History /
Have Poles blood on their hands? :) [496]
According to the blog 'Poles loaded Jews onto 'gas trucks'...I thought it was 'gas ovens'...Which is it?...Maybe Poles never loaded anybody onto anything...
I've just read Laurence Rees's book on Auschwitz and the Holocaust. One of the things which keeps cropping up is how Jewish prisoners were made/expected to assist with the 'processing' of prisoners for transportation, selection and eventual murder. Some of the (Jewish) people he interviewed worked with the Sonderkommando or cut the hair of prisoners about to be gassed. They were often asked by the prisoners themselves, "How can you do this... how can you help them?" They admit that all that drove them was a desire to survive.
Likewise, ghetto police (Jewish) or such people as Rumkowski, the 'king' of the £odż ghetto saying "Give me your children!".
Interesting how when gentiles do such things it is because they are 'anti-semitic' but when Jews do it they are trying to survive.
Another point which Rees brings up, through interviews, is the handling and 'theft' of the property of gassed prisoners, not only by the Nazis but by the camp inmates themselves (Jewish and gentile). Once more, the case is made that it was about survival. And who can blame them... but this is a matter of human nature, not a matter of whether or not someone is Jewish, gentile or whatever.
It reminds me of a scene in the film "Defiance", where a peasant (Polish, I believe) is shot because he allegedly allowed his cart to be used to transport Jews. Can you imagine the ideal scene of what he should have done...?
Nazi officer: "We need your cart to transport Jews to Sobibor to be gassed!"
Poor Polish Peasant: "nay, foul nazi, begone, I will not aid thee in thy anti-semitic ways!"
Nazi: "Oh, OK, we'll ask someone else, we respect you views..." (exit nazi).Errrm, somehow I don't think the scene would have worked too well.
