Posted on 03/15/2018 2:23:59 PM PDT by Grzegorz 246
When it comes to Holocaust remembrance, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz looks like the Anti-Poland.
Whereas Poland has hunkered down behind a new Holocaust law saying the country was a victim of the Nazis, not a Holocaust perpetrator, Kurz said in an extraordinary speech on Monday that, yes, Austria was a victim, but it was equally a perpetrator.
The speech is also important in light of what is going on in Poland, where Polish legislators enacted a law making it illegal and a punishable crime to say that Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.
A similar refrain was heard in Austria 30 years ago, when the world was aghast that Waldheim, the former secretary-general of the UN, won election as chancellor even though his Nazi past came to light.
The refrain in Austria at the time, as the public rallied around Waldheim, who was banned from visiting the US, was that Waldheim and Austrians should not be blamed; that Austria was a victim of the Nazis; and that the Germans – and not the Austrians – were solely culpable.
That refrain sounds strikingly similar to what is being heard today in Poland. But 30 years later, Kurz has put things much, much differently: Admitting his country’s culpability in the Nazi crimes, saying his country also mistreated Jews immediately after the war, and declaring that as a result of that past, Austria has a special responsibility for Israel’s security.
Judging by the Austrian model, there is hope for Poland. That’s the good news. The bad news is that with the Austrian model as a gauge, it could take some 30 years before Poland comes around full circle.
“yes, Austria was a victim, but it was equally a perpetrator.”
Soooooooo where did Poland actively petition to be invaded and annexed to Germany?
Although not an expert I’d have to say that if Poland was a “perpetrator” at all she was *much* more a victim.As for Austria I’d say the reverse is true.
Hitler wasn’t Polish.
well, Poland WAS a victim of the Nazis
(unfortunately many Polish people helped the Nazis round up the Jews for extermination, and some Poles actually murdered Jews in their homes and in the streets, directly, including some that managed to survive or escape the Nazi death factories
so it was a brutal, bloody, and mixed history. Poland should recognize and deal with its history as a complete, honest story.
(Jerusalem does include several wonderful POlish people who hid or otherwise helped Jews escape the Nazi onslaught, in the memorial honoring the Righteous Peoples of the Nations, so that;s also part of the history)
Hitler also wasn’t German.
Saying “Austria was a victim, but it was equally a perpetrator.” was not a sentence comparing it to Poland. It just acknowledges Austria was a perpetrator.
Ditto for Holland, France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and every other Nazi-occupied country.
In fairness to Poland, they were the least cooperative nation to the Nazis, whose racial ideology regarded the Poles as an inferior, Slavic race and whose long term goal was the Germanization of Poland and the removal of the Poles deep into what was then Soviet territory. The Western countries the Nazis occupied were kindred Germanic (Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, the Flemish area of Belgium) or at least Aryan (France, the Walloon area of Belgium) countries. The Poles and other Slavs were considered inferior, though not as much as the Jews or Gypsies.
My family visited Warsaw in 1999 when they had just opened a WWII museum downtown.
The history that they tell is that the death camps were originally built for Polish upper class before they were used for the Jews. The Germans intended to suppress anyone in Poland who exhibited leadership abilities leaving a slave class in place for the benefit of the Germans.
The museum also gives details of how the Germans and Russians invaded Poland in a pincer movement. The Germans came in by land from the west and the sea via Gdansk. The Soviets came by train within a short time from the east.
We were touring the museum with Polish college students. One of them said that their aunt and uncle had fled from the German invasion by getting on a train going east. At the Polish border, Russians were arriving as their train pulled into the station. So his aunt and uncle went back west to Warsaw. This college student said that his uncle was arrested and assigned as a farm laborer in northern Germany. The uncle said that the German farmer that he worked for treated him well and that he survived the war. I don’t remember what happened to his aunt.
Indeed. Soon after the occupation, they arrested all of the professors of Jagellonian University in Krakow and sent them to camps where many of them perished.
Maybe that's because Poland was a victim and not a perpetrator.
What Polish governmental or army units aided the Holocaust?
Displays precisely the attitude that incenses the Poles and caused the government to pass the stupid law.
Comparing the Austrian situation which was German-speaking and had a large numbe4r of Nazi sympathizers and leaders to the plight of the Polish people is like the proverbial Apples and Oranges comparison.
Poland in contrast never surrendered to the Nutzis, never had any quislings or collaborative governments and fought the Germans from 39 to 45.
to the first -- if you helped a Jew then you AND your family would be killed
to the second, yes, SOME, individuals. And those who sold out Jews to Germans or killed Jews during the war were attacked by the only Polish organizations still functioning - the Armia Krajowa. If you sold out your Jewish neighbour, you could expect the AK to come and take you out.
The polish law states that you shouldn't accuse the Polish nation of commiting the holocaust. Individual Poles were sinners and saints, some angels, some devils. But the nation as a whole was not a part to the Germans.
I know. That was my point. He was Austrian.
Austria - Still trying to convince the world that Beethoven was Austrian and that Hitler was German.
Ha!
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