How Poles Are More Vilified as 'Bestial' Brute Jew Killers Than German Nazis Themselves

Haaretz ^ | Feb 19, 2018 | Danusha Goska

[nickcarraway]

Increasingly, ordinary Poles, caricatured as staunchly Catholic, simple-minded and chauvinistic, are positioned as the quintessential Holocaust perpetrator. That's far more comfortable than blaming 'elite' German Nazis

To many observers, not least those who are neither Polish nor Jewish, the highly critical press coverage of Poland's new Holocaust law which seeks to criminalize declaring the complicity of the Polish nation in the murder of Jews in WWII, appears both simple and clear.

Poles contributed enthusiastically to the genocide of six million Jews. Poles did so because they are staunchly Catholic, simple-minded and chauvinistic. Right-thinking observers must perpetually goad Poles to drop their defenses, acknowledge their guilt, and make amends.

Polish-Jewish relations are thus reduced to a calculation performed with black and white beads on one rod of an abacus. The black beads represent the bad, anti-Semitic Poles. The white beads represent the exceptional, prejudice-free Poles. A "true" historical retelling is only achieved when the black beads far outnumber the white beads. The token righteous white bead – Jan Karski – is the main concession to any semblance of balance. Karski was the Polish Home Army officer who brought the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust to Roosevelt.

The abacus approach dominates public discussion. But it is intellectually and ethically bankrupt, not just because it distorts beyond recognition a thousand years of Polish-Jewish interaction and the unique horror of 1939-1945. The abacus prevents historical clarity and ethical responsibility. And this debate matters very much in the era of Trump.

In my book "Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype", I explored how people talk about the Holocaust, its victims and its executors. Many, though not all, of those I interviewed talked about Poles quite differently from how they talked about Germans.

Visceral vocabulary and animal references were prominent. This trend can be found in Fania

[mdmathis6]

I suspect it’s left wing hatred against a population that wishes to remain religiously Catholic and moral.

[GraceG]

[ I suspect it’s left wing hatred against a population that wishes to remain religiously Catholic and moral. ]

The Left LOATHES Poland right now because they are rejecting the same suicide by Islamic importation invasion that Germany, France and the UK are gleefully lapping up like mother’s milk.

[GraceG]

[ I am puzzled as why the Jews don’t talk about the horrible holocaust by the Russians. ]

Many Jews died in the Holodomor, but the Russians were equal opportunity democide-ers as long as you were a Kulak you starved or were shot trying to feed you starving family.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

#9. A few tidbits about Poles, Poland, the Holocaust and WW2.

* Jewish Polish Army Reserve officers were killed by the thousands in the Soviet’s massacre of up to 12-15,000 men in the Katyn Forest Massacre. There was not discrimination in who got killed. The Communists killed anyone they thought was a threat to them.

* My late friend Stefan Korbonski, a head of the Polish Free Army, did send arms and other supplies into the Warsaw Ghetto so that Jewish fighters could put up a resistance. He was awarded the Yad Vashem “Righteous Gentile” title by Israel for what he did to help Polish Jews.

To look at Stefan you would have thought that he was a duplicate of the silent screen actor Ben Turpin but underneath, he was a giant of a man.

* I did a newspaper story in 1983 after the Holocaust Survivors Conference in DC with a man I knew from Baltimore. He came from Chelm, which was pretty much wiped out of Jews by the Germans in “aztions” and the fact that the Russian border troops turned back Jewish refugees to a certain death.

Perry survived in the woods with several other relative and friends, living in a pit in the ground, and raiding farms for potatoes. They never contacted the farmers because they had learned that some had turned in Jewish refugees to the Germans. Others, as we learned from others, did not and aided the Jews.

It was a mixed bag of help, ignore, or hurt. It happened in every German occupied country including France where a number of my friends lived, were imprisoned and escaped.

It seems that only Franco’s Spain did not turn Jewish refugees over to the Germans. Say what you will about the Generalissimo, he had a human side to him that is little known to the Western world.

* Another family friend had to live in a largely Catholic city and pose as a Catholic (including going to Church) in order to avoid the Gestapo. Her Polish Christian friends protected her (they literally adopted her into their family), and never gave away her parents who had to live elsewhere.

My grandmother’s family in Lemberg was wiped out during the Holocaust. We figure that they were either shot in the sandpits there or transported to Belzec or Auschwitz for final extermination.

While Goldhagen did some pioneering research into the role of “The Ordinary German” in his work, other Holocaust writers challenged him on it and the issue has never been fully resolved, and maybe never will.

One thing that will need further study is just how many Moslems in Montenegro and other parts of Yugoslavia/Romania?/or Serbia/Croatia? helped save their Jews. A few very brave individuals have finally been able to have their stories told, but two SS Divisions led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (an arden Nazi sympathizer who met with Hitler on the Jewish “problem”), committed as many massacres and atrocities as did the SS/Gestapo/Ustashi and Lithuanian/Latvian SS troops. (I have friends whose parents survived “death marches in Lithuania/Latvia, the father of one of them was one of two men to survive out of about 1,000 on a forced march).

The Nazis/Germans and allies committed unspeakable crimes against humanity, just as did the Communists of the Soviet Union, Red China, No. Korea, Cambodia/Kampuchea, Cuba and Vietnam. I lost friends in several of those countries and have heard the horror stories from other prisoners of the communists who survived (Avram Shifrin - Russia; Rev. Wurmbrand - Romania; Lt. Cmdr. Harris, USS Pueblo - No. Korea; Wu Shu Ren, former Red Guard, Red China; and Commander/Adm/General Jeremiah Denton, Mike Benge, Bud Day, etc - Hanoi Hilton, among others.

Some of us will NEVER FORGET those victims of the genocidal maniacs who wrecked much of the civilized world in the name of Fascism and Communism.

To those Poles who risked their lives to save their fellow Jews, thank you for being decent and brave human beings.

[JewishRighter]

Excellent, sweeping overview and interesting personal touches.

My father survived a death march from Konzentrationslager Flossenburg and was liberated by the American 3rd Army, by our best estimate on April 24, 1945. He joined the American forces that liberated him and served as a translator taking surrenders from Germans and then, for CIC deNazification work.

[kearnyirish2]

It is very important to note that while SS divisions were raised from volunteers in many occupied countries (Norway, Belgium, Denmark, etc.), there was no SS division of Poles. A large number fought for the Allies, on the other hand, and while it was assumed they would serve a free Poland after the war the West betrayed them.

[miss marmelstein]

Well, someone had to say it. I can still remember “Exodus” (a good book) going out of its way to blame the Poles for the Holocaust. The film “Shoah” makes much of this as well. I still remember Pauline Kael exprsesing outrage at that notion.

I’m not saying Poland was a perfect country or that many people didn’t act badly towards the Jews. But they did suffer mightily in WWII and had a strong resistance movement which was put down brutally - by Nazis. I’m sure Germany breathes a sigh of relief every time Poland is attacked.

[kearnyirish2]

“It seems that only Franco’s Spain did not turn Jewish refugees over to the Germans.”

Sweden was neutral like Spain and similarly didn’t turn over its Jewish population; in fact, Raoul Wallenberg saved many Jews with Swedish passports.

Italy never turned over their Jewish population to the Nazis; when Germany occupied Italy (as they switched sides) the Nazis then deported the Jews to the camps. The Italians themselves hadn’t allowed it when they controlled their country. Hungary did the same, IIRC; the Jews were rounded up later when Germany took control of their country (1943?)

Finland fought alongside Germany (only against the USSR) and they refused to hand over their Jewish population.

There were plenty of good Gentiles that stood up to Nazism; just not enough.

[miss marmelstein]

Why don’t you try reading the article? It compares the attitude of bigots towards Polish peasants and religious southern Americans. It’s a good comparison in this case.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

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It seems to me the issue isn't whether or not there were Polish collaborators, but the wisdom of returning to Stalinesque restrictions on free speech.

[Katya]

I have family on all three sides of this... German, Polish/Ukrainian and Ashkenazi...and let me state, the Slavs were the most anti-Semitic post World War II of any ethnic group I’ve come across. That Poles actively cooperated and compensated over and above with Nazi edicts, no surprise.
Are there stereotypes, sure. But stereotypes always have some truth at their base.

[Katya]

You do realize there were large areas made up of German speaking slavs/prussians throughout Poland and Czech republic. The borders in these lands have moved and shifted for centuries... I always use the example that Mozart is considered a German composer... because Salzburg used to be part of Bavaria, not Austria.

[Bringbackthedraft]

“the allies found that the Wehrmacht was largely innocent of war crimes”............................ Hmmmmm? Maybe not the mass murders, but I am sure they killed Jews, because a lot of the Russian partisans and their supporters were Jewish. The Wehrmacht had anti partisan units that were made up of volunteers from Belorussia, Ukraine, Latvia,Estonia, and Lithuania. (I’m sure the SS had them too,for other than anti partisan units.) Most eastern volunteers were deployed to protect the lines of communications, hence the anti partisan units. (Yeah, they probably also had a few disgruntled Cossacks in Wehrmacht uniforms.)

[ek_hornbeck]

I question the origin of this upwelling of hate against the Poles. They were overrun and subjugated by the Germans, and the Soviets as well, subject to the same intense Nazi propaganda campaign as the rest of Europe. They were hardly sovereigns in their own occupied lands. No doubt there were Polish collaborators, just as there were in every European country. Note the enthusiastic SS battalions from Belgium, eg, and the enthusiastic collaboration of the Vichy French. That there were antisemitic Poles is not likely to be doubted, as antisemitism was abroad in the European land, and long before the Nazis took over. As noted above, Poles played a crucial part in the defeat of Hitler through their compromise of German codes. Does this historical revisionism relate to the Poles resistance to islamic suicide? Is it a campaign by left wing crackpots to further divide the West? Maybe, just maybe, this dog should be let lie.

I think that the recent obsession with putting disproportionate blame on Poles as Nazi collaborators is mostly due to the fact that Poland doesn't play along with the EU agenda. Polish nationalism and social conservatism stands in the way of EU internationalism and social radicalism. In contrast, the German government is not only on board with the internationalist EU program, it is spearheading it. Consequently, modern Polish nationalism gets retrojected back to World War II as "Nazism" to fit the narrative.

Blaming Poland for the Holocaust and referring to Nazi concentration camps in Poland as "Polish" (implying that they were created by Poland, as opposed to just being located there) is absurd. As you said, some individual Poles did collaborate with the Nazis, as did some people in virtually every occupied country (and some that weren't even occupied). But the Polish government never became a puppet of the Nazis and there was no support for the Nazis at an institutional level in Poland - mainly because the Nazis treated Poles only marginally better than they treated Jews. Poland actually put up a stronger resistance to Hitler than many other countries that the Nazis occupied, and those who claim otherwise are either historically ignorant or lying to advance their own agendas.

[Bringbackthedraft]

I am puzzled as why the Jews don’t talk about the horrible holocaust by the Russians. ..................................... The Russians (Communists) were smart, they burned the records, thus the people they killed disappeared without a trace leaving no proof. No proof = No reparations. By the time they find all those bodies under orchards and frozen ground, there is no one around to claim damage. Of course they tortured, worked to death, and murdered millions, but they got a free pass. Those who committed the worst crimes gave the usual answer, that we still hear today; “Not my responsibility.”.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Glad you mentioned Raoul Wallenberg’s heroic actions in saving many Swedish Jews.

A friend of mine testified before Congress on Wallenberg’s fate since he was in a Siberian slave labor camp with those who saw Wallenberg in one of the camps after WW2.

There is a great film about how a city/town in southern Italy saved their Jewish population by turning them into Catholic family members. Sy Rotner made a film on this about 20 years ago but I do not remember the name of it.

Word was that the Bishop of that region ordered his parishioners to help save the Jews which they did. Unofficial word was that the order came from the Pope.

Great film and great act of courage.

And the other countries you listed did heroic things too. Unfortunately the Hungarian fascists under Horthy (Iron Cross units or something like that) were terrible but George Soros didn’t mind helping the Germans/fascists rob his own people. He’s the top living KAPO in the world.

[T-Bone Texan]

I believe Holocaust guilt is used by the elites to erode Western Civilization.

It is one of the tools used by the Elites to destroy us.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

True, but the shocking brutality of the partisans was in large part to blame. Millions of Russian POWs died of starvation and neglect -- after they had been taken prisoner and passed by the front line troops to the rear. Not too many partisans survived to die in captivity. Finding a few of your comrades roped to a tree and turned inside like a velvet glove or beheaded with a saw will likely affect the outlook on how partisans should be dealt with.

Having had the privilege of hearing a few Vietnam vets speak frankly, some of the ways they "interacted" with Viet Cong could have been mixed in with the exploits of anti-partisan Kopfjäger without one realizing the difference. A friend who sustained several wounds in Iraq, including a disfiguring face wound, and worse lost a lot of friends in the early part of the war, talked about some instances while he was serving as a Fister of observing Rangers cleaning house against Iraqis who had been smiling, waving "civilians" moments before. As far as I can tell, soldiers just don't like partisans, and some of their methods, while not PC or delicate, are hard to condemn when you hear first hand.

Atrocities were of course committed by the Wehrmacht against enemies other than partisans, but the crimes weren't rampant or systemic. Having recently reread Band of Brothers -- even our own troops, who along with the British were without a doubt the most Christian and nobly-behaving troops in the war, had issues with some men murdering prisoners, shooting down disarmed and wounded enemies, etc.

[rmlew]

The Holocaust has unfortunately suffered the inception of a cottage industry of expanded accusations. At the end of WW2, the allies found that the Wehrmacht was largely innocent of war crimes. Suddenly in the '90s, just most of those involved were conveniently dying off, all kinds of "new research" exploded onto the scene, articles and studies with such titles as "the myth of the clean Wehrmacht" and so forth.
Really bad example. The Western Allies had every reason to try to protect the Wehrmacht after the war because of the Soviet threat. More importantly, most instances of the WEhrmacht participating the Holocaust occured in Poland, the Soviet-occupied Baltic nations, and USSR. The SS Special Action Squads (Einsatzgruppen) recieved considerable Wehrmacht help in rounding up Jews, communists, Catholic priests, Polish leaders, and other undesirables in the invasion of Poland and then in the invasion of the USSR.

This is the same kind of thing. The Poles, who after the Jews probably suffered more than any group during WW2, are suddenly, conveniently found to have been "the bad guys" after all. Was there antisemitism and collaboration in Poland? Absolutely, just as some members of the German army committed war crimes. But not at all to the level that is suddenly the dernier cri to claim.
This isn't suddenly. Jews were speaking of Polish collusion and antisemitic violence from 1945 onwards. Poland never colluded. Polish citizens, including some resistance members, did collude by selling out or simply selling Jews to the Nazis. In some occasions Jewish partisans were captured and sold to the Ukrainian militia by Polish partisans. My father had first hand experience. Actually others did, he was the only one to survive. Many Polish partisans considered Jews to be as much an enemy as Nazis and Soviets. Other Poles hated the Nazis, but sold Jews out to settle old feuds. Others simply stole the property of Jews, who were rounded up by the Nazis. And thousands of Jews were murdered from 1944-46 by Poles as they returned to their homes. At the same time, 750,000 ethnic Poles were killed in the Holocaust and up to 100,000 Jews survived with the help of Poles. Thousands of the Poles killed by the Nazis were sent to concentration camps for helping Jews. The picture is complex. I consider the term "Polish concentration camp" to be so misleading as to border on Holocaust denial. But it is a mistake to downplay the effects of Polish antisemitism.

[rmlew]

Haaretz is the left wing Israeli rag that wants Israel wiped out more than the muslims do.

But this piece was written by a Polish-America conservative, who has denounced Polish antisemitism, and who is a better Zionist than most of the staff at Ha'aretz