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How many Jewish people live in Poland?


legend  3 | 658  
13 Jun 2011 /  #31
Lol, this is just nonsense talk, talk from a person who doesn't know what he is talking about, why would a polish person hold a grudge agaisnt the jews.

Our 'favorite' guys at the ADL have this to say:

adl.org/presRele/ASInt_13/4726_13.htm

And most pretend to be Catholics.

If a person is a Jew (their family) or practices Judaism while pretending to practice Christianity they are called maranos. Since a lot of them were put under 'persecution' in the medieval times they were forced to at least look like Catholics on the outside. In their homes many would continue practicing Judaism though.
michaelmansun  11 | 135  
13 Jun 2011 /  #32
why would a polish person hold a grudge agaisnt the jews

When the Jews came back to Poland after the war, Poles hung them because they didnt want them to reclaim their property. Poles never liked Jews and still dont like Jews. My former boss in Poland said that the Jews bragged that they owned all the businesses and homes, and the Poles owned the streets and sidewalks.

I dont hate or really feel anything about Jews. They had a bad time, but they were not known for being generous. Their reputation was Jews for Jews. That is why when the Nazis came, most Poles, and I said most not all, just handed them over or turned them in. They felt they owed the Jews nothing, because the Jews didn't care about them and would put them out in the street if they couldn't pay the rent. The thing is, the new class of Poles without Jewish heritage will do the same thing, and really, always would do the same thing. There was and is no difference. It was just that the Jews controlled a great deal of the apartments and commerce. If the Poles did, they would have behaved the same way. Jews were an easy target because they were collected and identifiable.

While many Jews did serve in the military and fought to protect the country, during peacetime they were focused only on the ways they could control the economy and become an elite class, and that meant high rents and high prices for goods for which they controlled the supply.

It isn't different now with the rich Poles or with the big money flowing into Poland to buy up properties and make everything too expensive for Poles. (That is why young Poles leave) Now your new foreign resident turn Poles into a service class, while they, the Germans and Dutch, the Brits. control housing, and banking and goods and services and bring ther Euro and the Pound to drive up inflation and make the savings of Poles worth less and less.

Just my opinion based on what I have read and experienced.
legend  3 | 658  
13 Jun 2011 /  #33
That is why when the Nazis came, most Poles, and I said most not all, just handed them over or turned them in.

Pure bs.

Polish Jews were the primary victims of the German Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Polish Gentiles risked their own lives - and the lives of their families - to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.[1][2] To date, 6,135 Poles have been awarded the title of Righteous among the Nations by the State of Israel - more than any other nation.[1]

The Polish resistance alerted the world to the Holocaust, notably with the reports of Witold Pilecki and Jan Karski.

/wiki/Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during_the_Holocaust
RobertLee  4 | 73  
13 Jun 2011 /  #34
Our 'favorite' guys at the ADL have this to say

"We are not surprised to find that a high percentage of the respondents hold negative views of Jews, given each country's history of animus towards Jews. However, we are hopeful that, along with their other EU partners, they will take the necessary steps to make anti-Semitism unacceptable in their societies."

LOL, I wonder what those steps might be. I was sure that "not liking" Jews and being open about it is already a punishable offence.
Wroclaw  44 | 5359  
13 Jun 2011 /  #35
not in Poland, but online: jewishgen.org/databases/poland/
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #36
LOL, I wonder what those steps might be.

Education would be the main one. I'm not surprised that you have never heard of it.
RobertLee  4 | 73  
13 Jun 2011 /  #37
I'd say that while the educated people couldn't care less about Jews (imaginary or real) - the uneducated classes have a huge, bitter grudge against them. As far as I can tell, it seems to be handed down within families.

Did your family hand it down to you? Or do you belong to the "educated class"?
Only a half-wit can have such ideas.
From my experience 99% of Poles couldn't care less about Jews one way or the other, but various Jewish circles are nevertheless dead set bent on reminding Poles about their existence. Even when US president comes to Poland, a big chunk of his visit is about Jews. When The Guardian did a series of articles about Poland recently, guess what, they did a feature about Jewish life. From time to time Polish media report articles on Jewish sites claiming that Poles were the guards at Auschwitz. Recently, Poland was represented at an art festival by a Jewish artist, who made a project about... Jews in Poland. There is the infamous Gross. And so on and so forth.

To sum up, the average Polish person living in Poland keeps hearing about Jews more often than he would like to, much more than let's say about the French or Mexicans, and usually it is about Jews wanting something from him or accusing him of some bad things.
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #38
From time to time Polish media report articles on Jewish sites claiming that Poles were the guards at Auschwitz.

You deny that some of the guards at Nazi camps were Polish?!
boletus  30 | 1356  
13 Jun 2011 /  #39
To be fair: Do you deny that some kapos in Nazi concentration camps were Jewish?
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kapos.html
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #40
To be fair: Do you deny that some kapos in Nazi concentration camps were Jewish?

Of course I don't! The kapo trials took care of a fair few of those guys.

Although why "to be fair"?
asik  2 | 220  
13 Jun 2011 /  #41
You deny that some of the guards at Nazi camps were Polish?!

Where is your proof? It's time you get your facts right and stop spreading these lies Harry.

From Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II

Unlike in most European countries occupied by Nazi Germany - where the Germans sought and found true collaborators among the locals - in occupied Poland there was no official collaboration either at the political or at the economic level.

There are known & proven facts that with nazi Germany collaborated their allies but not only, the list is long:
Ukrainians, Bielarussians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvia,Slovakians, Russians, Italians, Hungarians, even Jews and they were known asKapos, Albanians, Romanians,
also Belgium, Denmark, France ,Great Britain (Brittany), Greece, Netherlands, and many more

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #42
Where is your proof? It's time you get your facts right and stop spreading these lies Harry.

The most reliable proof can be found in court verdicts. Canadian, American and British courts have all handed down judgements that certain named Poles took part in the holocaust.

in occupied Poland there was no official collaboration either at the political or at the economic level.

And there could not be any because Poland did not exist as a state!
Lyzko  
13 Jun 2011 /  #43
In fact, the only real difference between the actions taken by the Poles, Ukrainian populations and the Balts during the Shoah against the Jews compared with the Germans, is that Nazi Germany basically initiated, meticulously planned and executed the Final Solution! In essence, everone else involved were merely willing, if nonethless brutal, accomplices to the genocide. Put another way, the Germans provided the catalyst, everybody else simply followed along for personal profit, private gain and the like, not pure ideologically driven hatred. Most likely, had Hitler not started stirring things up, the Poles and other on their own, would scarcely have instigated the merciless slaughter of the innocents to the degree which took place, according both to official documents as well as local, impartial eye witnesses, railway guards, inspectors etc.. ALL gentiles, by the way!!

Albeit the results were the same, I personally hold the Poles et al less ultimately responsible than the Germans!
asik  2 | 220  
13 Jun 2011 /  #44
The most reliable proof can be found in court verdicts.

Any links? Why don't you post some?

Don't forget that some people were able to speak Polish from the listed countries but they were not Polish nationals , also even if the collaborating Jews were from Poland they were not Polish. It was their own choice not to be called Polish, that's how they treated Poland.
Bzibzioh  
13 Jun 2011 /  #45
And there could not be any because Poland did not exist as a state!

And that's kinda point: if Polish government supported Nazis - there would be one.
michaelmansun  11 | 135  
13 Jun 2011 /  #46
Poles represent the biggest number of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

Most, not all. Again, I have lived in several villages and cities throughout Poland. I don't make this up. Poles told me these stories. What is written in the history books is fine, but when I get a first hand accounting of what happened, I tend to go with that.

An ever-increasing proportion of Jews in interwar Poland lived separate lives from the Polish majority. In 1921, 74.2% of Polish Jews listed Yiddish or Hebrew as their native language; the number rose to 87% by 1931, resulting in growing tensions between Jews and Poles. Jews were often not identified as Polish nationals.

Although many Jews were educated, they were excluded from most of the relevant occupations, including the government bureaucracy. A good number therefore turned to the liberal professions, particularly medicine and law. In 1937 the Catholic trade unions of Polish doctors and lawyers restricted their new members to Christian Poles (in a similar manner the Jewish trade unions excluded non-Jewish professionals from their ranks after 1918). A series of professional and trade unions, including those for lawyers and physicians, enacted "Aryan clauses" expelling Polish Jews from their ranks.

Complex and long history shaped Polish attitudes towards the Jews and Jewish attitudes towards the Poles, but the anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland had reached its zenith in the years leading to the Second World War.
Lyzko  
13 Jun 2011 /  #47
The Danes and the Swedes are surely runners up, not to mention the Dutch (Dutch Nazis being the exception, of course)!
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #48
Any links? Why don't you post some?

I posted some in this thread
polishforums.com/history-34/david-irving-holocaust-denier-allowed-run-tours-poland-46534/4/#msg983670

But here are some Poles who either guarded the camps or murdered Jews themselves:

United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Bronislaw Hajda, Defendant - appellant United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. - 135 F.3d 439

Walter Obodzinsky UNHCR

Jakiw Palij, New York Times says he was "Polish born"

Jaroslaw Bilaniuk New York Times points out that he was born in same village as Palij

And then of course there is Anthony Sawoniuk: born in Poland to an ethnically Polish mother and (according to local rumour) a Polish Jewish father, grew up identifying himself as ethnically Polish, joined the Polish police, joined the Polish army during WWII and then lived in England where he identified himself as a Polish patriot. But Poles claim that he was actually Belarussian.
Bzibzioh  
13 Jun 2011 /  #49
That is why when the Nazis came, most Poles, and I said most not all, just handed them over or turned them in.

What else you don't know about Poles during ww2? There wasn't queues of Poles waiting to denounce Jews, like in France for example.
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #50
if Polish government supported Nazis - there would be one.

Says who? According to the famous Generalplan Ost, Poles were to be exterminated but according to you the Germans wanted Poles to have their own government?
asik  2 | 220  
13 Jun 2011 /  #51
You Harry a laughing stuff !

Of course these people would say what they wish to say! They were collaborators working against POLAND!
All of them, all these listed people are Jews ,Ukrainians or Russians. You can clearly see their names.
michaelmansun  11 | 135  
13 Jun 2011 /  #52
There wasn't queues of Poles waiting to denounce Jews, like in France for example.

I don't know. Poland was very different than France in that the Germans respected the French, but hung the President of Warsaw. The Germans only wanted Poland for land and labor. They considered the Poles to be inferior.

Overall, according to a detailed count drawn under Serge Klarsfeld, slightly below 77,500 of the Jews residing in France died during the war, overwhelmingly after being deported to death camps. Out of a Jewish population in France in 1940 of 350,000, this means that somewhat less than a quarter died; while horrific, the mortality rate was lower than in other occupied countries (e.g. 75% in the Netherlands).

The number of Jews in Poland on September 1, 1939 amounted to about 3,474,000 people. The Polish Jewish community suffered the most in the Holocaust. About six million Polish citizens perished during the war, half of them (three million) Polish Jews, all but about 300,000 of the Jewish population, who were killed at the German Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, Chełmno or died of starvation in ghettos.

Big difference between Poland and France.
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #53
All of them, all these listed people are Jews ,Ukrainians or Russians.

Not according to the courts of the USA, Canada and the UK they are not.

Although I do like your claim that a Jew can not be a Pole.
Bzibzioh  
13 Jun 2011 /  #54
According to the famous Generalplan Ost, Poles were to be exterminated

That would be step 2, no doubt. First they would use Polish population as a free labor.

but according to you the Germans wanted Poles to have their own government?

Gotta love your insane conclusions :)

Bzibzioh:There wasn't queues of Poles waiting to denounce Jews, like in France for example.

I don't know.

But I do.

but hung the President of Warsaw.

??? Starzyński died in concentration camp. Shot most probably.
Harry  
13 Jun 2011 /  #55
First they would use Polish population as a free labor.

So why would they need a Polish government in order to do that?

Gotta love your insane conclusions :)

Says the woman who thinks "if Polish government supported Nazis - there would be one".
michaelmansun  11 | 135  
13 Jun 2011 /  #56
But I do.

Did you know about this?

The Jedwabne pogrom (or Jedwabne massacre) was a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the town of Jedwabne in Poland that took place in July 1941 during World War II. The official investigation of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance confirmed that the crime was "committed directly by Poles, but inspired by the Germans." Similar events occurred at Radziłów and Wąsosz.
Bzibzioh  
13 Jun 2011 /  #57
So why would they need a Polish government in order to do that?

I'm sure they would be happier to have the nation behind them than against them.

Says the woman who thinks "if Polish government supported Nazis - there would be one".

Said the man who thinks that the only reason Poland didn't collaborate with Nazis was because there was no state to do just that.

Big difference between Poland and France.

Yes, the biggest one that they had queues to denounce Jews, Poland didn't.

The Jedwabne pogrom

Do you understand the difference between state's support of extermination and actions of individuals?
Lyzko  
13 Jun 2011 /  #58
..... merely to reiterate the infamous 'Kielce Pogroms' AFTER THE END OF THE WAR!!!! The fighting had stopped, the ink was practically still wet on the surrender documents, the Camps were closed....yet certain Poles still saw fit to kill Jews en masse!!! Perhaps only the Rumanians under Ceaucescu post 1945 had a similar record of beastiality towards Jewish fellow citizens (as well as equal chuptzpah to assert, like the Austrians, they too were "victims"!!!!).

Ya gotta laugh or puke-:)

There were the so-called post-War "Werwolves" in Germany, packs of Neo-Nazis who roamed the countryside, fomenting hatred, but they never engaged in genocide!
michaelmansun  11 | 135  
13 Jun 2011 /  #59
Do you understand the difference between state's support of extermination and actions of individuals?

Certainly I do. Again though, The Germans didn't seek state support with the Poles. They treated Poland as if Poland had begun a war with Germany with that farce in Gdansk. They dissolved the government.

The Polish underground Army passed many death sentences on Polish collaborators, but denunciation of Jews was never punished. Poles rejoiced when the Warsaw Ghetto was burning. "The Jewish bedbugs are finally torched." In Warsaw there was a saying: "The whole world will throw stones at Hitler's grave, we will send flowers, grateful for removing the Jews from Poland."
Bzibzioh  
13 Jun 2011 /  #60
but denunciation of Jews was never punished.

4,000 Polish blackmailers who betrayed Jews to the Nazis were killed by Home Army. During the war. That's an official documented statistic. For comparison: 6,000 Polish Catholics who assisted Jews have been honored by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.

Poles rejoiced when the Warsaw Ghetto was burning.

You saw too many Hollywood movies.

yet certain Poles still saw fit to kill Jews en masse!!!

Google the number first and don't make fool of yourself.

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