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To: Clemenza

Of course it doesn’t “make me feel better” that Poles also died in large numbers during the war. But several individuals here seem to be arguing that: (1) the Poles were not particularly anti-Semitic and have a relatively honorable record with regard to the German occupation; (2) the treatment of Polish Catholics is similar to the fate of Polish Jews. Both of those claims are clearly untrue. The latter is borderline denial.

The tolerance of some medieval kings is irrelevant to this discussion. In many European countries, royalty protected Jews from commoners because Jewish taxation was such important sources of crown revenue.

Also, the Jagiello were not exactly Polish. Except for its last members, the Jagiello dynasty spoke Lithuanian and thought of itself as culturally Lithuanian, while ruling Poland.

Three million is what was left after a substantial exodus. Those Jews who didn’t leave before it was too late, because of their various ties to the country and to Polish culture, were very sorry.

As I said before, there wasn’t a Nazi puppet government because the Nazis didn’t allow the Poles to self-govern. If they had, there would have been a German-controlled puppet government.

The Nazis persecuted all Polish political organizations because they considered all Polish politics subversive. The General Government was ruled entirely by the German military.


414 posted on 06/23/2008 7:30:27 PM PDT by buck jarret
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To: buck jarret; Clemenza
Compared to some the Poles were not especially Antisemtic. Poland was one country where Jews were not expelled. That is more than I can say for England, France or Spain. Ukranian nationalism, whether in the Kievan Chronicle or the revolts against Poland, was practically built on hatred of Jews.

That does not mean taht there was no antisemitism among ethnic Poles, quite the opposite. Sadly many political leaders, whether the Colonels running Poland in 1939, or the communists after the war, made use of it.
The German plans for the Polish people was brutal. Look up Operation Tannenberg, and stop being a denier yourself. The goal was the eradication of the Polish elite, the subjugation of the remaining Poles, the use of many for forced-labor or a new serfdom and the expulsion of the rest along with other Slavs past the Ural mountains.
416 posted on 06/23/2008 10:06:48 PM PDT by rmlew (Down with the ersatz immanentization of the eschaton known as Globalism.)
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To: buck jarret
As I said before, there wasn’t a Nazi puppet government because the Nazis didn’t allow the Poles to self-govern. If they had, there would have been a German-controlled puppet government.

Probably, but that has more to do with human nature than with anything else. Tyrannies and genocides find collaborators where deprivation is great enough. That the Nazis found collaborators happened in France, Austria, the Netherlands, and the rest of occupied Europe indicates that this wasn't an East European phenomenon.

The Nazis persecuted all Polish political organizations because they considered all Polish politics subversive. The General Government was ruled entirely by the German military.

Maybe this doesn't have the significance some people attribute to it, but it's not wholly without meaning either. The fact that the Germans relied so much on outsiders to do their work in Poland shouldn't simply be ignored or attributed entirely to German, rather than also Polish unwillingness.

During the Nazi occupation, Poles participated rather enthusiastically in the murder of Jews, for instance the Jewabne massacre and a lot of others like it. Polish collaboration is one major reason that only about 50,000 of the prewar Jewish population of 3 million survived.

Clearly there were incidents like that, but I don't know that you can take Jedwabne as a representative event. Saying there was "enthusiastic participation" or "rather enthusiastic participation" based on events that involved only a small part of the population is going too far.

Also, that collaboration was one reason for the low survival rate doesn't mean it was the only reason. Harboring Jews wasn't punishable by death in the West, and even a country as hospitable to Jews as Holland had quite a low survival rate.

It's harder to hide 3 million people than a smaller number, especially if many people need to keep the secret to save someone and only one person has to reveal it to send someone to their death.

That there was anti-Jewish feeling in Poland is hard to deny, but survival rates may not have been that much higher even had relations been better.

420 posted on 06/24/2008 11:48:04 AM PDT by x
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