Praying Hitler in ex-Warsaw ghetto sparks emotion

Associated Press ^ | Fri, Dec 28, 2012 | VANESSA GERA

[DManA]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees is on display in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the place where so many Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by Hitler's regime, and it is provoking mixed reactions.

[x]

There are things that are questionable in the quote you cite: that few Jews worked in industry and that there were few Jewish industrialists, for example.

There was prejudice against Jews and some of the governments acted upon it. But Poland was a poor country. There was also a more general move towards state industries and a depression at the time that had effects on society as a whole.

There were different parties and ideologies and sectors of the population with different attitudes, and not all govermnents pursued a single policy.

No one questions that Polish history in the 1930s was difficult and at times shameful, but your own claims and language are exaggerated and inflammatory. Most historians realize that things were more complicated than you claim.

[Happy Rain]

I quoted from an officially sanctioned by the State of Israel Holocaust historical record publication and you dissent with personal opinion...claiming, without actual documentation, that the issue is "complicated" .Wonderful, the murdered millions of Treblinka, Sobibor, Aushwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Belzec, and Lublin-Majdanek,(oh my, all the death camps on Polish soil) now understand it was all "complicated."

...oh well, that's America.

[dfwgator]

As always things are more complex than they appear on the surface.

There were two major forces in Poland in the early 30s, Sanacja, which was headed by Marshall Pilsudski, and Endecja, headed by Roman Dmorwski.

Pilsudski’s death in 1935 brought about the rise of the Endecja, and with it the harsher treatment of Jews in Poland......But if anything, they hated the Germans even more than the Jews, which explains why despite the shared anti-semitism, cooperation with the the Nazis would have been impossible. There was no “Vichy Poland.”

[Happy Rain]

The Poles did not need to cooperate nor agree with the Nazis in the oppression of the Jews. The two fascist regimes already had the shared interest in getting rid of them...this is why the extermination camps could be built in Poland and no where else without a lot of local citizen “fuss.”

Poland had the singular misfortune of cooperating in the extermination of the Jews and then themselves being exterminated by the Nazis as Slavic subhumans suitable only for slavery.

Let's face it, the Poles screwed up in WWII and not just because of their Holocaust enabling anti-Semitism but also as being a pathetic first challenge for the Nazi war machine...it was the 20th Century for heaven's sake—trash the biplanes and send the Calvary home!

[dfwgator]

Do you forget that Poland was also invaded by the Soviets in 1939?

The Poles may have been able to hold out longer if not for that.

[Revolting cat!]

The Poles today say (or perhaps the word ought to be “recognize”) that there is in the West and especially in America an industry whose purpose is to whitewash the German and Soviet war crimes and to blame the Poles and Ukrainians. Recall the recent Obama statement about “Polish death camps”, which corresponds to some of the nonsense posted above.

Things were indeed complicated in Poland before the war as well as during it, as German and Soviet armies rolled over the country and various ethnic groups expressed their sympathies, because it was at the time a truly multi-ethnic society, with many Jews, since we are discussing them, not even speaking the official language of the country, and uncomfortable in it being a sovereign state after 123 years of non-existence. Then there were the Ukrainians who longed for their own state and murdered 200,000 Poles toward that goal, and the Lithuanians, who preferred the German occupation to the Soviet paradise. But all of this is too much for the amateur historians getting their lessons from propagandistic Hollywood productions.

[dfwgator]

Well said.

[x]

One thing history and scholarship can do is show us that things were more complicated that we in our anger believe. In the twenty years since Yahil published her book, there's been much research done by scholars into Polish-Jewish relations before and during the war.

Not all of the findings have been favorable to Poland. Some have been quite shameful. But no serious historian would follow you all the way with your abuse. If you're interested in finding out more, writers like Istvan Deak, Anne Applebaum, and Timothy Snyder have summarized recent research.

If you lost relatives during the war, nobody's going to blame you for feeling as you do. But they're also not going to take your view as authoritative or the last word in the matter. If you're just being a pr*ck to be a pr*ck, though, that's more serious and you might want to do something about it.

[surchris]

Ah no, now you are being facetious. Poland was the only European country that did not raise units for the Wehrmacht. I am of the opinion that Hitler and Stalin should have been left to fight each other to the death and clean them both up after that. Poland was occupied and disarmed by punishment of death. What were the Polish people supposed to do about the ‘Holocaust?’. You really need to read up on your history on Eastern Europe during World War Two, your lack of knowledge is disturbing.