Polonius3
30 Apr 2015
News / Korwin Mikke: re-badged American Jews pushing Poland into war [33]
Some of it has to do with family tradition, past resentment spoken about and passed on the younger generations. Anyone whose family members were imprisoned and/or tortured by Berman's secret police (UB), which had a disproportionately large Jewish leadership is not likely to forget that mistreatment. At present there are probably no more than 50,000 Jews in Poland, or a fraction of one percent. But in some areas (culture, academia, science, medicine, media, etc.) that percentage is much higher. To Jews that may be a source of pride but to others it can cause resentment.
Dr Michale Berenbaum, one of the most distinguished authorities on the Holocaust, explained why Jews sometimes seem more down on Poles than on Germans -- something Poles cannot understand.
He put it this way: "The reason is because we expected better treatment by the Poles - by people we had gone to school with, by people who knew us, by people who had bought in our stores. That expectation led to a feeling of betrayal. Imagine returning home and finding somebody sleeping in your house and eating at your table. That's an act of absolute betrayal and many survivors experienced that. Contrast that with the behavior of the Danes who protected and preserved Jewish property, and many Danish Jews who came back found a table that was set and food in the refrigerator. One is mentchlichkeit and one is taking advantage of the ill fate that befell your neighbor."
But Dr Berenbaum's comparison is a bit stretched. The fate of Danes in Denmark and Poles in the General Governorate were hardly comparable. Poles in the GG were rounded up, shot, sent to concentration camps, there homes were bombed or plundered. Maybe if they were saints or martyrs they could live beneath a bridge or amid the rubble of their demolished homes, but some did indeed take over what they thought was abandoned Jewish property.
Some of it has to do with family tradition, past resentment spoken about and passed on the younger generations. Anyone whose family members were imprisoned and/or tortured by Berman's secret police (UB), which had a disproportionately large Jewish leadership is not likely to forget that mistreatment. At present there are probably no more than 50,000 Jews in Poland, or a fraction of one percent. But in some areas (culture, academia, science, medicine, media, etc.) that percentage is much higher. To Jews that may be a source of pride but to others it can cause resentment.
Dr Michale Berenbaum, one of the most distinguished authorities on the Holocaust, explained why Jews sometimes seem more down on Poles than on Germans -- something Poles cannot understand.
He put it this way: "The reason is because we expected better treatment by the Poles - by people we had gone to school with, by people who knew us, by people who had bought in our stores. That expectation led to a feeling of betrayal. Imagine returning home and finding somebody sleeping in your house and eating at your table. That's an act of absolute betrayal and many survivors experienced that. Contrast that with the behavior of the Danes who protected and preserved Jewish property, and many Danish Jews who came back found a table that was set and food in the refrigerator. One is mentchlichkeit and one is taking advantage of the ill fate that befell your neighbor."
But Dr Berenbaum's comparison is a bit stretched. The fate of Danes in Denmark and Poles in the General Governorate were hardly comparable. Poles in the GG were rounded up, shot, sent to concentration camps, there homes were bombed or plundered. Maybe if they were saints or martyrs they could live beneath a bridge or amid the rubble of their demolished homes, but some did indeed take over what they thought was abandoned Jewish property.