In new film, director Polanski revisits the horrors of his Holocaust boyhood

Times of Israel ^ | 31 may 2021 | Afp

[Cronos]

Yes, I've been to Gdansk :)

My favorite cities in Poland to visit are:

1. Torun - a 13th century city that in the city centre is essentially the same - the problem is that the medieval churches are freezing in winter!

   

   Warsaw = the Phoenix city. While the Old town is nice (though it really is New as the entire city was levelled to rubble by the Germans during the war), I prefer the Warsaw Uprising Museum, Lazienki park and Cytadela

   
   

2. Sanok - the city center is beautiful as is the skansen and the Icon muzeum (there is also a Beksinski museum, but I don't like modern art)

   

3. Gdansk
4. Wroclaw
5. Łańcut -- the palace and the cathedral
6. Łódż = Piotrkowski street is definitely worth visiting
7. Kraków - this would be higher if not for the fact that it is always teeming with tourists
8. Lublin
9. Olsztyn

[Cronos]

The Nazis had more than enough Zyclon-B to kill many more people than there were Jews in all of Europe, so logically they intended to turn it against the Slavs. In addition to working them to death as slaves to defeat the Allied forces.

Correct. The Germans killed 5 to 6 million Jews and 1.5 to 2 million Poles and another million Russians. They also killed a large percentage of the Gypsies in Poland and Ukraine.

The Germans wanted to first kill off all the Jews - out of the 5 to 6 million, nearly 1.5 to 2 million were killed by Einsatzengruppe - roaming SS squads that came upon shtetls and slaughtered people then and there.

The German death camps were a typically German, efficient way to kill people while not traumatizing (?!? - yes they did) the killers

[Cronos]

How can one see the photos of the Holocaust, the Japanese atrocities against the Allies and Asians or the Holodomor in the Ukraine and deny it? What about the eyewitness testimony of American GI’s?

I don't get that either. The Germans were meticulous account keepers. They kept detailed track of the people they murdered, how they murdered them and how quickly

I also fully agree with your "conflate current politics with the Nazi genocide" - modern Germans are not to blame for the genocide of the Jews or Poles or Gypsies. And the tossing of "Nazi" for a slight infraction is just silly

[Cronos]

Not really - the killing petered out by 1944.

[Cronos]

I didn’t post it so much to comment on him, but on the documentary movie. It is good. Whatever he has done since, for me the point that stood out — and more so for Ryszard Horowitz who was with him was — how did these two move on with life after experiencing such horrors as children

[Cronos]

I strongly recommend the book

This is gripping in the way it shows how the commandant of the Auschwitz German death camp, Rudolf Hoss, descended to that level.

It was one simple step down each time, until he became death

[Cronos]

In contrast I would also recommend reading about Janusz Korczak

This man loved children and ran an orphanage. He was in Auschwitz but was too famous to be killed, HOWEVER he went into the gas chamber with his wards to ensure they would not be frightened alone.

can you imagine such bravery? This man represented humanity at its finest

ditto for Maximilian Kolbe

At the end of July 1941, one prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive.

The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection

We should know more of these two men -- they are REAL heroes to be emulated.

[Cronos]

this too is a good film, from 2007.

there are good Polish films on the evils of communism - like Rewers (Reverse in English) etc.

[Cronos]

Ukrainians did to the Poles in Volhynia during WWII.

[gattaca]

Thanks for posting this. I recently watched Bitter Harvest, a drama set in Urkaine about the Holodomor.

[Gay State Conservative]

It's been done...very vividly and effectively. And it's been done by men who haven't plead guilty to drugging and raping a young girl.

[Gay State Conservative]

A few years back I was dating a Korean woman...Korean American. She went to school in South Korea and came here as an adult. She was very intelligent and well educated.

She absolutely *hated* the Japanese. I couldn't even mention the word to her. But having done some research on Japan's treatment of the Korean people,as well as others in East Asia and Southeast Asia,I've come to believe that the Japanese were at least as bad as were the Nazis...and perhaps even a little bit worse.

[JstABrdPstr]

Same.

I pray our country does not continue this path.

[higgmeister]

I sometimes research the occasional documentary to learn more about the subject. In this one, Tom Lantos, a former Democratic Representative from California, interested me to know his stance on abortion. To my horror, I discovered he voted in support of 'partial-birth abortion.' For the life of me, I can't fathom how anyone who was an eyewitness to the Holocaust and survived it could support the current Holocaust.

I think it's simple projection.   If he could have been aborted to miss the horrors he endured, he would have welcomed it, and that clouded his judgement of other's circumstances.

[packagingguy]

I didn’t realize the article was about THAT Polanski. Posted a bit later in the thread when I made the connection.

[mware]

Glad they got Mason and his gang when they did. Charleston Heston was on his hit list.

[mware]

Japan used the Korean woman for their brothels.

[Gay State Conservative]

Yup,that and many,many,*many* other things....a lot like the Nazis in fact.

[caww]

I agree....however it might be only possible to turn it around by Gods intervention. Too many foreigners and Americans are being mislead...most willingly.

[Georgia Girl 2]

So after witnessing all those horrors he went on to defile young girls.