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Polish Jews - they changed their Jewish surnames to Polish


Matyjasz  2 | 1543  
23 Nov 2007 /  #451
Symptomatically, everyone jumped on Pee Wee for masturbating but no one on Stravinsky for loving Mussolini. Doesn't that speak volumes about this forum participants?

But was Stravinsky's love towards Mussolini more of a physical or platonic one? It's very important you know. ;))

I also qualified my statement that the prejudice against Poles is a stereotype. I have yet to hear an equivalent sentiment about prejudice towards Jews from you or others in this forum.

Personally, I've seen so many posts saying that as a Pole I certainly "sucked anti-semitism with my mothers milk" that I really don't care about it anymore. If you really want to label all poles as anti-semites, than so be it. I can live with that.

But if you really want to know the truth, than listen to your fellow Jew, the main rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, who said:

"Rozpowszechnione na świecie stereotypy są całkowicie nieprawdziwe. Kraje kojarzone z antysemityzmem, czyli niestety również Polska, w rzeczywistości wcale takie nie są. Antysemickie zachowania występują natomiast na liberalnym, wolnym Zachodzie."

"[Those] distributed stereotypes are totally untrue. Countries that are associated with anti-semitism, which unfortunately includes also Poland, are not anti-semte in reality. Whereas anti-semitic behaviors are present in liberal, free west."

End of my rant.
eric_the_nave  - | 30  
23 Nov 2007 /  #452
To Biglarry, Ned, whoever.

I started off reading this thread a bit astonished by the anti-semitic posters in this thread who as one no doubt slightly embarrassed Pole felt the need to point out were mostly not Polish.

At first I agreed with you, but boy did you cross a line. In fact cross it so far that I as an irregular non-polish contributor to this forum felt the need to respond in this quite possibly over long rant.

But, I guess that's why Poland is where it is today and why the Western Europe and America are where they are.

So you are saying that Poland falls behind Western Europe because they are anti-semites?????????? Not because post WW2 after giving the fourth biggest contribution of all countries to the defeat of the Nazis, they wound up, more so than the Germans, actually losing the war and instead of democracy and the Marshall plan ended up with Communism and selling their coal to the Soviets for 10% of the market value??? Man you better read some history books.

Well, sometimes you reap what you sow

So you’re saying the Poles deserved what they copped? Just out of interest how would you react if someone used the same phrase about Jews during the holocaust. It would be horrifically anti-semitic right???? Like Ishtathu (who also sledged the anti-semites in this thread) said, you are a hypocrite.

Now given that you seem to believe that the Poles are nothing more than a bunch of murderous anti-semites (and don’t deny that you strongly implying this especially with this quote

It seems to me most of Poland has long been ready for a collective therapy.

~~)

I feel the need to mention a book I have just completed reading. The book is Secret City by an author called Gunnar Paulsson. It is about Jews hiding in Warsaw during WW2.

Now this book contains enough incidences of anti-semitic instances even atrocities to enable you to keep your smug “I am so superior to Poles” attitude. But the conclusions the author draws, I am tipping you won’t like.

He after careful examination of hundreds of memoirs written by Jews and other sources comes to the conclusion that in Warsaw alone somewhere between 70 to 90 thousand Poles were risking their lives to protect Jews during WW2. Against this he claims that between 3 to 4 thousand Poles in Warsaw were basically “Sczmalcownik” who would look for Jews not normally to denounce them but to blackmail them into paying money for not doing so. And the other 1 million or so Polish residents of Warsaw??? Well shock, horror, gasp they acted like most normal people, whether anti-semitic or not, in their situation would. They would neither risk their and their families lives to save a Jew but nor if they saw someone they suspected of being a Jew in the street would they denounce them.

Now the numbers I have quoted above seem to be straight out of some Polish propaganda site. Except there are two problems with dismissing them that way. One is that the author, Gunnar Paulsson, is Jewish. This is only a very minor obstacle to dismissing these figures especially as members of his family were saved by Polish catholics so he might be excused for a pro Polish bias. But the main obstacle to dismissing the figures is that he researched all sources for years and that when I search on the internet I cannot find one serious academic attempting to deride the what seem to be very controversial figures he has come up with. Maybe some academic does seriously challenge his figures. However I have got to say he has keep his challenges on an obscure part of the internet.

Now undoubtedly in the horrible circumstances that existed in Poland during WW2, there were many Poles that acted in a shameful way towards the Jews. However I cannot help but seriously question your apparent belief that all Poles are somehow infused with some murderous anti-semitic virus. Or that they deserved to put up with Stalinism – especially after their huge contribution to the defeat of Nazism.

I have decided to cut my rant at this point but believe me I could add heaps more............

And joepilsudski - unless that's your real name, I would appeal to you to use another nick - while you are free to hold any views you like, associating them with Piłsudski is distasteful at best.

I tried to make this point much earlier in this thread. The real Pilsudski had a Jewish wife and was very against anti-semitism. I have got to say to say that some of his remarks are the equivalent to a poster calling himself "Mahatma Gandhi" demanding war.
osiol  55 | 3921  
23 Nov 2007 /  #453
blah blah blah
some people go on about how 'The Jews' are ruling the world, or about some kind of conspiracy involving zionists.
The way it seems to me is that after the creation of 'The State of Israel', some of the people who came into power in that country took it into their hands to start behaving in a similar fashion partly to the European powers who had previously been oppressing them, and also partly in a similar fashion to some of their Arabic neighbours.

I heard an interesting documentary that explained how many Sephardic Jews whose communities had been living amongst Arabs and Turks for hundreds of years in relative peace, began to despair at the behaviour of their predominately Ashkenazi-originated leaders in their newly founded nation state in their behaviour towards their neighbours.

There are many Jews in the UK who are proudly Jewish yet opposed to the ideologies of the Israeli government and the ways the State of Israel behaves. I know and know of Jewish people both rich and poor, and of people who defend the actions of the State of Israel and people who oppose that country's actions (they are not all Jewish, it needs to be stated). I also know that there are Jewih people who feel the need for their own country who, at the same time, disapprove of Israel's behaviour.

Just as there are too many anti-Polish comments from British people on this forum that give an unrealistic view of British attitudes to Polish people, I believe, from the people I have met and knwown, the anti-Jewish sentiment expressed on this fprum are not representative of the average Polish person's opinion of Jews. Sure there are anti-Semites, anti-Zionists, racists and conspiracy-theorists and so on, but there are also many people who see the world as it is.

I might also add that anyone claiming that Poland is run by 'The Jews' is thereby claiming that Polish people are incapable of running their own affairs (the same goes for any other nation they make similar claims about). Stop being so Polonophobic with your pathetic 'Jews run the world' arguments - they certainly don't make me think any differently.
biglarry  - | 13  
23 Nov 2007 /  #454
Moderator,

What's with your anal action of deleting my list of famous Polish Jews? This is the only forum I've participated in where the moderator takes it upon himself to comment sarcastically on a participant's post (at least that what it looks like on page 15) and deletes a couple of hours of someone 's time and effort just because they don't like the message implicit in the list. This forum started out as a list, however flawed and inaccurate. I know that police state habits and party line control die hard, but this is 2007 in Poland after all.

All I can say to you is: GO **** YOURSELF, PINHEAD!!!
eric_the_nave  - | 30  
23 Nov 2007 /  #455
You might want to look here........

polishforums.com/random_chat_thread_deleted_monthly-16_16241_8.html#msg302806
biglarry  - | 13  
23 Nov 2007 /  #456
This is my last post here.

Making a list does involve copying and pasting names one by one. It is a legitimate time-saving procedure that computers were made for. It involves discrimination and selection. Again, most other forums don't mind the participants doing that, only pseudo-protective, anal ones. It's the selection of names and copied material that makes the point, not random copying for copying's sake. I don't need lessons in originality from you, bud.
Ozi Dan  26 | 566  
24 Nov 2007 /  #457
Hi Larry - thanks for your response

You rightly point out slavery, but omit the ultimate fate which was simply death. A nation of slaves cannot be rationally seen as a nation in the political/social sense. My argument is not for sympathy- it is simply for evenhandedness and temperance before judgment is cast, which I'll comment on in response to your view on context.

When you say the 'willing executioners' I take it you mean in the main the Nazis, and to a lesser extent any Pole or fellow Jew who participated. I ask that because the ambience of the post seems to suggest you refer to the Poles, but surely I must be wrong. I included fellow Jews not out of spite but just to put the fact across that it is inescapable that there were some Jews who regretably caused the deaths of other Jews through pointing them out to the Nazis. I would put this down to the context of the circumstances they faced so I wont judge their actions.

Context is not everything. What your paragraph implies is that somehow individual or collective victims of the Holocaust may have deserved their fate. I can't ask my father what the context was because he is dead, but I think it would've been scurrilous to do so. No matter how imperfect some individual Jews may have been that perished as part of the Final Solution, none of them deserved what happened to them. This was concluded at the Nuremberg Trials and confirmed by countless scholarly works by Jews and non-Jews since. It is a closed chapter for most civilized, well-meaning individuals except for those who are still on the wrong side of history.

It seems you misunderstood me. I dont think I can explain it any clearer than what I did. There is no implication of any body deserving their fate in the holocaust. To be blunt, the clear implication is that Poles sometimes get fed up with modern day apologists who use gentile and 21st century morality to criticise and inflame Poles as a collective group of people for the actions of a MINORITY during WW2. Some react by saying bugger it, if I'm going to be blamed for it no matter how much I try and defend myself, I'll just slag off the Jews anyway. Others ignore it (to their credit). Others are clearly Anti semitic per se and their reactions need no comment. Myself, I react with thought and words.

The basis of modern society is the individual (not a member of a tribe), who bears full responsibility for his actions. That's an American and cosmopolitan concept, which is still alien to many Europeans, whose thinking is controlled by the notions of nation, blood, the sacred native ground, and similar atavisms.

Actually, I would submit individualism in the sense you describe was probably first conceptualised by the body politic (the szlachta) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelath in the C16 - C18. Students of history will no doubt know what those concepts led to for the Commonwealth. I'll admit that my thinking is sometimes tinged by the atavisms you point out - I distill that branch of thought down to my pride in my Polish blood. Hey, I even throw on my Polish eagle t shirt and observe a minute's silence on the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. With respect Larry, I think that if you do some sole searching yourself you'll find your admirable championing of your heritage to be tinged with simialr atavistic compulsions.

I'm not aware that anyone has quibbled about the ethnicity of the dead. The Russians lost a couple of million in the Nazi camps, the Poles lost even more - that's not the issue here at all, and that's what's so infuritaing about debates like this - not understanding or pretending not to understand the difference between the causes of Jewish deaths and those of others.

I hold out an olive branch in the hope that we can come to some concensus so that we may both honour the memory of "native" Pole and Pole of "Jewish descent/faith/extraction" as one and the same and you lose the meaning.

If you have indeed posted your last, thats regretable. I enjoyed discussing this matter with you and hope I have given you some food for thought. Kind regards to you and yours, Dan
WAKEUPPOLAND  1 | 44  
24 Nov 2007 /  #458
This is my last post here.

I dont like this game. I'm not playing!!!! Maybe you can change your personality and come back as Ned. Bye Bye!!

You don't give a **** about the Palestinians - they're just a convenient stick to beat Jews on the head with so as to assuage your own guilt about your own anti-Semitism.

Who are you to decide how much I give a "*****". A fact is a fact. The Israeli occupier state has created the worlds biggest open air prison, and oldest refugees. My words will never be able to describe the ongoing suffering, oppession and mental torture these people have to go through just survive another day.
joepilsudski  26 | 1387  
24 Nov 2007 /  #459
I tried to make this point much earlier in this thread. The real Pilsudski had a Jewish wife and was very against anti-semitism. I have got to say to say that some of his remarks are the equivalent to a poster calling himself "Mahatma Gandhi" demanding war.

This will be my last word on this thread...
Josef Pilsudski had a Jewish wife...Joe Pilsudski has had two Jewish wives and numerous Jewish girlfriends...and I am against 'anti-semitism'...as the Apostle Paul

wrote, 'There is neither Gentile nor Jew, as all are one in the body of Jesus Christ'...and whether we know it or not, we are all part of His body...a little discussion is a good thing,

even if it gets heated, because if you are talking, you are not yet fighting....Peace
WAKEUPPOLAND  1 | 44  
25 Nov 2007 /  #460
I feel the need to mention a book I have just completed reading.

Thanks this is really interesting, yet our leadership still apologized. Why? Imagine how those families feel who did help? And so what if they didn't help. It doesn't make them criminals ?We also have to remember this was wartime and the circumstances can make bring out the best awell as the worst in human nature.
isthatu  3 | 1164  
26 Nov 2007 /  #461
After reading all these posts i concede there is an inbalance in historical reporting. I first realised this reading a book on the Bielski brothers "partizan" band in eastern Poland/Belrus during the last war. The book, Brothers in Arms was purchased after my seeing a Ray Mears Doc' about them on british TV. What Ray had missed out from his programe about these "heroic partizans" soon became clear in the book. The brothers undoubtedly faced hardships under the nazis ,but missed out on the TV was the gains they had made during the 1st Soviet occupation. Ostentiably the brothers formed a partizan group composed of jewish people escaped from ghettos in the Nowegrudek area who hid in the woods and fought the germans,eventually joining forces with the larger Soviet partizan regiments.The commen story is one of heroic ressistence by oppresed jewish folk against the evil jackbooted nazi, the actual story,endorsed by the Bielski brother that survived is rather less appealing. While every jewish death is lingered over for page after page,the murder of Polish families by their former neighbours the "heroic jewish partizans"(usually by being burnt to death in their farmhouses) is dismissed as "something needed to be done to instill fear" in the surounding areas! The "heroic partizans" also boast of how well their little woodland empire was run by admitting that if a boy escaped from the ghetto bare foot he would soon be able to BUY a pair of boots from the unit cobbler!!! BUY,I ask you???? What readers of the book will find is that far from the heroic sabatours that they are often claimed to be they in fact did nothing more than hide in the woods and then happily shoot at the AK when ever they came across them,and all this is boasted about in this officail history. So while I still think all you anti-jewites are a bunch of paranoid nutters I do concede that there is a distinct tendency in this world to ove play the hardships they faced and then to underplay everyone else's. Just as demonstrated by the holocaust institute in the states disgusting attitude to the roma pojramos untill enough people of jewish extraction,who i must add were actualy present during the holocaust ( they never seem to be as rabidly anti polish as their descendants/ guilty american jews who new the shaffted their euro cousins) who stepped in and demanded the gypsies inclusion in memorials.
Grzegorz_  51 | 6138  
26 Nov 2007 /  #462
Bielski's gang killed hundreds of Poles in Koniuchy and elswhere but If you say that you will be called anti-semitic. Now they make a movie about them in Hollywood...
isthatu  3 | 1164  
26 Nov 2007 /  #463
Now they make a movie about them in Hollywood...

your joking? I was being moderate in my condemnation of them but,from reading their own acounts they make the Soviet Partizans look like UN goodwill envoys.
Grzegorz_  51 | 6138  
26 Nov 2007 /  #464
your joking?

"The Bielski Brothers. The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1,200 Jews and Built a Village in the Forest"

You may laugh already.

I only wonder how "Polish fascists" will be portrayed.
isthatu  3 | 1164  
27 Nov 2007 /  #465
I only wonder how "Polish fascists" will be portrayed.

Probably in cossak kubanka's like in that other master peice,orphan train(?)
ShelleyS  14 | 2883  
27 Nov 2007 /  #466
funny you're all putting down Jews...the bible until not so long ago was written in Hebrew, funny that isn't it!

And Jewish people come in all shapes and forms, some Orthodox some not...Im guessing half of you who have posted have never even met a jew so I'll forgive the ignorance portrade...so what there are Jews in government...they have a good head for business and usually (obviously not all cases because it would be really stupid of me to say) enjoy very good prosperous lives, even after all they have been through as a people, I was told from a young age Judaism isnt just a religion its a way of life and one that will remain long after we have gone! GET USED TO IT!!
isthatu  3 | 1164  
27 Nov 2007 /  #467
Hey missy, the only Jewish people I have put down were a bunch of thugs living like bandits and routinely murdering women and children!
The only Jewish people big G has put down were the very same thugs,get over it. You show as much ignorence with your attempt to appear strongly anti anti wottsit by saying daft things like;

they have a good head for business and usually (obviously not all cases because it would be really stupid of me to say) enjoy very good prosperous lives

and then the classic ;

even after all they have been through as a people,

christ,my ancestors on one side had the highland clearances on the other the potatoe famine, Im not whinging about compensation or wanting my great great great grandads hovel given back to me regardless of who may now live there.

the bible until not so long ago was written in Hebrew

The Bible has never been written in hebrew. the origional scriptures were in ,Im sure ,aramaic then translated into greek then latin then in the late middle ages into other languages. The Torrah on the other hand has always been written in Hebrew .

its a way of life and one that will remain long after we have gone!

and Lo chaim to that :)
Grzegorz_  51 | 6138  
27 Nov 2007 /  #468
funny you're all putting down Jews

Who are "all" ? How I or isthatu are "putting down Jews" ? WAKEUPPOLAND is writing crap and most people here konws It but Jews aren't any perfect people, they have bad sides, take antisemitic crap, divide It by a hundred and you will see what these are.
ShelleyS  14 | 2883  
27 Nov 2007 /  #469
Wasnt talking to you Doggie ;-)

Isthatu,

The bible was written in Hebrew before it was translated into Latin - but you are correct it was also in Greek.

The rest Im not even gonna get in to because you bored the sh*t out of me! I dont actually remember referring to you by name either
Kilkline  1 | 682  
27 Nov 2007 /  #470
funny you're all putting down Jews...the bible until not so long ago was written in Hebrew, funny that isn't it!

They are a very literary people. Excellent storytellers.
isthatu  3 | 1164  
28 Nov 2007 /  #471
The rest Im not even gonna get in to because you bored the sh*t out of me!

good,you might go away now..........
rafik  18 | 589  
28 Nov 2007 /  #473
i thought that this stupid thread was closed a long time ago?
ShelleyS  14 | 2883  
28 Nov 2007 /  #474
No...but is should be..
szmata  - | 23  
28 Nov 2007 /  #475
Jedwabne was occupied by Russians from 1939 to July of 1941, and then the Germans took the town.

Germans allowed the Polish citizens to go on a rampage against the Jews. The Poles went house to house with nail studded clubs, beat 75 boys to death , and then they brought all the Jews into the town square. They started raping the women, trampling babies to death, gouging men's eyes out, cutting their tongues out, and stoning children. One group cut off a women's head, and Polish children kicked it around as in a game.

They forced 40 to take Lenin's statue to a barn and bury it, after which they axed the Jews to death, and threw the body parts in a pit. The finale was when they locked 1600 Jews into a barn, and burned them alive. Mothers trying to flee, ran to the river and drowned themselves, and their babies, as the town watched, sang, and drank.

ordered all the Jews, including the Rabbi and the leaders of the people, to go to the market place. There they were told to put on their Talaisim and Tfilin, and to dance and sing. Afterwards they were locked into a big barn near the Jewish cemetery

The barn was then splashed with benzine and ignited. All were burned alive. May G-d avenge their blood !

The Poles stood singing and pounding wooden noisemakers to drown out the piercing cries that emanated from the burning barn."

to jak tam wszystkim polakom idzie , moja babcia sie upiekla w tej stodole
lesser  4 | 1311  
28 Nov 2007 /  #476
to jak tam wszystkim polakom idzie , moja babcia sie upiekla w tej stodole

We are fine, but thanks for you care! A jak tam komuna żydowska sie trzyma?
Grzegorz_  51 | 6138  
28 Nov 2007 /  #477
they locked 1600 Jews into a barn, and burned them alive.

LOL ! 1600 was the whole Jewish population of that town, so how the hell could they burn alive 1600 after they killed all those women and children, cut off their heads etc. Besides how could they fit 1600 people in a barn ? That's not possible even If they were standing on one another but who cares about logic when there's a good opportunity to spread more of Polonophobia ? In reality It was rather 160 people and that was a revange for collaboration with Soviets in 39-41 (guess who build that Lenin's statue - It's not a difficult question) still not a good thing but we admitted that and apologized, you on the other hand call your barbarian criminals heroes and make movies about them.
Matyjasz  2 | 1543  
28 Nov 2007 /  #478
Taking under consideration the numbers of the victims you quoted I presume that you are a Tomasz Gross fan. According to the research that were carried away regarding this tragedy the number of victims were about 340 people. There were never 1600 Jews living in that area. (there were 562 to be exact) Still a lost life is a lost life, and I'm not trying to alibi the murderers. Sorry for your gradma.

As for how are we doing? Fine, thank you for asking. And how are you doing, errm… szmata?
szmata  - | 23  
28 Nov 2007 /  #479
I don't want to be the first to tell you but I guess sarcasm doesn’t transfer over the internet very well.
Ozi Dan  26 | 566  
28 Nov 2007 /  #480
to jak tam wszystkim polakom idzie , moja babcia sie upiekla w tej stodole

Forgive my inability to speak Polish, but what does this translate to please. I see there's some reference to a grandma??

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