Well, unfortunately they did.
Poland has had its magnificent heroes, and great moments in history (the turning back of the Red Army in 1920 before Warsaw, which saved western Europe);
but it also has had some black sheep in the family...
Really,who didn’t kill Jews in that region during that time? Even though America was slow to react,without America,the Jews would probably become extinct.
Israeli media sure has a “thing” with the poles. Maybe focus on the present and the enemies at the gates. So sick of this crap.
Between Berlin and Moscow from 1939 to 1945 (and beyond) there were few good or easy choices.
I guess Russia gets irritable because most of the world doesn’t realize that about 80% of all the allied deaths were Russians.
This is just the latest example of the Russian Government trying to rewrite the history of the Second World War. Specifically its attempts to whitewash the USSR’s record of conspiring with Hitler to carve up Poland in 1939. To that end the Russians have been engaging in a campaign of anti-Polish propaganda to make Poland look bad and insinuate they bear at least some guilt in starting the war. They are desperately trying to rehabilitate Stalin and to do this need to vilify Poland.
Not true. Russia is just trying to divert attention from the fact that Stalin had the Red Army stop just short of Warsaw and then not lift a finger to help the Poles during the Warsaw Uprising because he wanted the Nazis to destroy the Polish Resistance Army, which was not communist. He wanted to install his Lublin Committee commies in Poland and needed the legitimate government and Army of Poland out of the way.
The AK didn’t kill Jews per se. However they did in some cases refuse to provide them with arms, which was regrettable, but that’s not the same thing as killing them.
Lots of both pro-Germany/Nazi and pro-Soviet Union/Communist propaganda crap in some posts by a few people..
Re the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, get, possibly on-line, the small Sen. Internal Security SubCom, Sen. Judiciary Com. 1969, entitled “Warsaw Insurrection: Communist Version Versus Facts”, by Subc. communism expert the late David Martin.
Will correct a lot of disinformation fast.
PS: Both Dave and I used to have monthly luncheon with former leaders of the Captive Nations/Poland. One of them was Stefan Korbonski, “A Righteous Gentile” award recipient from Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust remembrance organization. He got it because he not only sent in supplies to the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto for their Resistance forces, but also ARMS.
The other Polish diplomat awardee of Righteous Gentile was the Polish diplomat Jan Karski.
Another SISS study you might find online is their 1970 “The Human Cost of Soviet Communism”, 35 pp., part of the trilogy including the 1972 “The Human Cost of Communism in China”, 28 pp., and my creation/coeditor with Dave Martin, of “The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam”, 1972, well over 120 pages.
Never heard a reliable source say that Russia lost 30 million people in tWW2. The most cited figure was between 20-23 million, which is a horrible figure in and of itself. Wonder how many were Soviet soldiers who were executed for alleged incompetence (esp. among high ranking military officers, soldiers accused of cowardice, Soviet soldiers whose lives were sacrificed deliberately (but not without rationale) as human landmine exploders.)
The Soviets committed “political genocide when they carried out the deliberate massacre/genocide of the leadership/members of the Polish Reserve Officers Corp in “The Katyn Forest Massacre(s)”. Perhaps up to 50% of those officers were Polish Jews, an added bonus for the Soviets. The Soviets blamed it on the Germans who proved decisively that they did not commit that act.(PS: There were a few survivors of the massacre who wrote books about it).
The US Govt investigations/hearings of and entitled “They Katyn Forest Massacre” consists of several massive volumes numbering as I recall, well over 3-5,000 pages.
The Ribbentropp-Molotov Treaty (and its 3 secret Protocols), openly stated their plans to jointly invade Poland and to divide up the territory between them. The Soviet Union/Russia often refused to let refugees from Poland fleeing the Germans to enter Russia, and would sent them back to a certain death. This happened to many residents of Chelm, including the late Perry Burstyn of Baltimore who was a returnee who survived by living in the forests for years ( I told his story in the Balto. Jewish Week in 1983, along with providing a copy of one of the secret Protocols for its readers to see, often for the first time. Others were able to join the Resistance and even the Soviet created Resistance units if they were lucky enough to be given some kind of asylum in Russia.
Others, like Menachem Begin, were sent to slave labor camps, often in Sibera. No one knows how many Polish Jews and other Poles the Soviets sent back to their deaths. Shades of FDR and the SS St. Louis.
There is no denying that there was serious Polish anti-Semitism before, during and even after WW2 with a serious cost in Jewish lives. It was nothing for Poland to be proud of, but fortunately many brave Poles risked (and often sacrificed) their lives to save Jewish neighbors, friends and strangers, for which humanity is ever thankful.
Just a little history from one whose Jewish European family in Lemberg was wiped out in a 2,500 persons massacre in that city’s sandpit, or were shipped off to Belzec or Auschwitz to be murdered there.
PSS: I met the original German Wermacht commander, Gen. Oberlander, who led the drive into Ukraine. He refused to carry out any ethnic cleansing and was relieved of command and returned to Germany. He was proof that a German officer could refuse to commit war crimes and live. Perhaps he was one of a few who did refuse and live, but the fact that he did it was because he was a professional soldier, not a genocidal maniac like so many of the SS commanders and troops were.
It’s true that there was a lot of antisemitism in Poland and yes, some Poles did murder some Jews in WWII.
Still, to see the Russians/Commies point an accusatory finger at anybody is the height of absurdity. They were every bit as murderous and brutal as the Nazis.
And Stalin shipped fleeing Jews to the Nazis.