, resident of
Mała Wieś, Jurkowice village district, also took part in the shooting of the Jews. He was armed with a pistol. Porębski Józef, resident of Grzybowo, Opatów County (now in western Poland), was armed with a pistol.
A cousin of the aforementioned Józef Porębski, first name Marian,
from Radom (he probably died of excessive drinking of vodka), armed
with a pistol (similar to Karwacki from the same locality), or Karpacki,
Franciszek Sosnowski, resident of the village of Zagorzyce, Jurkowice
village district (dead now), also armed with a pistol. My brother, Edward
Wiśniewski (killed by partisans). I don’t remember other people
[present], or who shot those Jews, because they had been shot by them,
only the aforementioned took part in this…Three people were still not
shot, i.e., a Jewess, about 50, and her daughter, about 18, and a Jew,
about 30. Kazimierz Domagała told me that there was no more ammunition to shoot those three Jews. So Domagała told me and Sosnowski to go bring some rope in order to hang those three Jews, and both of us
went to get the rope from a farm in the village of Wysokie Małe, I don’t know the name [of the owner]. After we brought the rope…we took
those three Jews, heading for the village of Wysokie Średnie. After we brought them to a ditch, Franciszek Sosnowski grabbed a stake with
which he hit the older Jewess once in the neck and once in the back,
as a result of which she fell on the ground, where she lay dazed for
about another half hour. When her daughter saw this, she fell on her
knees before Franciszek Sosnowski, begging him not to hit her mother
with a stake, not to torment her anymore, just shoot her with his firearm,
saying, “This world is so beautiful, I am young, and I want to
live.” Hearing these words Sosnowski replied, “I’ll let you live yet,” and
grabbed her hand, dragging her behind him, while she shouted, “Spare
my life!” But he said, “Today your end must come,” to which the Jewess
said, “I’ll give you anything you want, just spare my life.” Sosnowski
knocked her down, leaving her only in the nightshirt and started raping
her. The Jewess did not defend herself while being raped because
she thought that this would save her life. After raping her, he brought
her to a tree, the weeping willow where we all stood, looped the rope
around the tree, and I lifted her by the legs, because the noose was too
high, and Sosnowski put the noose around her neck…I released her
and she was hanging, without her feet reaching the ground, and in
this fashion, after one and a half hours from the moment of hanging
she ended her life…From Domagała I received a short coat of the Jewess who was shot, and in the collar, at home, I found 110 dollars, and
also got 10 dollars from Domagała, which belonged to the murdered
[Jews]. Domagała and Sosnowski collected the clothes of the murdered
[Jews]. All the murdered [Jews] were robbed by us of their clothing,
and wore only their undergarments.
On the basis of testimonies of both the accused and the witnesses,
it appears that there were many participants and passive spectators at
nearly every crime under discussion. In many cases, it is impossible to
determine whether the crowd formed spontaneously, as the result of a
rumor or information spread through a village, or because someone
who was interested in capturing Jews made special efforts to gather
them together. It is likely that all of the above were factors in many
cases.
An additional inducement to commit the crimes against Jews was
undoubtedly rewards — vodka, sugar, grain, money, or part of the
valuables found on the victim — paid out by the Germans for each
captured Jew.86 The intense pauperization of the countryside, drained
of resources, pacified by the occupation authorities and despoiled by
partisans, does not in any way justify these crimes, but it did facilitate
their commission, at least in the minds of the perpetrators.
Analysis of the cases under discussion leads to the unequivocal
conclusion that the direct motive for the majority of the murders and
denunciations in the countryside was the plunder of the property of
the Jews in hiding and the desire to take possession of their belongings
— which, in the perpetrators’ imagination, were much more valuable
than in reality. Stereotypical views of Jewish riches — huge properties,
gold, dollars, and jewelry — played an important role in this.
The peasants hoped to take over the victims’ property after murdering
them
And what about contrition, or empathy for the victims? Although
more than sixty years have passed since the events under discussion,
one would be hard pressed to discover deeper reflection on the story
either by the main characters, or even those who were just spectators.
An overwhelming picture of almost complete indifference to the
fate of the murdered Jews emerges from the interviews. If some emotion
surfaces in them, it is rather a dislike of the murdered victims and
only rarely of the murderers. More often than not, the antipathy to the
murderers stems from animosity between neighbors, or suspicion of
getting rich “from Jewish gold,” rather than because of the crimes committed against the Jews.
Indifference is one of the mildest manifestations of such attitudes;
the cases discussed here reveal that often it escalated to passive or active involvement in the Holocaust. The interviewees who witnessed the
events, or took part under duress in manhunts of Jews, or happened to
observe the transport of the apprehended Jews to the police post, rarely
initiated actions aimed at rescuing the endangered Jews. Statements by both trial witnesses and present-day interviewees indicate that almost
unconsciously it was accepted that by definition a Jew was someone
worse than others, condemned to death, and so it was not worth taking
a risk. Only rarely did attempts at reflection or compassion surface
in our conversations: “What should they have been murdered for?”
“How much they suffered before they were beaten to death”; or even
more personal remarks, such as “She was so pretty, this young Jewess,
pity they killed her,” or “One of them was a fairly old woman, but the
second was so young and pretty, she could have lived some more.”
Interestingly, considering the deep religiosity of the peasants,
the interviewees do not refer to the Ten Commandments and do not
evaluate the situations described in terms of responsibility for one’s
sins, helping one’s neighbor, or just plain moral duty. The dehumanization
efforts of the German propaganda, which dovetailed with the
underpinnings of traditional anti-Judaism from before the war, proved
successful in this case by casting the persecuted Jews completely out
of the community, unbound by any ties. It is with regret that we conclude from witnesses’ statements at the time that helping Jews appears to have been marginal. Actions that can be construed as assistance appear accidental — sheltering someone for a night or two, or offering some food. |
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Post by tufta on Apr 10, 2011 14:20:21 GMT 1
The book has no historical value. Yet, the book tells the truth in general. [/quote] Truth in general and false in detail. I am afraid you fell into a trap set by Mr.Gross. We (Poles) will now endessly discuss truths in general, false in detail. (Sidenote: in the meantime let half of the _really_ collaborating Europe forget their collaboration, which they actually do. You are noble intelligentsia member  so yo don't care what others do - you care only for 'own guilt'. Very noble. But if the bills will come - someone else will pay, the ordinary bread eaters will pay who don't understand why grave diggers are put in a context with murders of 6 million Jews). End of sidenote. The worst propaganda is built on mixing truths with untruths, I'm afraid. As you very well present here - the truth is already known since many years. New publications (Grabowski, Engelking-Boni) are expected. Publications based on research, fair, unemotional, meticulous presentations of facts, with extremely cautious pointing to trends. These books of historical value show the truth. Yet they usually show up without much clamor. Those interested in history read them. Balanced publicists make them known to wider publicity in good media. And with normal carency they enter history books. No sensation about event that took place 70 years ago. Sorry, Bo. End of discussion for me. I am bored to death with the subject. Yes - can you hear me? B O R E D. Such a cynical thickskin I am. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 10, 2011 15:17:51 GMT 1
Truth in general and false in detail. Not false but lacking scientific research. I am afraid I fell trap to "anti-Polish", pro-Jewish propaganda years ago. As far as I remember, in 1980s, when I was at university and started my personal studies on the topic.  It isn`t an intelligentsia matter. It is a christian matter for me. The straw in your eye, the beam in theirs. Verstanden? Yes, I don`t care that Lithuanians and Ukrainians perpetrated 100fold more vicious crimes on Jews than Poles. So what? I care about this nation because I belong to it. Those Poles who won`t understand it, will be lost for this nation. Good you mentioned Engelking here. In her interview in Wprost magazine, she corroborated Gross`s findings though she admitted they may lack professional historical research. You may find it a few posts above. I perfectly understand it. ;D ;D ;D So, see you, till another book is published. |
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Post by tufta on Apr 10, 2011 22:15:27 GMT 1
Not false but lacking scientific research. Bo, for you, just to remind Polish text translation in abstract: But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil. |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 10, 2011 22:48:41 GMT 1
Not false but lacking scientific research. Bo, for you, just to remind Polish text translation in abstract: But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil. It is a beautiful song, indeed. And good poetry, too. Mystical. Thanks. But don`t you realise I try to conform to the appeal of this song and its lyrics? I do grow gardens in my head. I follow yes, yes, and no, no. Yes, yes, to noble Poles who didn`t hesitate to lend a hand which rescued Jewish lives. No, no to lowlives and indifferent ones who turned away. ? |
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Post by tufta on Apr 17, 2011 7:00:57 GMT 1
But don`t you realise I try to conform to the appeal of this song and its lyrics? I do grow gardens in my head It's the other way round, Bo. The poet asks us that we don't grow the gardens in our heads, but to talk yes-yes, no-no. Yes I know you do. But not when you follow the twisting and winding paths of the garden grown in the head of the gardener we have been talkin about. Use your kołatka here too, will you ? [/quote] |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 17, 2011 8:29:30 GMT 1
It's the other way round, Bo. The poet asks us that we don't grow the gardens in our heads, but to talk yes-yes, no-no. Oh, I see! ;D ;D ;D So it was too complex for me. |
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Post by Bonobo on Jul 5, 2011 17:06:50 GMT 1
65th anniversary of Kielce pogrom commemorated today
04.07.2011 13:34
Today marks the 65th anniversary of a pogrom against the Jewish community in the city of Kielce, south east Poland.
 As many as 42 people perished in the massacre, and the crime prompted thousands of Jews who had survived the war to emigrate.
A March of Remembrance and Prayer is due to take place on Monday afternoon. Later this evening, honours will be handed out to figures active in building bridges been Poles and Jews.
The commendations are being made in the name of Jan Karski, the late resistance veteran who was instrumental in communicating details of Hitler’s holocaust of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland.
The Kielce Pogrom itself was carried out by Poles on 4 July 1946, ten months after the official end of the Second World War.
A historian at the Jewish Historical Institute, Hanna Wegrzynek, has reminded that the pogrom was not the only such tragic event in Poland’s post-war history, carried out by Polish society, which in her opinion was demoralised by the wartime policies of Nazi Germany.
“For informing on Jews in hiding, you would be rewarded by receiving their property,” Wegrzynek told Polish Radio.
“The society was also well aware of the Holocaust during World War II, perhaps giving them a feeling of impunity. You could denounce Jews, you could take their possessions. They were pushed to the margin of society,” she continued.
The pogrom was sparked by false claims that a Polish Catholic boy named Henryk Blaszczyk had been kidnapped by Jews, thus raising the ancient spectre of ritual murder.
Police and soldiers, accompanied by an angry mob of hundreds of locals, surrounded a building occupied by members of the Jewish community. Waves of violence broke out shortly thereafter.
Some Jews were murdered within the building, whilst others were dragged out into the street and beaten by the mob. Nine death sentences were later handed down to some of those accused of taking part in the murders.
Historian Ewa Wegrzynek has added that the pogrom had a significant impact on post-war Polish-Jewish relations. The scale of it prompted the first major exodus of Jews from Poland after the war, estimated to have reached 100,000 people.
Some voices continue to cite the massacre as a crime instigated by the communist security services. Others, such as Polish-born US academic Jan Gross, have placed the emphasis on long-running currents of anti-Semitism in certain sections of Polish society, exacerbated by the ordeal of war.
World War II survivor Marian Kalbary remembers the atmosphere of those times in Poland. “Anti-Semitism was still very prevalent […]. You could say that a part of the society could not come to terms with the fact that some of the Jews survived the war,” he told Polish Radio reporter Kobi Weitzner.
“Killing the Jewish population was not out of the ordinary. Many of them were caught and murdered on trains on a regular basis. A group of alleged Polish patriots would get on a train, […] and take the Jews out to kill them. It was a time of lawlessness in Poland,” Kalbary adds.
Meanwhile, a 2004 investigation by the state-backed Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) concluded that Soviet instigation of the pogrom could not be upheld, owing to “lack of direct evidence and lack of obvious Soviet interest in provoking the events.”
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Post by valpomike on Jul 5, 2011 21:19:51 GMT 1
Who did this? Could it have been the GERMANS?
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on Jul 5, 2011 21:32:55 GMT 1
Who did this? Could it have been the GERMANS? Mike Nope, it was pure Poles who thought that Jews pose a danger to Poland. |
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