Jews...and their Polish experience

I think the Israel-Palestinian issue should be left for other forums. But just as a short reply: 1. Jews on the whole aren't interested in getting access to former homes in Poland. It's a non-issue since no one plans on going there to settle.

2. There weren't 3 million palestinians in the world when Israel was established.
3. The central part of palestine was declared by the UN as an Arab state, but they never declared independence because Jordan and Egypt took it over. In 67 Jordan Egypt and Syria tried to destroy Israel and they lost the rest of palestine in the fighting. Israel offered to give the conquered land to Palestinians to establish a peaceful state, but they refused the deal. I think they are more interested in revenge than independence.

4. Most palestinians live under the rule of the palestinian authority. The refugee issue could have been solved long ago if they wanted to, by compensation and settling in Jordan which was historically part of palestine anyway.

Let me quote Ariel Ben Sharon on the attitude of many Jewish people toward the rest of the world:
“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”

Who is Ariel Ben Sharon?
Maybe you mean Ariel Sharon. Where's your source for that quote?
What was the context, maybe it was about France?

It is a sad story particularly if you know that Franco was a Christianised Jew.
It makes you think isn’t it?

You know who Ben Sharon is...the source?...google 'Famous Quotes of Ariel Sharon'...this particular quote is actually very mild...here is a variation on a theme:

“…I encourage my soldiers to rape Arabic girls, since the Palestinian woman is a slave for the Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do…”

Pilsudki,
You're obviously an idiot. For the benefit of the others...
These quotes of Sharon are phony. There is no way that he ever said that about raping Arab girls and there is no record of any Israeli soldiers raping any arab girls. We also don't poison the wells or make matza out of christian kids or worship the devil, and we don't have horns. Pilsudski is pathetically gullible if he believes that nonsense, and whoever made it up is sick in the head.

What about Sharon involvement in Sabra-Shatilla Palestinian Refugee Camp massacre. It really makes you sick in the head. He was never tried for it. I wonder why?

Wrong on both counts:
1. The Sabra and Shatilla massacre was done by Arab Christians in Beirut against palestinians in Beirut. So ask the christians why they did that.

2. Sharon was investigated by a government commission in Israel. It fired him from the job of defence minister because they said he should have known that it might happen and should have tried to keep the christians away from palestinian neighborhoods. But no one said that he was involved in it in any way or that he knew about it while it was happening.

But I guess when christians kill muslims it's the fault of the jews.

There is no point in discussing with you isn't it.
Why did we sent Milosovic to a trial then?

They sent milosovic to trial because there was evidence that he massacred civilians. Sharon was investigated by his own country because he had administrative authority over that theater of war. He wasn't involved in a massacre.

Sharon has gotten a lot of bad press because he is the kind of Israeli that Europeans love to hate: self-confident, unapologetic, dedicated to protecting his country, and not concerned with what foreigners think of him. I think he made some mistakes during his career, but he is nothing like the person depicted in the anti-israel press. That's a made up character that sums up all the anti-jewish stereotypes. The cartoonists even show him with a hook nose even though his nose isn't hooked at all.

If you want to continue please note that you are right: Lebanese Christians killed Palestinians under Jewish supervision:
On September 15, 1982, after the evacuation of PLO fighters from Beirut on the condition of international protection for the Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the region, Sharon invaded Beirut. Ariel Sharon declaring that this was in order to dislodge 2000 Palestinian fighters remaining in the city. The task of purging the camps Sharon gave to the Phalange (Lebanese force armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975).

Sabra & Shatila: The slaughter in the camps at Sabra and Shatila took place between 6:00pm on September 16 and 8:00 am on September 18, 1982 in an area under the control of the Israeli army. Sharon’s troops, having held the camps under siege, allowed Phalangists to enter. Israeli searchlights illuminated the camps, while Israeli army personnel watched through binoculars as the death squads spread unchallenged through the camps. Whole families were murdered, many were raped and tortured before being killed. So many bodies were heaped into lorries and taken away, or buried in mass graves, that the exact toll will never be known, but Palestinian sources estimate at least 2000 people were killed.

These are historical facts being conveniently forgotten by your people.

Before getting into the Israeli role, let me ask, why is it that no one screams about the people who actually did the slaughter - the Lebanese Christians? Is it because it's more important for you to find an argument against Israel than to blame the actual perpertrators? (Now I understand Poles who are upset when people complain more about the inaction of the Poles in the holocaust that the actual murders commited by the germans.)


Nothing is forgotten by our people. You should know that by now. Just like we don't forget what others have done to us, we don't forget what we have done. We're not perfect, but we are our own worst critics. For more on the Sabra Shatilla massacres, look at this link. Read it before you comment on it.

jafi.org.il/education/actual/sabra-shatilla/index.html

Jews were the occupying force in Lebanon and as such, according to the Geneva Convention, are responsible for the well being of the occupied civil population.

Your Jewish commission admits that Jewish army was responsible for not “protecting” Palestinians, therefore failing responsibilities assigned by the GC to the occupying force.
Failing these responsibilities resulted in deaths of 2000 innocent civilians.
No one went to jail for that - it was only 2000 Palestinians.

Just recently, a very similar Jewish commission approved use of cluster bombs against the civil population.
I think you Jews are your worst enemies.

I don't know much about this case, so I wont comment. However one could compare your description with Srebrenica and behavior of the Dutch troops serving for the UN.

Absolutely agree. The Srebrenica and the peace keepers in the Balkan war are the darkest moments in the European history. The only problems is that irresponsibility of EU concerning Kosovo can bring the whole repulsive thing back.

The question is whether the EU should take responsibility for this case at all. What is their right to decide how to resolve this conflict?

The problem is that, much like the case of EU Environmental Law, people talk a good game and propose all manner of resolutions and, all the while, people (or animals in the above case) are dying. The UN should acknowledge their lack of proactivity in dealing with this international issue. It was thanks to American intervention that people sat up and took notice. I am the owner of a leading treatise on the International Tribunals for Yugoslavia (and Rwanda incidentally) and this was largely from an evidential perspective, it was genocide. The EU is founded upon 'pillars' as laid out in the Amsterdam Treaty and it doesn't take a lawyer to realise the extent of their powers. From a strictly European perspective, it is all very well that many resolved never to allow genocide such as seen during WWII to happen again yet VERY disappointing that they did. I saw the notice in Oswięcim, or Auschwitz as it's more commonly known. History repeated itself and fingers were pointed and waggled but many died because there was not a strong enough interest in their survival. This is reality these days. Let's remember to get in there, establish that genocidal practices are taking place and use the Genocide Convention of 1948 to do what it was created to do.

Oh, really?...you see, Sharon is a bag of ******** the Israelis found him an embarrasment, which is why he is still in a coma...do you know that Sharon has been

accused of war crimes in relation to the first Lebanese war, and international organizations sought to have him tried as a war criminal, but this didn't happen because

nobody 'puts Israel on trial'...research Sharon's involvement in the death of his youngest son...the point I make here is that Israel is just a continuation of the horrors

of the Bolshevists and the Nazi reaction which caused the slaughterhouse of WWII...
hey, it is called the 'Holy Land' because all the three major Abrahmic faiths regard it
as such...the Israelis mix politics/religion for the purpose of control, and this is a 'devil's
cauldron'.

To the original poster,

I cannot offer much on the history of Polish-Jewish relations except to say that before the outbreak of the war there was a clear division between a nationalist movement which sought limits on the rights of all minorities including Jews and the government led of General Pilsudski who championed loyality over ethnic identity. His rule saw many improvements in Jewish life in Poland. Today Pilsudski is considered one of Poland’s greatest heroes.

Rather, I can offer something on Poland today.

Firstly, I would suggest if you go looking for anti-Semetism, then that’s exactly what you will find, but that will not be a reflection of Polish-Jewish relations in Poland. Recently a graveyard was smashed up in Israel by immigrant Jewish kids from Russia who are neo-nazis. This is hardly a reflection of Russian Jew's attitudes to Israel. I would suggest that an examination of relations between Poles and Jews perhaps a more solid platform to stand on.

I lived in Poland for five years and have the following to offer:

Lets start with the ugly:

I knew one person who was always snipping at Jews. Her habitual complaint was that they were money-grabbers. This was not a case of familial anti-Semitism. Her mother and father were horrified by their daughter’s attitudes. She stole a lot of money from me.

I noticed the same thing with Father Henryk Jankowski, a noted anti-Semite from Gdansk. He railed against “Jewish bankers” as he rolled around in his Jag promoting his own wine.

As an aside, I recently met a Swiss woman who told me that “the Jews have all the money”. Wow! (I wanted to say: And the Swiss are just keeping it nice and safe until the rightful owners are all dead)

Carl Jung had a theory that we hate the “Other” who most reflects what we hate in ourselves but deny exists. I have found this very true of Jew haters who focus on the money thing.

Then there are the street Nazis/skinheads. You know you are in their neighbourhood by the proliferation of Neo-Nazi/White Power symbols and Stars of David hanging from gallows. I have met a few of these. One was quite smart. He was young, 16, and had a black heart. He was almost single-minded in his desire to seek opportunities to offend and hurt. The others were extraordinarily stupid, and I have to emphasize the extraordinary part. They never got it that if they dressed as they do now in 1944 the AK (the Polish Home Army) would have arrested, tired and probably executed them for treason. I still consider any Pole who is a neo-Nazi to be a traitor to his people.

Then there was the passive low-grade anti-Semitism which would rise in passing comments on trams or bars, like “don’t be a Jew”. These are the habitual anti-Semites. These are the really scary ones. They are of course not a Polish phenomena, but seem to grow like weeds across Europe and North America (I only have experience in these places).

I was an English teacher in Poland. I taught teens and university students, mostly from well-off backgrounds. I gave a few lessons with Jewish cultural topics. I would say that perhaps 5% of my students displayed discernable anti-Semitic behaviour. The vast majority were very enthusiastic about the subject matter. That’s the nearest I can offer to numbers from personal experience.

In my time there I found official Polish attitudes to Jews, whether Polish or not, is often contradictory. Example: the current President was accused in the Israeli press of anti-Semitism. The Israeli Ambassador staunchly defended him. Soon there will be a museum to 800 years of Jewish life in Poland, a project championed by the president. This will be a major project, not some token jesture. Its intention is to celebrate Polish-Jewish history and to turn Poland from being seen as a mass graveyard for Jews to being a place where a unique story is still unfolding. When the president visited Israel he surprised politicians by his in-depth knowledge of Jewish and Israeli life, history and culture. Yet … his twin brother, also a long-standing supporter of Polish-Jewish life, went into government with a right-wing, anti-Semitic party. That party, LPR, the clearest political expression of anti-Semitism in Poland, denies anti-Semitism exists in Poland.

www://jagahost.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display& thread=1182948489

Here are their youth members giving a Nazi salute. LPR’s response was that they were ordering beer.

But it can be argued that these guys are an aberration. In the last election LPR was decimated, with only 1.3% of the vote, so few votes that it cannot take a seat in the national parliament. Their significance is that they were welcomed into a government by a politician with good Jewish relations. Herein lies the difficulty of understanding Polish-Jewish relations.

Many Poles I met were proud of Poland’s Jewish connection. A journalist for the main broad sheet, Gazeta Wyborza, tried a little experiment. He walked around Warsaw in his Yamaka. He did the same in Paris. In Warsaw he was approached by many people saying they were glad to see this. In Paris he was subjected to verbal abuse. In my time in Poland I followed many forums and blogs on the topic and came across a lot of anti-Polish feeling from Jews in Israel and the States, usually deeply ill-informed and vitriolic. I never recognized the Poland they attacked as the Poland I lived in. I know from talking to Poles that they are deeply hurt by this. If this is hurtful, then they are angered by the portrayal of Poland as the place where European Jewry was butchered. Coach loads of non-Polish Jews arrive in Poland, visits the camps, walk the Ghetto and that’s their entire experience of Poland. And Poles aren’t the only ones who resent this. Polish Jews are pretty fed up with this as well.

Jewish life in Poland is entering a new age. Recently I read a story of a young skinhead, a neo-nazi. He was the real deal. At weekends he would go out looking for non-Poles and if he and his pals found them then “We did what we did.” One day he heard his parents arguing. It seemed serious, something concerning him. He insisted they tell him. Yes, you guessed, he was Jewish. His family changed religion to assimilate after the war when being Jewish wasn’t to your advantage. He has since converted. Now he works at the local Jewish center. Many Poles have Jewish roots. Some know about it, others not. Some have converted, others not. But Jewish life in Poland is becoming healthier. Since the fall of communism a healing has begun. A few weeks ago I was back in Warsaw for the weekend. On Sunday morning I called into the New Synagogue. The Chief Rabbi was preparing boys for their Bar Mitzvah. Judahism’s story in Poland is not over.

There are a lot of misconceptions about “Jews” and “Poles” but I will finish with this: on the first day of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising in 1943 Jews flew the Star of David was along side the Polish flag. A year later when the Warsaw Rising began, the Home Army committed one of its only armoured vehicles to rescue Jews from an extermination camp the Nazis had built in the city. When the Poles overcame the Germans they were met by the Jewish prisoners who presented themselves in military formation and saluted their fellow countrymen, saying that they were ready for active service. They took up arms and every one of them died in the Rising fighting for a free Poland. Poland’s story is more closely linked to European Jewry than any other nation. There history is long, rich, often joyful, sometimes bloody, but irrevocably intertwined in how they lived and died. Understand their story very slowly.

I hope this post was useful. My views are certainly biased. I have chosen to focus on the positive. I do noyt deny the bad. It is there. It is in the dark corner of the everyday. I wish you luck in your search. Please spend as much time thinking about your questions as you do about the answers.

Sincerely,
P

This is exactly what makes me worried, soon Europeans will have even less influence on Brussels bureaucracy than Americans on their goverment policy.


LPR spent two years in goverment and more in parliament. So one could ask you to provide some political evidence of their anti-Semitism. I suppose that opposing invasion of Iraq is not anti-Semitic? Perhaps they are not Jewish-lovers but neither should be target of vilification. Because those youths (three or four of them?) were not even party members and had zero influence on party politics.

Other question is that for example drunk goos-steeping and making Roman salutes English football fans are just parodying Germans. While drunk Polish members of MW doing something similar are Neo-Nazis. In the same time they are accused of being anti-German as well as LPR itself. Where is logic here and honest analyze?

You are forgetting the role of Jews in the communists apparatus of oppression and extermination of Polish people after the WWII. Many ingrained opinions and feelings toward Jews steam from that period. My father was tortured by a Russian Jew in Zgorzelec prison because he was in AK. This guy was openly priding himself that he, a Jew, can kick and beat a Polish person.

Answer to Jooma: You are right, I have met many Poles who cite the fact that Jews were involved in the early communist government as why they hate Jews. But would you be willing to admit that Polish nationals, Catholic Poles were also involved in the "oppression and extermination" of their fellow Poles? Would you be willing to admit that the vast majority of all communist governments, the secret police, the militia, were not Polish Jewish, but rather Polish Catholics?

Answer to lesser: regarding LPR and MW (All Polish Youth) not being anti-Semetic ... give me a break. Don't tell me you dont remember that video of the Maciej Giertych's** assistant in a field at night with a crowd giving a straight-armed nazi salute with a burning swastika in the background and chanting 'seig heil'? What was that? All Polish Youth, supported by LPR, denied it was involved but one of its activists was spotted on tape. The evidence was so strong that Roman Giertych, LPR's leader was forced to sever all "polictical ties" with the younth movement he resurected in 1989. If it was not for this video All Polish Youth and LPR would still be tied. And back to Maciej Giertych, he issued a pamplet from his European Parliament office which was roundly condemned as anti-semetic. But as I said, LPR are a spent force in Polish politics. They have been totally rejected by the vast majority of Polish voters, and Roman Giertych has had the good sense to resign.

** Maciej Giertych is LPR's MEP and father to the then party leader.

That's quite obvious.


Actually in stalinistic period (44-56) almost half of members of secret police and most of their top rank officers were Jewish.


The leader of pre-WW2 MW was killed in Auschwitz. Anybody doing such things is simply a damn idiot and that's not connected with teaching of MW. Is LPR/MW anti-semitic ? Well, they definately aren't pro-semitic just like they aren't pro-Arabic or pro-anything else, which isn't Polish. It's the same with all nationalistic orgaznizations, no matter If Polish, British, Jewish or any other.

So we will differ on theLPR/MW issue.

But a deeper question: What does it mean to be Polish? Is someone less Polish if they are Jewish? This is a difficult question but perhaps an interstesting one to start a new topic on. What do you think?

I would say that you simply don't have enough knowledge.


Often yes but It's not so much about being Jewish itself but about other things connected with that - let's say If someone cares more about news from Jerusalem than from Warsaw then yes indeed is less Polish just like anybody else with dual loyality.

This is another trivia. This girl was never member of the party, neither true neo-nazi. Some not very bright women sometimes blindly follow their boyfriends. She was immediately fired anyway. Again she hasn't any influence on party political line. If LPR is so bad as you claim then you should find some serious political decisions aimed against the Jews.

Members of political organisations (MW is political and many of its members were appointed to high positions withing the Ministey of Education) and the assistanst to one of the most senior members of LPR filmed at a nazi meeting giving nazi salutes is "trivia"? Wow!!!! When does it get serious?

It depends what you understand when you write "political organization". The goal of MW is to spread certain values among people that will later participate on political arena.

Of course that these cases are trivial and those people have zero influence on party policy (Could you admit this? or proof me wrong otherwise...) Assistant is not a serious post and seriously who on earth would expect young girl to attend such "events"? Old Giertych had bad luck, that is all.

The problem with these accusation is that some people dislike some political parties so much that they simply cannot objectively describe them. If you don't like their political line this doesn't mean that you need to vilify your political opponents. Sorry but some distance and coolness is necessary... After all, I don't support LPR either.

It's nothing unusual in Europe to see youth groups of even mainstream left with communistic symbols, so what's a big deal ?


They fired her immediately. What else could be done ? Kill her ?

The extreme right wing groups in poland are a problem for poland, but most Jews are unaware of all of that. (Except the tiny communities in Warsaw and Krakow). The rest of us get our information from our parents and grandparents, and most of it is based on experiences from the pre 1945 era. I know that things have changed since then, but on the same token I still hear people in this forum talking about the "Jewish Bolsheviks" as if there are still any bolsheviks in the world. We should all learn from the past but not live in the past.