Which of German death camps was Polish ???

[Tomenable]

I'm so curious, apparently at least one of German death camps was in fact Polish:

https://twitter.com/yairlapid?ref_s...d/middleeast/poland-holocaust-law-israel.html

I wonder which one. I contacted Ewa Bazan from KL Auschwitz museum asking her about the fate of my relative who was killed there on Saint Stephen's Day in 1943. She found her death certificate, and it was written in German (why the heck would a Polish camp issue documents in German language?):

http://www.auschwitz.org/kontakt/ewa-bazan,91.html?id_dzialu=3

So maybe another death camp was Polish and its documents were written in Polish?

Please tell me which one was that? Name it. Or post geographical coordinates.

 

[Angela]

I don't think he meant that there were any concentration camps/extermination camps organized or set up by Poles. I've never heard of one. I think he meant that all of the extermination camps were set up in Poland, and often guarded or manned by Poles, although the majority of the horrific accounts of behavior by the guards which I've read was by Lithuanians and Latvians. There were Polish inmates as well, although the reports seem to indicate that the Polish prisoners still were often anti-semitic in their behavior toward the Jewish prisoners, and the two groups were treated differently.

I also think he's being a bit sloppy in saying that some victims would never have met a German "soldier". They might never have met anyone in the Wehrmacht, but the senior officers in all the camps, to my knowledge, were Germans, members of various SS divisions.

Yes, I'm reading about the controversy too.

A lot of Jewish people I know with roots in eastern Europe are convinced that such camps were deliberately sited in eastern Europe because other Europeans, while they might have been part of the conspiracy of silence or certain individuals might even have helped the Germans to round up Jews, would not have tolerated death camps where men, women and children were gassed to death on their territory, and would not have worked in such camps.

I don't know if that's true or not, but the Germans didn't attempt to set up such camps elsewhere. They didn't even set up "regular" concentration camps in other parts of Europe.

The level of anti-semitism in the east, especially in the 20th century, and perhaps most in the period between the two world wars was, in the opinion of all the Jews I know, greater by an order of magnitude than anything that was manifest in the rest of Europe.

I also had a relative who died in one of the camps: Natzwieler. I don't know that it makes anyone feel better that he died of cholera and tb in a concentration camp in Germany after being tortured and starved and kept in sub-human conditions versus being gassed in Poland.

 

[Tomenable]

This is how a KL Auschwitz Totenbuch looks like, as you can see it is written in German:

http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/about-the-available-data/death-records/totenbuch-auschwitz-iii

So I'm still waiting for that Israeli guy to show me documents from Polish death camps.

 

[Tomenable]

The level of anti-semitism in the east, especially in the 20th century, and perhaps most in the period between the two world wars was, in the opinion of all the Jews I know, greater by an order of magnitude than anything that was manifest in the rest of Europe.

That is all so called "anecdotal evidence" and even if true, it has nothing to do with who was running those death camps - Germany or Poland. This new law aims at penalizing claims that deaths camps were operated by the independent Polish state and/or by ethnic Poles. It does not penalize any other claim about Polish collaborators or Anti-Semites. Curiously David Solomon did not mention Poland as a particularly Anti-Semitic nation, he mentioned Germany:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUlM2a2tsOM#t=3350

"(...) The Shoah is not an isolated event. The project to exterminate the Jews of Germany happens here [pointing at the timeline of history], and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. And so people say - so why did Jews keep going back to Germany? Why did Jews keep going back? And I say - look at your own generation. Only half a century after the Holocaust, and what is the largest growing Jewish community in the world outside of Israel? It's Germany. And yet surely the lesson of this entire wall [pointing at the timeline of history] is that Jews should not be living in Germany. We hope and we pray... in the end of the day, in hundreds of years from now, I'm hoping that... well, if I'm starting to explain that more I'm gonna get further and further into problem, so I'm gonna stop, let's go back to history (...)"

It is well known that many Jews secretely love Germans and feel close to them (at least closer than to Slavic nations), so they want to white-wash Germany. It's still hard to believe that those civilized and cultured Germans could be so barbaric, inhumane and cruel. It's better to blame some poor illiterate Polish peasants instead of blaming "Ashkenaz" (Ashkenaz means Germany).

Jochen Böhler in his book "Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939" even quoted testimonies of some German soldiers from September 1939, which say that Jewish population in many towns welcomed German invaders in a rather friendly way. They could not see what was coming, many of them were probably ignorant of what was happening with Jews in Germany. They expected German occupation to be like it was back in 1915-1918, after the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive.

 

[Angela]

That is all so called "anecdotal evidence" and even if true, it has nothing to do with who was running those death camps - Germany or Poland. This new law aims at penalizing claims that deaths camps were operated by the independent Polish state and/or by ethnic Poles. It does not penalize any other claim about Polish collaborators or Anti-Semites. Curiously David Solomon did not mention Poland as a particularly Anti-Semitic nation, he mentioned Germany:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUlM2a2tsOM#t=3350

"(...) The Shoah is not an isolated event. The project to exterminate the Jews of Germany happens here [pointing at the timeline of history], and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. And so people say - so why did Jews keep going back to Germany? Why did Jews keep going back? And I say - look at your own generation. Only half a century after the Holocaust, and what is the largest growing Jewish community in the world outside of Israel? It's Germany. And yet surely the lesson of this entire wall [pointing at the timeline of history] is that Jews should not be living in Germany. We hope and we pray... in the end of the day, in hundreds of years from now, I'm hoping that... well, if I'm starting to explain that more I'm gonna get further and further into problem, so I'm gonna stop, let's go back to history (...)"

It is well known that many Jews secretely love Germans and feel close to them (at least closer than to Slavic nations), so they want to white-wash Germany. It's still hard to believe that those civilized and cultured Germans could be so barbaric, inhumane and cruel. It's better to blame some poor illiterate Polish peasants instead of blaming "Ashkenaz" (Ashkenaz means Germany).

Jochen Böhler in his book "Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939" even quoted testimonies of some German soldiers from September 1939, which say that Jewish population in many towns welcomed German invaders in a rather friendly way. They could not see what was coming, many of them were probably ignorant of what was happening with Jews in Germany. They expected German occupation to be like it was back in 1915-1918, after the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive.

Tomenable, believe me, it's natural not to want to believe ill of one's own countrymen, but facts are facts.

Historians can track anti-semitic laws, boycotts, riots, levels of segregation in a society etc. By any objective measure, anti-semitism was much worse in Poland than in countries in the west or south of Europe. It's just a fact. If you would do some reading on the subject by historians, and not just Jewish historians, you would discover that.

That's in fact why so many Eastern European Jews went to Germany and France and Italy and Britain: they were fleeing terrible conditions and discrimination. One of the milder forms was that very few Jews were allowed into the universities in the East, but it also included boycotts and riots, as I said.

They did think that Germans were too "civilized" to behave that way and, as we discovered, much worse than that. That was especially true of German Jews. They couldn't or wouldn't believe it would happen, because German Jews were very assimilated and felt very "German".

As to going back to Germany today, I think there is a belief that Germany has acknowledged its past, has repented of it, passed laws to stop it re-occurring, that its young people are totally different etc. and so they believe they'll be "safe" there. I personally think it's foolish but I have no great faith in human beings.

So far as most Jews know, Poland and the other eastern European countries have done none of that. Instead, they keep on reading about the rise of Neo-Nazi anti-semitic movements. Do you blame them for not returning to Poland?

 

[Tomenable]

Guess what, in 1915-1918 Polish Jews were not exterminated in Polish death camps.

And in those years entire Poland was occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Neither were Jews exterminated in death camps in 1918-1939 in independent Poland.

Do you think that the Holocaust would happen independently of the German invasion? Do you think that Poles were going to round up their Jews and exterminate all of them if World War 2 never happened? If you think so then you must be very dishonest.

 

[LeBrok]

Oh, you are so touchy, Tomenable! Are you going to respond to every half wit and conspiracy theorists because your pride was hurt? Relax, put them on ignore, grow thicker skin. Nobody really cares in the wide world if few crazies are accusing Poland of imaginary war crimes.
Actually, your overdone strong defending has opposite effect to your intentions. Now many members on sites you plastered this on, and there are many conspiracy theorists here and there, are thinking that maybe there is something to it? You are blowing it out of proportion! Relax, and take care of important things in life.

 

[Tomenable]

Oh, you are so touchy, Tomenable!

I am because my family was affected by the Holocaust too. And according to Doug McDonald's BGA I might even have a small amount of Jewish admixture. So I guess I can speak on behalf of both Poles and Polish Jews.

Claiming that death camps were Polish is just like Holocaust denial and should be penalized. Too many Catholic Poles were also killed in those camps, and such claims = disrespect of their memory.

 

[Angela]

Guess what, in 1915-1918 Polish Jews were not exterminated in Polish death camps.

And in those years entire Poland was occupied by Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Neither were Jews exterminated in death camps in 1918-1939 in independent Poland.

Do you think that the Holocaust would happen independently of the German invasion? Do you think that Poles were going to round up their Jews and exterminate all of them if World War 2 never happened? If you think so then you must be very dishonest.

Did I ever say anything like that? Don't put words in my mouth, Tomenable. That is straw man argumentation to the nth degree. The issue is did the brand and level of anti-semitism in eastern Europe mean that there was not only collaboration, but active involvement in the holocaust? It's a complicated question.

When you're calmer, perhaps you should read the history on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland#Growing_antisemitism

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/Polish Antisemitism.htm

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.co...-interwar-europe-the-cases-of-poland-hungary/

Polish anti-semitism: the last European closet
"This new approach to the Jews and the Jewish question had many names. For the National Democracy, the main political movement of the right, it implied the exclusion of all the “non-Polish” groups from the national collectivity, sometimes including a wish to turn the fight against the “Jewish enemy” into the pivotal point of all its ideology. For other groups, those referring to the tradition of the Enlightenment like ‘the independent socialists’ (such as the Polish Socialist Party, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) or liberals, it expressed an actual hegemony of Polish culture and a repeated demand for an absolute loyalty of the minorities.

Anti-Semitism, in various forms, thus became one of the permanent elements of the worldview held by the right-wing section of Polish society, while a negative attitude to the Jews constituted, for this part of society, the basic indicator of its national identity. In other words, patriotism meant for them a fight against the “Jewish influence”. No wonder then, that, from this time on, Jews (and not only in Poland) tended to view Polish society and Polish history as being in a perpetual process of growing anti-Semitism."

"The aftermath of WWII saw a Communist regime seizing power (in late 1940), the ethnic cleansing of Germans and Ukrainians, pogroms and a wave of violence against the Jews in late 1940. This, and the purging of the remnants of the Jewish community in 1968, gave rise to a mono-ethnic Poland, in which over 90 percent of the population were ethnic Poles. From the early 1950s, a process of formulating a so-called Polish historical memory began. Strikingly enough, but official, organized by the Stalinist state, regarding so called Polish historical policy with regard to ‘Jewish’ dimension of WWII, did not so much differentiate itself from this propelled by independent and still influenced groups, like the Catholic Church for example[5]. While, in theory, the Polish Communists preached the ideology of international working class brotherhood, in practice ethnic nationalism came to constitute an essential feature of the Communist system[6]"

"Between 1997 (symbolic of the establishment of the new Constitution) and 2004 (symbolic of the accession to the EU), this civic and pluralistic vision of Poland established itself in the political and cultural life of the country. One would argue that today, this vision remains dominant amongst the Polish political establishment.
On the other hand, an outburst of intense xenophobic, chiefly anti-Jewish public feeling arose over the same period. In the early 1990s, various right-wing political parties and groups as well as a conservative part of the Catholic Church began to make references to Jews as a menace to Poles and to the Polish nation. These anti-Jewish attitudes reached their peak during the first free presidential campaign in late 1990, when Mazowiecki has been delegitimized as a political leader by stigmatizing him and his supporters’ alleged “Jewishness”. The campaign confirmed the persistence, into the post-1989 period, of the typically right-wing political tradition of discrediting political opponents by labeling them “not true Poles,” or simply as “Jewish”."

"Though Polish public opinion of the time had, sociological data reveal, a “lower internal tolerance” towards other religious and ethnic minorities, populist right-wing politics did not enter into Polish politics on national level. Though many citizens identified their Polishness with ethnic roots, and related these to Catholicism, so-called Polish moral and cultural traditions, and the Polish language – seen as the only acceptable one for public discourse, this symbolic community of “Pole-Catholics” did not find at this time its own representation. None of the political parties or groups which openly spread anti-Semitism in public sphere were then elected to the national parliament and even got an open access to local politics. How can we explain this notable discrepancy between, on the one hand, the Polish political establishment and, on the other, the popular mentality?"

He goes into great detail about the reasons. It's well worth a read.

http://www.iwm.at/publications/5-junior-visiting-fellows-conferences/vol-xxix/grzegorz-krzywiec-2/

 

[Tomenable]

In Western Europe it was harder to tell apart Jews from Non-Jews. And Jews were less numerous.

British and French Jews were for the most part secularized, lived dispersed around gentiles, were assimilated into French and British cultures and fluently spoke the languages of their respective host populations. Meanwhile Polish Jews were mostly Orthodox, very religious, dressed traditionally, lived in separate Jewish districts, spoke Polish poorly or with a strong accent, and did not care about mainstream Polish culture. Today in the USA you have both kinds of Jews, assimilated and Orthodox ones. So you should know what differences I'm talking about.

Most of Polish Jews were still very Orthodox and not assimilated with the mainstream culture. Look at Orthodox Jews in Israel or in the USA today: that's the great majority of Polish Jews as of 1939.

We also had secularized and assimilated Jews, those had higher chances of surviving WW2.

 

[Angela]

In Western Europe it was harder to tell apart Jews from Non-Jews. And Jews were less numerous.

British and French Jews were for the most part secularized, lived dispersed around gentiles, were assimilated into French and British cultures and fluently spoke the languages of their respective host populations. Meanwhile Polish Jews were mostly Orthodox, very religious, dressed traditionally, lived in separate Jewish districts, spoke Polish poorly or with a strong accent, and did not care about mainstream Polish culture. Today in the USA you have both kinds of Jews, assimilated and Orthodox ones. So you should know what differences I'm talking about.

That's very true, Tomenable. However, if Jews ever thought that assimilating would keep them safe, they were disabused of that notion by what happened in Germany. German Jews were very assimilated indeed.

The same is true in Italy. Our Jewish population was tiny, but most of it, other than some Jews in Rome, was very assimilated. There were Jewish senators, and Presidents of the Republic. They felt completely "Italian". A few were even involved in the founding of Italian Fascism, and more than a few became members of the Italian fascist party. That's what made the betrayal so bitter and why so many of them left Italy after the war.

The only thing in our favor is that most Italian Jews were hidden and saved, that the Italian army tried, where it could, to save Jews, as in southern France, and that even Mussolini and the fascists would not permit the deportation of Jews while they were in control of the country. That only began when Germany invaded and occupied Italy and set up Mussolini as a puppet ruler. However, that doesn't erase all the anti-Semitic legislation passed after the alliance with Hitler, or the Fascist gangs who aided the Germans in rounding up Jews, nor should it.

 

[Tomenable]

As an American you should know that not all ethno-religious groups living in the same country love each other. I'm wondering how many White Americans would be willing to risk their lifes to safe for example Illegal Mexicans, if there was a Holocaust of Illegal Mexicans (let's assume that Trump gets crazy and decides to burn them instead of expelling them). Replace Mexicans with any other group Trump-supporters dislike.

In German-occupied Poland, for helping Jews or hiding Jews, there was death penalty.

Most of Polish Jews were Ultra-Orthodox shortly before WW2:

 

[Angela]

As an American you should know that not all ethno-religious groups living in the same country love each other. I'm wondering how many White Americans would be willing to risk their lifes to safe for example Illegal Mexicans, if there was a Holocaust of Illegal Mexicans (let's assume that Trump gets crazy and decides to burn them instead of expelling them). Replace Mexicans with any other group Trump-supporters dislike.

In German-occupied Poland, for helping Jews or hiding Jews, there was death penalty.

Most of Polish Jews were Ultra-Orthodox shortly before WW2:

So what if they were ultra-orthodox? I don't get the point you're trying to make. I know you can't possibly mean that being ultra-orthodox and speaking Yiddish as a first language should have meant that you should be deprived of citizenship, or herded forcibly into ghettos, or refused admittance to schools, or boycotted, or rioted against?

If that were the criterion, maybe the Amish could be targeted too? After all, they segregate themselves, speak German amongst themselves, wear funny clothes, are really successful farmers and so anger their competitors.

Yes, the more different people are, the easier it is to demonize them and excite hatred against them. It doesn't by any stretch of the imagination make it RIGHT!

While I may find the people of certain ethnicities more congenial than others, I don't "hate" any group. I reserve that for individuals, and I even feel guilty about that.

As for Mexicans, they're one of the groups I find congenial. In my experience, most of them are hard working, family oriented, warm, outgoing, and a lot of fun.

Having the courage to risk death for helping another human being is always going to be rare. Most people anywhere will just try to keep their heads down. Racing to get the possessions of people taken away to death camps, or turning them in, or volunteering to work in a concentration camp or extermination camp is something completely different.

 

[Tomenable]

So what if they were ultra-orthodox?

I'm saying that assimilated Jews were more likely to be rescued by Poles, than non-assimilated Jews.

Hiding is also easier if you can melt into the crowd.

Orthodox Jews couldn't, or it was much harder, as they even didn't speak Polish with no accent.

Also non-assimilated minorities generally experience more prejudice and hatred.

 

[Angela]

I'm saying that assimilated Jews were more likely to be rescued by Poles, than non-assimilated Jews.

Hiding is also easier if you can melt into the crowd.

Orthodox Jews couldn't, or it was much harder, as they even didn't speak Polish with no accent.

Also non-assimilated minorities generally experience more prejudice and hatred.

All very true.

From what I've read, women were more often saved than men, because their identity wasn't carved into their bodies. Less stereotypically Jewish looking people also had an advantage.

In Italy, we had the phenomenon where the vast majority of "native" Jews were saved, but the same percentages didn't apply to "refugee" Jews. It's one thing to risk not only your life but the lives of your family for a friend or at least an acquaintance and another to do it for total strangers who are foreigners as well. That requires an even more special type of person, although it happened.

The former chief Rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff, for example, was saved. He joined the resistance in the mountains near Sant'Anna di Stazzema near me, and by some miracle escaped death in the massacre there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elio_Toaff

 

[matbir]

I think he meant that all of the extermination camps were set up in Poland, and often guarded or manned by Poles,

I have never heard of it. Show me evidence that polish people guarded and manned German death camp!

As long as I live I never heard such terrifying statement. Polish civilians and Polish resistance had no access to Auschwitz death camp. There were only rumors that Jews are killed in the camp. Witold Pilecki voluntarily went to the camp. He allowed to be arrested by Germans and was taken to the camp in September 1940. His job was to create resistance inside the camp and rapport to his superiors what is happening in Auschwitz Konzentrationslager. His reports were the first about mass killings of Jews in concentration camp. He escaped from camp in April 1943.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki

A lot of Jewish people I know with roots in eastern Europe are convinced that such camps were deliberately sited in eastern Europe because other Europeans, while they might have been part of the conspiracy of silence or certain individuals might even have helped the Germans to round up Jews, would not have tolerated death camps where men, women and children were gassed to death on their territory, and would not have worked in such camps.

Such untruth. First of all Poland lost war in October 1939 and never capitulated, so there never was established Polish government in occupied territories. Germans organized occupational government which name was "Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete"(schortly GG). Poland was the first place to by occupied fully by Germany and the only place where was none Polish organization collaborating with Germans. The only reason why GG was chosen to locate Death Camps was economy. In pre war Poland there was about 3 mln Jews and it was not profitable to transport them to another place to kill them. So Germans decided to locate camps in place where there was lots of Jews and III Reich had absolute authority.
Polish organizations like Żegota AK and NSZ (two last - Polish military resistance) helped Jews to hide, to take false names or to run to other country. Because of Polish organized resistance against German authority, Germans established law that every one who helped to hide Jew or Jews was punished by death (Only in GG the law was applied). BTW There ware situations when whole families of Poles ware executed by German Soldiers including children and elderly. In that situation Polish resistance aimed in penalize Szmalcownik and volksdeutsch - people who ware giving information about Jews to Germans - by death.
What you are witting is, so unfair.

I believe that new law that Polish Sejm is working on is so necessary that it should be established now to suppress campaign of slanders.



Actually I know that some Jewish emigrants from Poland in 1960' who participated in establishing communism in Poland never admitted why they emigrated. Most of them ware part of communist regime that was killing Polish resistance soldiers and Polish patriots, their children and grand children will never admit that they were banished form Poland because of their Stalinist agenda. Instead they are spreading myths of Polish bloodthirsty anti-Semitism. Easy examples are: Zygmunt Bauman and Stefan Michnik, they have never been convicted for their crimes.


The reaction of Israeli government against Polish new law about IPN (Institute of National Remembrance) is totally unprofessional and inaccurate. I do not believe in incompetence of Benjamin Netanjahu, I think that they are doing it on purpose. USA is working to establish law that will help Jewish organizations draining money from countries where Jews lived before WWII, by pressing governments to use heirless property to support Jewish organizations. BTW There is no way to give them that property, because it is not civilized way to manage inheritance, when person dies without heir state inherits its property, not iis international ethnic comunity.
In Poland we say if you do not know what is going on, it goes about money. Here USA legislation: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/447/text

Here are words of Israel Singer former secretary general of World Jewish Congress (1996):

more than three million Jews died in Poland and the Polish people are not going to be the heirs of the Polish Jews. We are never going to allow this.... They're gonna hear from us until Poland freezes over again. If Poland does not satisfy Jewish claims it will be publicly attacked and humiliated.

That is so ungrateful to accuse Polish, who heped them to survive, just to gain money.

It is well known that many Jews secretely love Germans and feel close to them (at least closer than to Slavic nations), so they want to white-wash Germany. It's still hard to believe that those civilized and cultured Germans could be so barbaric, inhumane and cruel. It's better to blame some poor illiterate Polish peasants instead of blaming "Ashkenaz" (Ashkenaz means Germany).

Jochen Böhler in his book "Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939" even quoted testimonies of some German soldiers from September 1939, which say that Jewish population in many towns welcomed German invaders in a rather friendly way. They could not see what was coming, many of them were probably ignorant of what was happening with Jews in Germany. They expected German occupation to be like it was back in 1915-1918, after the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive.

Actually I think that they do not like Germans, they just understand that Germany is no longer interested in paying reparations, so WJC is searching for new source of money. Especially because Polisch government is planning restitution of property taken by communists.

I never heard of Jews welcoming Germans in Poland but it is widely known tat they welcomed Soviet Union. Interesting thing is that it was impossible to create large scale resistance in eastern Poland under Soviet occupation because of mass collaboration of Jews. They knew Poles and they informed about polish military reserve, military settlers and other Polish officials. My grandfather lived in Eastern Poland, his family was hiding during soviet occupation, two of his brothers were killed in Katyń because they ware officers in Polish Army. My grandfather’s cousin was marred to military settler, her husband was pointed by Jew and deported with family near Archangelsk in Russia where all four of her children starved to death.

 

[Angela]

For the record, I am totally unconvinced by the nonsense in the Wiki articles on the subject. It's clear that Polish nationals completely reworked the material. This is one glaring example of the kind of sophistry on display.

" Belief in the Żydokomuna stereotype, combined with the German Nazi encouragement for expression of anti-Semitic attitudes, was a principal cause of massacres of Jews by gentile Poles in Poland's northeastern Łomża province in the summer of 1941, including the massacre at Jedwabne.^[87][88]"

So, in the instances where the facts are so glaringly obvious that no denial is possible it's some gobbledigook about the "Zydojomuna" stereotype and the Nazi "encouragement" that was to blame for the atrocities, not the Polish citizens who committed the acts. Is anyone with a brain in his head supposed to take that seriously? It's a joke. Who was to blame for the atrocities against Jews after the poor survivors returned from the camps? Come on, there must be someone who can be blamed besides Poles.

Or, let's take the statistics that supposedly show lack of collaboration with the Germans. It was collected by Polish Courts after the war, with no other input. Clearly, in their minds, Jews weren't Poles. Informing on them to the Germans, handing them in for a few potatoes, rushing into their homes to steal their goods, stealing their businesses, taking gold and jewels to hide them and then turning them in anyways, attacking them physically even as they were being marched away, wouldn't have been seen as collaboration with the Germans, so, of course it wasn't counted.

For goodness sakes', just man up and admit what happened. No one is going to blame people who weren't even alive then, and it doesn't excuse the horrors that were committed against the Polish people.

I just don't get it. Other countries have admitted their culpability, only Eastern Europeans don't.

See:

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/jew...on-poles-collaboration-with-nazis/2018/01/29/

"“Granted, the term ‘Polish death camps’ is inaccurate, since these were German extermination camps on Polish soil,” Bennett said, “But, as noted, it is impossible to ignore the fact that there were many Poles who collaborated with the Nazis – and we must make sure that Israeli students know this reality the way it took place.”

In the lesson plan, students will learn, among other things, that “Jews who tried to escape or hide were handed over to the authorities, often by local people who sought to win a reward or hoped to take control of Jewish property, and some people attacked Jews with rage.”
The lesson plan also says that “this collaboration was expressed through ignoring the fate of the Jews (“bystanding”), in informing on and turning in Jews, and even active participation in the murder itself (collaborators). For example, about 200,000 Polish Jews were murdered by the Poles themselves.”
“Had not so many civilians outside Germany participated in the extermination campaign, there would have been fewer Jews murdered in the Holocaust,” the plan teaches.
The lesson plan also reminds students that “even after the war, Jews encountered hostility from their former neighbors as they returned from the concentration camps to their countries and homes. The most famous case was the Kielce pogrom in Poland, in July 1946, during which the Poles murdered 42 Holocaust survivors who returned to the city.”

I have read in historical accounts of parish priests in Poland proclaiming from the pulpit that all of Poland's troubles were because of the Jews, that this was why the Germans invaded. That it's idiocy doesn't change the fact that people believed that.

See:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-book-examines-poles-who-killed-jews-during-wwii/
"[FONT=&quot] He has suffered death threats, is boycotted in the Canadian Polish community where he lives today, and is not always welcome even in his homeland, but eminent Polish historian Jan Grabowski will not give up his struggle to expose the truth."

"[FONT=&quot]The son of a Holocaust survivor, Grabowski, 50, is a graduate of Warsaw University and is currently a history professor at University of Ottawa. For the past several years he has published a number of books with a common theme — Polish participation in the killings of their Jewish neighbors."

[/FONT]"[FONT=&quot]Among other things, he studied previously unpublished results of dozens of trials of Polish residents who were tried by the Communist regime for taking part in the killing of their Jewish neighbors."

[/FONT]"[FONT=&quot]“It is more complicated than just blaming the Poles for betraying their Jewish neighbors. On the one hand there were extraordinarily brave Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and on the other hand there was no great love between Poles and Jews before World War II.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“During the war these relationships became even more hostile. A large segment of the Polish population was displeased with their neighbors’ help to the Jews during the war, and for many it seemed even as an unpatriotic step. Therefore, some segments of the Polish population took an active part in the hunt for the Jews, and that is what the new book deals with.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Grabowski has found many Poles are still not ready to face the past and the fact that many of their ancestors took an active part in the extermination of the Jews.:

"For many parts of the Polish society it is very difficult, since for decades they were victims themselves, first of the Nazis and then of the Communists. If you look at the countries around Poland, such as Ukraine or the Baltic states, you will not find the same level of public debate about their relationship with their own Jewish minority."

"We should all remember that the Germans were responsible for this tragedy; it is they who murdered most of the three million Jews who lived in Poland before World War II. My book explains how the Germans were able to mobilize segments of the Polish society to take part in their plan to hunt down the Jews and help them carry out their Final Solution."

All I know personally is that I have read dozens and dozens of testimonies, have gone to meetings where old and often frail Jewish survivors from Poland describe both life before the arrival of the Germans and after it. Their testimony is in total agreement with the narratives above as to how they were treated. They are also unanimous that the guards were variously Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians in their own special units, but also guards who spoke Polish. They also have very clear memories of how even on the "inside", many of the Polish inmates persecuted them.

I've also read quite a few of the diaries written during the years of the occupation and then buried only to be dug up years later. Those diaries describe the reality going on around them. They also are in agreement with the testimonies given in a much later time period. Did the conspiracy exist even then?

Why would they lie? Why would they include Poles if they weren't there? Why would they accuse Poles outside the camps of behavior they didn't commit? Do you think all these old, sickly people, many of whom know only the Holocaust survivors in their own area, are part of some conspiracy only against Poles? It isn't that they don't know that the Holocaust was set in motion by Germans, but horrors were committed by other groups and individuals too.

Denying it all when there are so many witnesses still alive won't convince anyone. It would be like some southerner in the U.S. claiming that white southerners never discriminated against African-Americans, or rioted against them, or even, in some cases, killed African Americans for "not knowing their place", when people are still alive who witnessed it. I don't see the point. It's time to have a moment of healing. [/FONT]

 

[Tomenable]

Yes there was a problem of Anti-Semitism but Polonophobia was widespread among Jews as well:

http://kpk-toronto.org/wp-content/uploads/jewish_attitudes.pdf

http://www.glaukopis.pl/images/arty...tionalJewishAttitudesTowardPoles_MarkPaul.pdf

Polonophobia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Polish_sentiment

 

[LeBrok]

Yes there was a problem of Anti-Semitism but Polonophobia was widespread among Jews as well:

LOL, ney, I have had jewish friends and customers. It is just in your scared conservative head, that make small problems into existential ones.

 

[Tomenable]

On Historum I got a bit more reasonable and balanced responses, especially from Authun:

http://historum.com/european-history/133638-german-death-camps-polish.html

I think a lot of this is either poor or mischievous reporting. The argument between the State of Israel and Poland is because new legislation is being proposed to make it an offence to call Nazi Death Camps, Polish Death Camps. The polish deputy justice minister claims this is a necessary law because of the danger of claims that Poles were 'co-responsible'.

The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says the proposed law is baseless but Israel's Education and Diaspora Minister, Bennett, says that they go beyond the "historic fact that Germans initiated, planned and built the work and death camps in Poland." For Israel, it amounts to a sort of Holocaust denial, not denial of the Holocaust, but a denial that some poles were involved. Bennett adds:

"It is a historic fact that many Poles aided in the murder of Jews, handed them in, abused them, and even killed Jews during and after the Holocaust," Bennett said, adding that what happened "must be taught to the next generation."

There is no suggestion that Poles conceived, designed, built and operated the camps, just that there were such things as polish collaborators. Every country had those so it's really a question of scale and numbers are the one thing which is missing in all this. No one is talking about how many jews were denounced by poles and it's a straight forward, "they were", "no they were not". type of argument.

Yesterday's Deutsche Welle has a report on it:

Israel says 'Polish death camp' rephrasing bill amounts to denial.

France has had arguments over the scale of french complicity in what happened to french jews. There is not a lot that is new here, other than the proposed legislation.

He also explains why the most important camps were on the territory of occupied Poland:

http://historum.com/european-history/133638-german-death-camps-polish-3.html#post2893064

Poland had a pre war jewish population of about 3,000,000, 9.5% of the population. Germany had a pre war jewish population of about 525,000, just 0.75% of the population. The difference in numbers is the reason why the big camps were there.