Posted on 07/26/2007 2:01:37 PM PDT by lizol
Poland investigates communist era anti-Semitism
By Agnieszka Flak REUTERS
9:54 a.m. July 26, 2007
WARSAW – Polish prosecutors have begun investigating former communist officials for promoting anti-Semitism in the 1960s when thousands of Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust were driven from Poland, investigators said.
The Institute of National Remembrance said on Thursday it had found evidence of propaganda in the archives as well as copies of speeches and press articles that made clear the anti-Semitic agenda of the government of the time.
'We will examine each case on an individual basis, look to verify whether the person has committed a communist crime, which means someone who actively participated in directing the action against Jews and inspiring it,' said one of the institute's prosecutors.
Arkadiusz Galaj told Reuters his unit would try to find some of the Jews who left Poland around 1968-1969 to identify potential witnesses.
Poland has long been trying to shake off an anti-Semitic reputation it sees as unfair.
Most of Poland's three million Jews – then the world's largest Jewish community – were killed in the World War Two Holocaust. Thousands of survivors emigrated after the anti-Semitic campaign in the late 1960s.
According to papers brought to the attention of the institute, some Poles in top academic positions and businesses in the city of Lodz were fired in the 1960s after being accused of having Jewish origins or holding pro-Israel views.
Poland, like many other communist states, broke off relations with Israel after it defeated Soviet aligned Arab states in the 1967 Middle East war and occupied swathes of land.
The institute said former communist party general secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka had called Jews an 'imperialistically Zionist fifth column' – a statement later repeated and developed by Gomulka and other members of his party. Gomulka died in 1982.
Galaj said some 3,900 Jews applied to emigrate from Poland in 1968 and almost 7,300 in the first eight months of 1969. That compared to an estimate of between 500 and 900 Jews leaving Poland between 1961 and 1967.
The institute will start the inquiry in the Western town of Lodz, but it hopes to extend it to the rest of Poland. Galaj said the institute might appeal to Israel for help with the investigation as many of Jews who left emigrated there.
The institute's work to uncover Poles who collaborated with the communists has been encouraged by Poland's conservative ruling twins, President Lech and
“I would like to remind you that between 1890 and 1917, there was no Poland.”
Dont confuse the Pole basher with the facts - he prefers to cherish the age old ploy of setting the subjugated against the subjugated. When did the ruling class first start using Jews to do the dirty work of collecting the taxes, land rents, etc and deflect criticism by the serfs?
Yep...those “Uniates” really paid the price for selling out the Orthodox Faith.
” However, the idea that they killed more than 6 million Jews is simply not suportable by any evidence. “
You have no idea how many Jews lived in rural Ukraine where mortality rates reached 100% in many villages during the Genocide Famine.
The total death toll including the Famines of 1921, 1932, and 1947 is about 13-15 million - another 20 million perished in the Gulags. Throw in Stalins “Doctor Purge” and the bottom line is that you dont know much about communism but you certainly know much about leftist Pole bashing propaganda.
“Contemporary Jewish octogenarians in Ukraine have lived through revolution, civil war, Stalinism (collectivization and state-induced famine, forced closure of small businesses, political terror), distortion and suppression of Jewish life”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.