Posted on 09/03/2009 1:20:05 PM PDT by lizol
‘Katyn was not like the Holocaust’
02.09.2009 11:48
A German Jewish group has said that President Kaczynski’s likening the 1940 Katyn massacre to the Holocaust was “inappropriate”.
“Despite total understanding of the pain caused by the memory of Polish officers murdered in Katyn, the comparison is inappropriate and out of place,” said Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, quoted in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
President Kaczynski referred to the massacre of over 22,000 Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 in his speech commemorating the outbreak of WW II. “Though not comparable in scale, what Katyn and the Holocaust have in common is that Nazis killed Jews because they were Jews – the Soviets killed Polish officers because they were Polish,” he said.
Not exactly. They killed them because they were enemies of the People. Class rather than race or ethny based.
Kaczynskis comments were 100% correct and appropiate.
The extermination of an ethnic group vs. the extermination of a class (officers/intelligensia)...both were amoral crimes.
Next question, please.
Actually - President Kaczynski said “the Soviets killed Polish officers because they were Polish officers”.
bttt!!!!
They killed them because they were patriotic Poles and not commie sell-outs to the Soviets.
Yeah, plenty of Poles went to and died in the camps that weren’t shot down straight out like at Katyn. Bad move.
The Central Council needs to stop this "our mass murder is worse than your mass murder" business. It is one thing to note that the Jews and Gypsies were the only two groups targeted for mass extermination (although the Slavs were next, per Hitler's campaign for living space), quite another to deny that mass murder took place at Katyn.
Going after people who suffered greatly because they compare their suffering to the Holocaust I don't understand.
My dead people are more dead than your dead people.
Tragety is tragety, folks.
This is why Jews get in trouble. Fifty million people died during the war, only six million were Jews. the officers were killed because they were POLISH officers, because they wanted to leave the Polish army without leadership.
My dead people are more dead than your dead people.
Tragedy is tragedy, folks.
Exactly. I am strongly pro-Jewish, and I find this kind of ADL-style scolding very counter-productive and disrespectful. If their purpose is to defend against antisemitism, it’s a mistaken way to go about it.
The same when they object to the phrase “abortion holocaust.” If shooting 20,000 Polish officers and throwing them into a ditch wasn’t a holcaust or a pogrom, I evidently misunderstand what the words mean.
No one intends to belittle the Holocaust. It’s counterproductive to belittle the Communist massacre of Katyn—or their massive slaughter of Polish civilians.
Not to mention the millions of Polish citizens who were shipped to Siberia during the 1939-1941 Soviet occupation.
There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between casualties of war and genocide. While it is true that Hitler considered the Slavs as "undermenschen" who would eventually be targeted for slavery and extermination, the fact remains that it was only the Jews, gypsies, and the disabled who were targeted for genocide.
BTW: I am NOT Jewish, but a goy of Polish and Italian ancestry.
There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between casualties of war and genocide. While it is true that Hitler considered the Slavs as "undermenschen" who would eventually be targeted for slavery and extermination, the fact remains that it was only the Jews, gypsies, and the disabled who were targeted for genocide.
BTW: I am NOT Jewish, but a goy of Polish and Italian ancestry.
Not only the Polish army.
Many of those murdered by the Soviets in Katyn and in other places (probably most of them) were reserve officers, mobilized just before the war. In their civilian life they were teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, businessmen, landlords - etc.
By murdering several dozens of such people - the Soviets wanted to get rid of Polish elites - to make it easier to create obedient mass of the rest.
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