Completely illogical, but who said that being irate has anything to do with logic, right? You and dwfgator are arguing against straw men. Nobody said that it was easy for the Gentile Poles --- or Russians, or Ukrainians, or Brits for that matter. It is also not true that "only Jewish suffering is really to be discussed:" it seems only to you 'cause it irritates you. Otherwise you'd notice volumes and volumes of literature in Russia alone that is devoted to the reexamination of the WW II period.
The situation is quite simple, really: (i) in modern history, only Jews and Roma (Gypsies) were singled out for complete annihilation, and (ii) that task was successfully completed or mostly completed. The reason the issue is frequently revisited is that illuminates the dark places in human souls. You may want to ask, for instance, why do these facts irritate you so?
With the exception of a few, mostly recent arrivals, there are no Jews in Poland. As much as Gentile Poles suffered (and 5,000 of Catholics there were killed by their Polish neighbors and the Nazis for hiding Jewish countrymen), there are plenty of Gentile Poles in Poland. As a group, Catholic Poland is is alive, well and, thank G-d, now free from the Russians. Jewish Poland, which constituted a large proportion of the country, is completely dead. I guess, you just cannot stomach that, can you? You just have to make the differences disappear. Well:
"There is no greater injustice than to try to make unequal things equal." --- Aristotle. Finally, who prohibits you from speaking out about suffering. If you think that some aspect of Gentile Poles' suffering has not been sufficiently brought out, by all means speak. Right a book. Raise money for a film. Do something.
It's much easier to be irate, of course.
P.S. Seems like you are well versed in Russian history: your name Vladimir and the year 998 point to the events surrounding Christianization of Kievan Rus. Since you are so versed with that history, are you also irritated by the hero Bogdan Khmelnitzky who, while "liberating" Ukraine from Poland also "liberated" it from fellow Jewish Ukrainians, killing 180,000 of them with unimaginable cruelty? Are you equally appalled by the rampant anti-Semitism in the modern Kievan Rus, even after WW II? Or is it just speaking about the victims that bothers you?
(iii) The Nazis had the audacity to document and film their atrocities and leave us with indelible images that cannot ever be forgotten.
If they had performed their crimes in secret, who would have believed it? Even with all of the documentation, somehow there are those who think that it didn't happen.
Sorry, but you post was filled with errors.
You wrote:
“The situation is quite simple, really: (i) in modern history, only Jews and Roma (Gypsies) were singled out for complete annihilation, and”
Except for the Armenians, Tutsis, people of Dafur, etc.
“(ii) that task was successfully completed or mostly completed.”
No. Not even close - thank goodness. In some countries, yes, but the people were essentially impossible to wipe out because they were spread out in so many countries never occupied by the Nazis. Thus, they are all but gone in Poland or Germany, but thrived in America.
“The reason the issue is frequently revisited is that illuminates the dark places in human souls. You may want to ask, for instance, why do these facts irritate you so?”
They don’t. You might want to ask yourself why you invent lies like that. What irritates me is that non-Jews are rarely discussed, not that Jews are.
“Since you are so versed with that history, are you also irritated by the hero Bogdan Khmelnitzky who, while “liberating” Ukraine from Poland also “liberated” it from fellow Jewish Ukrainians, killing 180,000 of them with unimaginable cruelty?”
I am not irritated by events that happend centuries before my birth. Such things are unfortunate facts of history, but not personally irritating to me.
“Are you equally appalled by the rampant anti-Semitism in the modern Kievan Rus, even after WW II?”
Modern Kievan Rus? There is no such place in modern times. I find anti-semiticism appalling. I also find disregard for the suffering of non-Jews appalling.
“Or is it just speaking about the victims that bothers you?”
Nope. It amazes me how much effort you put into deliberately trying to twist what I wrote.
thank you for your informed and eloquent posting —
It was shocking and upsetting to me to see the rancorous anti-semitism on FR in response to the article.
Shalom.