World War II - a tragic story for Poland and the World

sjam replies...:-)

I think this was covered in earlier posts-try around: https://polishforums.com/history/poland-tell-auschwitz-ghetto-32825/6/

lie! what do you mean by large?


they paid for most of it....would be really great if they paid for everything at the same time fighting for Britain and on British soil ?

what camps?

What is the difference between internment and concentration camps if in either ones people were dying?

Quite a big one, for example Ukrainians in Bereza Kartuska were not worked to death. There's a huge difference between whats basically a very harsh prison and a concentration camp.

Bereza Kartuska Controversy:

"... A number of modern non-Soviet sources have also characterized the facility as a concentration camp, including Yale University professor Timothy Snyder, the Library of Congress, and the Polish Nobel prize-winning author Czesław Miłosz."

"... Polish-British historian Tadeusz Piotrowski who also calls it a concentration camp notes that the establishment of the facility was a norm of its times, similar to camps established by Americans for Japanese during WWII, by Canadians for Ukrainians during WWI, and - as also noted by Norman Davies - on a much smaller scale than those projects (not to mention the giant German or Soviet networks of concentration camps)."

"... The number of deaths in detention was kept artificially low by releasing prisoners who were in poor health."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereza_Kartuska_Detention_Camp

Neither actually. Do pay attention to history, you might learn something from it.


I have never said any such thing and would never say any such thing: it would not be true.

However Poland most certainly did run concentration camps pre and post WWII.


Take some time off from finding new ways to excuse the crimes of Serbs and educate yourself. You're the one here boasting about your academic credentials, so you do a bit of research.


I mean that few Poles fought against the Red Army after it entered Poland. Poles seem to blame Britain for what happened to Poland post war but few Poles did what they seem to expect the British to have done for them.


Indeed, a prison is for criminals, people who have been convicted of committing a crime after a fair trial. How many of the victims of Bereza Kartuska got a fair trial?

Sjam,

You are just as selective as Harry. From your link, the heading that you deliberatrly omitted for the upteenth time:



I'm sure you have a thoeory as to why you think that. Let's see it.

"Internment camps pre-WWII or concentration camps pre-WWII?"


I know there is no difference. I want you to commit to definition, or in other words, commit your head to the noose.

I am paying attention to history; your history as a participant of this board. To date, ad hominem attacks appear to be your specialty.


If you're of English descent I'd get off your high horse on this one.

Acutally not. I gave the Wiki link which you read.

As to detention camp; internment camp or concentration camp?

You missed a clue in my post: Bereza Kartuska Controversy

Here you see it?


Some like you choose to call it a detention camp whereas some notable people choose to use concentration camp.

"...OUN members who were incarcerated at Bereza Kartuska have testified to the use there of torture. There were frequent beatings (with boards being placed against inmates' backs and struck with hammers), forced labor, constant harassment, the use of solitary confinement without provocation, punishment for inmates' use of the Ukrainian language."

Substitute just a couple of words to read thus:

"...Poles who were incarcerated at KZ Sachsenhausen have testified to the use there of torture. There were frequent beatings (with boards being placed against inmates' backs and struck with hammers), forced labor, constant harassment, the use of solitary confinement without provocation..."

Both perfect descriptions of a concentration camp!


Do you mean against the Polish 1st and Polish 2nd Army which was fighting alongside the Red Army or just the Red Army? Or the AK, NSZ or any other Polish unit involved in armed actions against the Polish 1st and 2nd Armies as they entered Poland?

There are a couple things you need to learn. First of all, you and I, and many others of course, are interested in history, but the majority aren't. That majority is who you should consider when writing crap here and elswhere. Why, because they don't read books and get their "knowledge" from TV, Hollywood histo-dramas, poorly written newspaper articles, and the Net. This is where you and Harry come in. By using the term "concentration camp" for a harsh prison, and you see that is the term "detention camp or prison" used by 99.9% of historians, you are misleading readers into believing that it was a death camp. You will deny that but that is what poorly educated masses think, just like the "Polish concentration camp" used in newspapers for "Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland" repeated over and over by 'mistake' in American, Israeli, and ...German newspapers, makes the masses believe that Auschwitz was a Polish camp.

You are comparing now Bereza Kartuska prison to KZ Sachsenhausen concentration camp. How clever. In the former about 20 people died in about the same time that in the latter 100,000. That's why there are distinctions.

I could go on about who was at Bereza Kartuska and show that most of the inmates deserved death for their "activities" before incarceration but especially after, but that's another thread. For the unaware: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia

Do link me to your frequent discussions of British concentration camps. You must be discussing them somewhere.

well said 1jola!

Its still pointless Sjam is here only to drop a "bomb" they wont pick up anything uncomfortable simply because discussion is not their goal.

Whatever definitions Bereza was a severe prison and nothing more, German or Russian concentration camps were in practice death camps so definition regardless applying the same definition is misleading (and i believe that Sjams intent).

Ukrainian historian, Viktor Idzio, states that according to official statistics, 176 men - by unofficial Polish statistics, 324 Ukrainians[clarification needed] - were murdered or tortured to death during questioning, or died from disease, while escaping, or disappeared without trace.

In early 1938, the Polish government suddenly increased the number of inmates by sending 4,500 Ukrainians to Bereza Kartuska without right of appeal.


Yes, please, be so kind and expand on that, historian jola. Just give an example for validity of incarcerating 4,500 Ukrainians in this Polish concentration camp in 1938, not mentioning those who already died tortured before. I am expecting you will answer my question?!


Be a bit more polite towards people you don't know. Look at your writings and tell me they are coming from a person who read anything besides biased Polish school forage you keep on munching all the time. Open yourself to the world, read historians from other countries.


Bereza Kartuska was a concentration camp, nobody says anything more, don't make things up. Don't invent words at least from the posts of others.

"the only difference is that internment camps are for prisoners of war and concentration camps are for minorities that you are not technically at war with"

wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_an_internment_camp_and_a_concentration_camp&src=ansTT

Dictionary: concentration camp
Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary
n.
A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions.
A place or situation characterized by extremely harsh conditions.
answers.com/topic/concentration-camp
In the prisoners' building, each cell initially held 15 inmates. In 1938 the number of inmates per cell was increased to up to 70. The floors were of concrete and were constantly showered with water so that inmates could not sit. There were no benches or tables. By the time they were released from Bereza Kartuska, many Ukrainians had had their health destroyed or had died OUN members who were incarcerated at Bereza Kartuska have testified to the use there of torture. There were frequent beatings (with boards being placed against inmates' backs and struck with hammers), forced labor, constant harassment, the use of solitary confinement without provocation, punishment for inmates' use of the Ukrainian language, etc.

And that supposed to be that vast knowledge of Polish history of yours??? Not very impressive, Harry. You are, of course, conveniently forgetting little detail that we were already kinda busy with the German invasion. Why do you expect us to be a heroes all the time but for Brits to promise something and not even try to deliver it’s OK in your book?

How do you see the Polish government fled to Romania (if I'm mistaken, feel free to correct me)? This fact is largely used in Russia to justify Soviet invasion and to represent it as "liberation" (there was no invasion as there was n such a country as Poland at that time), however even official Kremlin doesn't deny the WW2-partition of Poland was kinda communistic revenge for the screw up of the earlier polish-bolshevik's war.


Btw, is it a name or nick? I've been always interested in the origins of Polish names as they don't seem to have any analogy in other languages. Does "Zbigniew" mean anything in Polish? Or is it just a name?

I was commenting on your use of plural nouns. Poland only ran one pre-WWII concentration camp.


Do you actually know what an ad hom is or were you being deliberately ironic?


So we must lie to people because they are too stupid to understand the truth? That is your argument? Pathetic.


A prison is a place for convicted criminals: the people in the pre-WWII Polish concentration camp were given trials.


99.9% use “detention camp or prison”? That would mean for every one who uses “concentration camp”, there are 999 who use “detention camp or prison”. Let’s see, Yale University professor Timothy Snyder, the US Library of Congress, the Polish Nobel prize-winning author Czesław Miłosz, Ukrainian historians Kubijovych and Idzio, Polish-British historian Tadeusz Piotrowski and British historian Norman Davies all use the phrase “concentration camp”. I make that seven. You can of course name seven times 999, i.e. 693, historians who use “detention camp or prison”, can’t you.


And now you refine your argument further. We must lie to people because they are too stupid to understand the difference between a death[/] camp and a [b]concentration camp. You really do have a low view of the common man, don’t you.


As already noted: prisons are places for convicted criminals.


OK, I’ll give you a pass for 1939. But, with the honourable exception of the groups mentioned by Sjam, there were almost no Poles who fought against the Red Army in 1944-1954. In fact there were far far more Poles fighting alongside the Red Army than against it!

As is traditional, I’ll now ask you to specify in detail the help which Britain promised but did not provide. Remember that the phrase is “all the support and assistance in its power”. Please list all the things which Britain could have done but did not.

That is what the Nazis also believed for those held in their concentration camps.

And presumably the British believed the same of prisoners in "our" concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer war and again in Malaya during the communist insurgency of the late 1940's—BTW the British were also responsible for beheading many Chinese communist insurgents during the same period. Happy to discuss British concentration camps when relevant.


That crap Nobel prize-winning Polish author Czesław Miłosz agrees with describing the facility (Bereza Kartuska) as a concentration camp... along with other more notable people :-)


A troll with a bomb :-)) But I might blow myself up? If only eh ... boom:-)))

Especially open yourself to Viktor Idzio. Ukrainian historians are always trustworthy and non- biased completely.

Ukrainian historian, Viktor Idzio, states that according to official statistics, 176 men - by unofficial Polish statistics, 324 Ukrainians[clarification needed] - were murdered or tortured to death during questioning, or died from disease, while escaping, or disappeared without trace. Most were OUN members.[5][dubious - discuss]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereza_Kartuska_Detention_Camp


It's all about Ukrainians...


(Foreign historians - here you go)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereza_Kartuska_Detention_Camp
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronis%C5%82aw_Pieracki


I wish you were, Nathan.


Change Polish to Ukrainian - and the whole sentence will apply to you.

Quotes from other websites should ideally contain no more than 100 words and be marked at "quote" using the "quote" function.

In the last ten years I guess they beat Joan Rowling with their muck for mugs.



100% but don't waste your time, porzeczka. There's a possibility he's not even Ukrainian.

A description which precisely matches the official justification for the establishing of the Warsaw ghetto. That was set up because, officially, Jews threatened the safety of the rest of the population of Warsaw. Am I to assume that you consider the establishing of the Warsaw ghetto to have been perfectly acceptable?


Kristallnacht was triggered by the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Jew. Should I conclude that you consider Kristallnacht to have been perfectly acceptable?

And how did the Jews threaten the safety? Please, write more about it. You know exactly that it was Nazi-German anti-Jewish propaganda. The real reason for establishing the ghetto in Warsaw was entirely different.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_ghetto


Men put in the Bereza Kartuska detention camp weren't random civilians. The purpose behind establishment of such facility/institution was clear - it's meant to be a prison for terrorists and those involved in political murders and assaults, radicals; political opponents. Although, common and financial criminals were incarcerated there too. Many of those people (involved in the campaign of arson, murders, assaults, robberies, financial malversations), would end up in ordinary prisons anyway.

Anybody who insists that it was dedicated against any particular ethnicity (like Jewish Ghetto or Kristallnacht) is wrong; it was not - Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Bielorusians, even some Germans were imprisoned there. Please find me a source postulating that Ukrainians constituted majority of incarcerated (during the whole operation time). Establishment of Bereza Kartuska prison was inspired by assassination of Pieracki by OUN - not by 'Ukrainians'. It's obvious that such detention camp, because of use of the term 'political prisoners', wouldn't be acceptable nowadays. Prison conditions were extremely harsh and I don't approve them. I don't like idea of imprisoning 'political opponents' for what they preach either, though I approve imprisoning terrorists e.g. The case of Bereza Kartuska prison isn't one-dimensional for me.

Officially they spread typhus. Just as official a certain Polish concentration camp was intended to accommodate persons "whose activities or conduct give reason to believe that they threaten the public security, peace or order."


Anybody who insists that the holocaust was dedicated against any particular ethnicity is also wrong. What's your point?


That's jolly decent of you.


So why not give them the trials they supposedly so richly deserved and then lock them up as criminals? If you had done so, we would be talking about BK as a prison. Instead it is classed as a concentration camp.

And unofficially they spread syphilis?

In reality they spread neither any more so than the rest of the population did.

I got some Polish historian for you, even in your native language:

"Historycy PRL dowodzili, że większość, 80-90 procent więźniów przetrzymywanych w Berezie stanowili komuniści i socjaliści różnych narodowości. Z początkiem 1938 roku osadzono w Berezie Kartuskiej na politycznej detencji ponad 4,5 tysiąca Ukraińskich nacjonalistów, co wskazuje, że obóz rozbudowywano. Od wiosny 1939 roku zaczęto osadzać w obozie również kobiety. We wrześniu 1939 roku w obozie przebywało 7 tysięcy internowanych na rządowej detencji: 4,5 tysiąca Ukraińców i 2 tysiące Niemców, w tym wszystkim 360 kobiet"

Historians of Polish Republic stated that majority - 80-90% of the prisoners contained in Bereza Kartuska were communists and socialists of different enthnicities. Starting with 1938 over 4.5 thousand Ukrainian nationalists were detained there on political grounds, which means that the camp was enlarged. In spring 1939 women began to be emprisoned there as well. In September of 1939 - 7 thousand people were there based on government detention orders: 4.5 thousand Ukrainians, 2 thousand Germans and 360 women.

"Zresztą w izbie tej bito więźniów stale bez jakiegokolwiek powodu oraz masakrowano ich do krwi".

The prisoners were beaten there constantly without any reason whatsoever including bloody butcherings.

"Tę czynność fizjologiczną można było załatwić tylko raz na dobę, rano po obudzeniu
Konieczność trzymania moczu i kału powodowała awarie za które okrutnie bito, a i taki ubrudzony moczem czy kałem śmierdział wszystkim, nie mógł się wyprać".

Going to the toilet was permitted only once a day, right after wake-up. (For that you were given only a couple of seconds amid other 20 prisoners standing in line; most of them weren't able to do it). Eventual inability to hold back urine and fesces led to forced defacation for what prisoners were severely beaten. Neither of them had later cloths to change or wash and were stinking by it all.

eioba.pl/a86034/bereza_kartuska_polski_sanacyjny_oboz_koncentracyjny


I can only imagine what would have happened to me if I lived in Poland at that time and was noticed to be writing these lines on PF. My activities would have definately given reason to believe....

From same link:

"... The inspiration for the creation of a detention center in Poland for political prisoners was a visit to Poland by Hermann Göring in 1934, who had instigated such a detention center at Dachau.

... Undoubtedly, the originator (of Bereza Kartuska) was Polish Prime Minister, prof. Leon Kozlowski, who was influenced by the increasing popularity of the German and Italian fascist movements, and especially the views of J. Goebbels, who wrote about the educational role of the concentration camps in Germany."

I have as much respect for this communist writer as I have for Nobel prize-winning communist poet Wisława Szymborska. Lovely poem praising the Party and Stalin. Mind you, the use of concentration camp for BK was used by the communists till recently.

The OUN members jailed there went on later to organize a genocide of Poles in Wołynia, and swelled the ranks of Wafen SS. Their attrocities surpassed in many ways the brutality of Nazis and the Soviets.

Once again:


Take it up with wiki.

Czesław Miłosz A communist writer eh?






A communist writer whose books were banned in Poland... surely not... I'd stop waving that red flag ... it'll clash with your face colour :-)))


and once again:


Take it up with wiki :-))

I do wish you'd stop confronting our favourite traitor with facts. You know he's far more comfortable with lies. I'm still waiting for him to name 693 historians who use “detention camp or prison”!

Unlike you, I have read Miłosz and his explanaitions about his communist past. Just because he left the party later doesn't sbsolve him and he doesn't ask for it.

You can read "The Captive Mind" 1953 on the subject.


I'm sure you're gigling like child. I don't have to take anything up with wiki on this point because they correctly identify this camp as an internment camp.