Terrible past for the Jews in Poland?

Not much of an answer. If your house is damp, why don't you move into a hotel. If your job as a cleaner sucks, why not train as a fund manager. If life was hard at timesfor gentile Poles, why didn't they move.

Anyway, plenty did...

Poles were in their own country, Jews were outsiders seeking asylum and received it. They had been thrown out of one place after another, so nothing stopped them from moving on if that mere handful of pogroms you listed were more than they could take.

All in all, the dates you threw up look like a Sunday School picnic compared to what was happening in the "enlightened" West. Check out:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism#Eleventh_century

Outsiders for one generation, then insiders as much as anyone else.Their own country too by that stage, unless you believe that one group should have perpetual rights and another be denied them.


Now I've heard everything!


So what. Start a thread about it if you like.

Poland prides itself in being a "kraj bez stosów" (land without stakes -- the kind people are burnt at.)
Except for the Aryans (who betrayed Poland by siding with Sweden), no religious groups was ever expelled from Poland. And there were hardly any religious wars of the 30-years war type taking place in the "enlightened" West. Compare that with Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England, etc.

Except for the Lutherans who made up the majority of a certain ethnic group, that is ... :)


Exactly.


You have no clue whatsoever, dude. Otherwise you would've noticed the elephant in the room that is called the Polish communist. According to a small group of people here on PF (usually from the US or Canada, and with a brownish political affiliation), no "real Pole" could have possibly been a member of the communist party . Those who are to blame for the suffering of the Polish people after WW2 are always Jewish, Soviet/Russian, or both.

Well, them and the Jews who got kicked out in 1968, although of course officially they got the boot for being 'zionists'.

When were those Lutherans expelled?
There were vietrually no true communsits in Poland, only opportunitists who joined the PZPR for reasons of career and privilege.

After May 8th, 1945 ...


Well, after the wall came down there were virtually no East German commies to be found either. You are right, of course: most of the Polish communists were simply opportunistic much like their German counterparts, but that didn't prevent them from oppressing their own countrymen and women.

Pan raczy żartować? (Joking?) The subjugated and non-sovereign Polish nation bore no repsonsiblity fror what the Soviet occupation forces and their Kremlin-backed puppets did prior to June 1989. Remember Mazowiecki's iconic thick line, meaning that free Poland would not be liable for what the regime had done over the preceding 45 years.

According to Wikipedia there were 3.5 million of those "Kremlin-backed puppets" in Poland in the 1970's. Around 35 million people lived in Poland in 1979, so we are talking about 10% of the population. Are you really sure that


?

Yes, but none of those three and a half million members of the Polish communist party (when it was at its peak) were Polish, just as not a single Polish Jew ever so much as heard a bad word from one of his gentile countrymen.

To better define terms, the Soviet-backed puppets were those in power: Goys Bierut, Radkiewicz and Gomułka (later arrested), Russified Pole Rokossowski, Jews Berman, Minc, Fejgin, Brystygier, Romkowski, Różański, Mietkowski. Wolińska, Michnik and others -- the PZPR rank and file were in it for the perks and job opportunities created for them by the pupper leadership.

So, can you enlighten us on this matter, jon357?


So what? Polish kings were usually to some extent a product of the Polish society and there was a period of Polish history when they were elected by the nobles.You think the British aren't proud of their, for example, Elizabeth I of England? It seems to me they are. It looks like they're even proud of Elizabeth II, although I'm not entirely sure why.

There were kings in Polish history that Poles are proud of and there were kings that Poles are ashamed of.
Are Poles allowed to be ever only ashamed of everything?
It's tiring and depressing, you know?
Every nation has a need to have something positive in their history, some kind of positive heritage, something that a nation could take an example of even. Having something like that is healthy for the collective psyche of any nation.

When I was at school the tolerance of the Polish Crown (shown not only to Jews, but also to others, like, for example, Scots,both Catholics and Protestants) and a kind of multiculturalism of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was being presented as something positive, an example that should be followed and I think it's a good thing.

One more thing - if Poles are giving examples of relative tolerance of Poland in some of its past they're usually not doing that to take some kind of credit for that or whatever, but to show we're not some kind of "genetic anti-Semites" or "genetic intolerant bastards" or "genetic monsters" or "genetic whatever". Because we feel that there's some kind of label put on us and we're tired of this. OK?


All of them? Always? How do you even know that?


As opposite to Germans, right? lol I don't think it's a fair statement, yehudi - the Polish society after the partitions wasn't the same as the Polish society before the partitions. So I don't think it's OK for us to say that after Poland regained independence Poles somehow showed their "true colours" (if that's what you mean).

Btw, did you know about the Pale of Settlement ? If you (and others) didn't then I wrote a bit about it here:
https://polishforums.com/history/poland-european-anti-semitism-29186/6/#msg1462696
You think such thigs didn't affect Polish society? Of course they did.
Do you remember the town of Chmielnik I wrote about in one of the threads on PF? It's in my region, not that far from Kielce, "the pogrom city". Polonius3 mentioned Arians, the Polish Brethren who were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, a Nontrinitarian Protestant church that existed in Poland from 1565 to 1658. In the 16th and 17th centuries Chmielnik was a major centre of Polish Protestants (Calvinists and the Polish Brethren). On the basis of privilege granted by Krzysztof Gołuchowski in the second part of the 17th century the town was populated by Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain. They built a synagogue in 1638 and took over houses and shops of the Polish Brethren expelled from the town in 1658.

Nowadays they are probably no Jews in Chmielnik and most probably no Protestants either.
Societies change during the course of history for all kinds of reasons. Look at Germans.
Today's Polish society is different than it was centuries ago, it's even different than it was before the war. It's already different than the post-war society even.

Other European societies change too, not necessarily for the better. I've heard the right is on the rise all over, UKIP won the election to the European Parliament in the UK, Le Pen's National Front won in France, there's Orban in Hungary and let's not forget the "lovely" Mr. Putin in Russia...

Things change, people, panta rhei...
And we can turn the table, too, history is a b1tch this way, I guess lol Or maybe it's God giving the humanity a poignant lesson in humility - once the Jews got their own state look at what they're doing to Palestinians... Jews aren't a nation of victims anymore, nowadays they are a nation of perpetrators (and that's nothing new really - victims turning into perpetrators - it's as old as humankind, I guess). I'm writing this with all seriousness and sadness (and disappointment too, to some extent). In 50 years time or more your grandchildren will have to "świecić oczami", as we say in Poland, for what Israel/Israelis did and is/are doing. Of course there are and there will be justifications being given, explanations (they always are), just as I am explaining things to you and as some others are giving justifications. And some will be in total denial. As many in Israel are now, probably.

I don't usually use this argument but sometimes I have an impression that some people need a reality check form time to time.


If they are differentiated on other occasions (usually by you, Westerners, and by Jews themselves) than why not in this case too?


What faith? lol They were communists.


Why is that? Those numbers are based on ethnicity, not nationality.


Aren't they of the same ethnicity? Jews in Poland weren't just of different faith but also of different ethnicity. And what about Catholic Jews? lol They weren't (and aren't) ethnically Jewish?


Were they expelled for being Lutherans? Nope.


Yes and this can be said of members of any ethnicity. Lately I've read about Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army during German invasion of Poland in 1939 who, like many other Jewish officers, was murdered in the Katyn massacre by the Soviets in April 1940.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Steinberg

I can imagine there were some Jewish members of the NKVD shooting their religious brothers in their heads.
Now, can we move on? I don't think anyone claims in this thread that there were no (ethnic) Poles serving the communist terror apparatus.

As for differentiating between Jews and Poles - it's a complicated matter. There were in the past and are Jews who didn't and don't consider themselves Poles. They consider themselves "Polish Jews" at best. Yesterday I've read an interesting note of Ela Sidi at her blog - she's an author of a book "Izrael oswojony" (I guess it could be translated as "Tamed Israel") - it's about everyday Israel and Israelis seen through the eyes of a Pole living there. She's a gentile who married an Israeli and has been living in Israel since 1991. She asked her fellow "Poles" (Jewish ones) who moved to Israel whether they consider themselves Poles, part of Polonia abroad. To her surprise (and disappointment, I guess) most of them answered "No", despite those people were born and bred in Poland, speaking Polish among themselves in Israel, always interested in Polish culture and even taking part in creating it and popularising it, visiting Poland often, missing the country where they were born. It's an interesting note, maybe I'll translate it one day and post it on PF (but that's a big "maybe", because it's freaking long lol).

Some very interesting points there, even though some are just repetitions of things refuted by people earlier. The answer to your first question, by the way, is already in the thread - it won't change.

Paulina -- congrats, a great post! Finally a balanced approach ot the question. Your are to be admired for the time and patience it took to get all those thoughts down in writing. Much more valuable than back-anb-forth repartees.

Just quickly:


Because faith and/or ethnicity is used as a weird argument to support the notion that Poles are by no means responsible for anything that happened during communist times. Silly Easterners ... :)


I was referring to this:


What does ethnicity and/or faith have to do with someone's political affiliation? The above sentence makes it sound as if people of Jewish faith are genetically predisposed to become a bloody communist, inflicting terror on his country.


Only ethnic Poles can be loyal to Poland, that's what you're saying?


Is ethnic cleansing morally superior (or any different for that matter) to expelling someone based on his/her faith?


Hopefully...

TheOther, you contradict yourself all the time, I thought you don't believe in ethnicity. Well anyway.. nobody is saying that "Poles are by no means responsible for anything that happened during communist times".

"What does ethnicity and/or faith have to do with someone's political affiliation?" Should be not much... but even in US today, who mostly votes for republican? faith does have an impact, and I'd even say ethnicity as such as you like to deny it or not. these are probabilities, not fixed boundaries. Now I wont go as far as saying Jews are genetically communist, but to deny the above certainly is not true. "a bloody communist, inflicting terror on his country" now... who said communists have to be bloody and inflict terror.

You brought that up, in which I say to hell with it. Now you can change your religious affiliations like it or not, but not your ethnicity, in other words your genetics.

When Jews and Slavs finally start to respect each others, new opportunities for the business projects would be opened. i look forward to it.

Where did I say that? Every nation has its own ethnicities, but in the end they are all Poles, Germans, Americans, ... simply citizens who identify with their country. After two or three generations, ethnicity becomes less important as people tend to mix and assimilate over time. This case here is a little different. Poles of Jewish faith/ethnicity are singled out and used to make a crazy argument that blames them for the communist era in Poland. Adolf did the same; just on a different level. Remember?


I won't go into detail, but you haven't been a member long enough to come to that conclusion. Have you seen the last quote in my previous post by the way?


Being a Christian in the USA doesn't mean you are automatically a Republican. It also doesn't mean that you are suspected of wanting to install a terror regime.


I've yet to see one who didn't once he was in power (Italy maybe the exception).


That argument came up before and it still doesn't make sense. Just imagine every single one of your ancestors came from a different country. After a while you'll end up with so many different ethnicities that you don't know who you are in the end.

Let's leave it at this. We are running in circles.

Let me stop you in a mid-air, while you are still peddling your stubby legs like E. Coyote just before falling down into an abyss.

You have used the straw man logical fallacy as nobody claimed that Poles because of faith or/and ethnicity are not responsible for anything that happened during communists time. Fail.


It is a very good question. Would you care to answer it?


knock, knock!! Do you hear this noise, It is me knocking on your door at the base of your ivory tower care to came down and take a look at the real world?

Not every citizen identify with his country, not always nor for everyone ethnicity becomes less important. Well,after two generation or more people convert to Islam and go to fight for Isis. Fail.


Since when pointing out historical facts is forbidden? I'm at lost what you want to say or convey here? Are you even able to make a coherent clear argument based on facts?


Correction, you are running in circles.

Well, that's not a very helpful feedback, jon357... How am I supposed to know which points I made are "very interesting" and which are "repetitions of things refuted by people earlier" according to you?


Thank you, Polonius3, I'm glad that someone appreciates the effort I put into this :)


So what? It wasn't used this way this time. Just because some morons use this or that to support some false notions normal people are supposed to negate historical facts?


I wrote "Westerners", not "silly Westerners".


No, it doesn't - I'm sorry, the Other, but it's all in your head. Polonius3 simply stated simple facts - statistics - it's up to you what you'll make of those facts.


*facepalm*

Well, the Other, if I ever actually say something like that, feel free to tell me in my face that I'm not worthy to even bow my head over the bones of those Jewish officers buried somewhere under the birch trees of the Katyn forest.

Does this answer your question...?


No, why would you even ask such a question? Polonius3 wrote, I quote: "no religious groups was ever expelled from Poland".
Germans after the World War II weren't thrown out of Poland for being Lutherans and you made it sound like they were.


To be honest, I don't think I've seen Jews being "blamed for the communist era in Poland" even by Polish nationalists on the Polish internet. The Soviet Union is blamed for "the communist era in Poland" (maybe you're confusing it with Russian nationalists blaming the Bolshevik Revolution on Jews?).

If anything, Jews are being blamed for serving the communist regime. But Poles who did that are blamed for this too. There are some really hopeless cases of anti-Semites who see Jews in probably every communist that ever lived in Poland lol But I don't see anyone doing this during our discussion in this thread so... why are you even bringing this up? o_O


Where that quote says that no (ethnic) Pole ever served the communist terror apparatus?

I have to agree with Vox, here, the Other. It seems to me you're discussing not with us but with some people in your head or with ghosts from PF's past. Please, maybe try to focus on what people are actually writing here and now...

The way certain things were presented here don't leave room for interpretation. Sorry Paulina, but it seems it's only you and Vox who can't (or don't want to) see the obvious...

It is a fallacious argument that concludes that an assertion is true because most people believe it. This type of argument is often called bandwagon fallacy. Fail.

Which things "don't leave room for interpretation" and by whom were they presented exactly? What are you talking about, TheOther?


Where are all those people who see the things you see then? For now I only see you making some wild and false assumptions about views of people writing here (including me) and some of your comments simply don't relate to what people are writing (like the one about Lutherans).

Maybe read again what was written, but this time without prejudice?

Paulina, just read the thread from the beginning and check out #60, 61 and 98 for example. If you still don't know what I'm talking about then I can't help you.


That is called sarcasm...


See the smiley at the end of that particular sentence?

I haven't read the whole thread, but I've read the posts you picked and I still don't know what's your point? What does Marek11111 and Varsovian have to do with Polonius3, me and Vox? They're Polish? Such connection is enough for you?


Help me with what? I wrote in one of my posts that "there are some really hopeless cases of anti-Semites who see Jews in probably every communist that ever lived in Poland". Marek11111 is a great example of that lol But what those posts from 3 years ago have to do with the present discussion? Polonius3 didn't write that "after ww2 90% of Polish communist ware Jews". He didn't write that "people of Jewish faith are genetically predisposed to become a bloody communist, inflicting terror on his country" and I haven't seen him blaming Jews "for the communist era in Poland". After he gave the statistics concerning the ethnic makeup of MBP directors in 1944-1954 he then wrote in the same post "Can we blame them? Of course not. War and its aftermath brutalizes everyone and makes survival the supreme goal." He wrote both about Jews serving the Soviet-imposed regime and Polish szmalcownicy during the Nazi occupation.

Although I can't really entirely agree with him that we "can't blame them". My grandfather's family didn't turn into "szmalcowniks*" or anything of this sort despite the fact that they were starving. They were farmers but they were literally starving, because Germans were taking all the food. My grandfather's teenage sister died because they had no money for a medicine. "Such was the poverty at that time" - my mum said.

And I don't think you had to necessarily be a MBP director to survive in post-war Poland. People simply made such choices.

* szmalcowniks (org. szmalcownicy) - those Poles who were giving out Jews to the Nazis for money and were blackmailing Poles who were hiding them and giving them out too - I'm sorry but for me they were the scum of this Earth and they were regarded as such by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa)

That's what the term "szmalcownicy" means, Polonius3. They weren't just people who were "taking over Jewish property" o_O


No, this is called pettiness. Your "sarcasm" was uncalled-for and had nothing to do with Polonius3' comment. Polonius3 was writing about religious tolerance in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. What on Earth does it have to do with events after the end of the World War II??


What does this smiley change exactly?

As I said, Paulina, read the three posts and then tell me how you would interpret Polonius' statements that "since Jews at that time accounted for no more than about 1% of Polish society, that means they were 37 times overrepresented in the communist terror apparatus." while at the same time quoting that therefore "the subjugated and non-sovereign Polish nation bore no repsonsiblity" for anything that happened during communist reign (interestingly, this particular post seems to have now vanished from the thread, but you can still see the quote in #353). The above is the only reason why I said something. Polonius understood where I was coming from and revised his answer/ got into more detail, but you still pretend that you do not understand.

As for the Lutheran dead horse that you are still flogging (sarcasm, do you get it?):
You need to read the thread and how that argument developed (#330 -> 331 -> 345). Polonius stated that "Poles were in their own country, Jews were outsiders seeking asylum and received it." to which Jon responded "Outsiders for one generation, then insiders as much as anyone else.Their own country too by that stage, unless you believe that one group should have perpetual rights and another be denied them." I agreed with that and questioned Polonius' next post (that no religious group has ever been expelled) by turning it around - essentially asking him what the difference might be between ethnic cleansing and expelling someone on religious grounds. Harry and Jon understood, you on the other hand didn't get the sarcasm and keep banging on about this ever since.

It's simple, Paulina: if you agree with the notion that most communists in the Polish communist party were Jews and that Poland therefore bears no responsibility for what happened in the country between 1945 and 1989, then just say so. You certainly sound like you are blaming "the Jews" because you were talking about "historical facts" when we were discussing these points earlier. Maybe I misunderstood, maybe I didn't and you are just a PiS voter (watch out: sarcasm) ...


Yeah, that's why I wrote much earlier that...


Read the thread, Paulina, read the thread... :)

Absolutely correct.

An individual or nation of people cannot be held to account or responsible for the actions of a Government with no popular mandate and/or lawful/legitimate foundation, as is the case with Poland and the Soviet puppet government installed thereto, and particularly so where an organic and legitimate government already existed but was through perfidy supplanted by a foreign one. That is axiomatic.

Moreso too, where, in the case of Poland, absolutely no benefit to the populace was derived from the alien government and even further where such alien government did not have as its raison d'etre the benefit and best interests of the Polish population.

It has nothing to do with the racial/religious composition of the Government and is irrelevant to the question of absolvement of responsibility.

I would interpret it in the context of the rest of his post that you partly quoted: https://polishforums.com/history/poland-terrible-past-jews-57810/11/#msg1471081

I even did that to some extent in my previous post but you still don't get it?
I don't know, maybe you need to be a Pole to understand what he was trying to do...
So, am I supposed to explain at length, again, just like I explained things in my post #356 why Poles who are not anti-Semitic write the things they write?


There was no "therefore".
It was simply his response to you mentioning the throwing out of Germans from Poland (quote from your post: "After May 8th, 1945 ... ").


It's still there (#352).


No, to be honest I don't see sarcasm in that. That's the way I understand sarcasm:
"The use of strategies which, on the surface appear to be appropriate to the situation, but are meant to be taken as meaning the opposite in terms of face management." (from the definition of sarcasm in Wikipedia).

Unless you don't really mean what you wrote then I would agree with you since I'm not flogging any dead horse - I wrote what I had to say about it and I'm done.


Well then it was too veiled and vague for me, sorry. Seems to me Polonius3 didn't get it either since he asked "When were those Lutherans expelled?"

Next time maybe ditch the "British way" of asking a question and try the straightforward Slavic way - simply ask the question...
I've interpreted what you wrote, or rather your intentions, in a completely different way than you're explaining it here.
I don't know, maybe we need here some kind of Western to Eastern and Eastern to Western translator lol


Unlike you about what Polonius3 wrote? lol :)


lol
No, I don't think that and I doubt that is what Polonius3 meant. Actually I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant. Nothing of what he wrote indicates that to me. You're connecting his posts in a way that is completely weird to me.

In case I'm wrong, why don't you simply ask Polonius3 whether he meant what you think he meant?


o_O
Jesus effin Christ...
Next time you'll write that I sound like I'm a camel and I will have to explain myself that I'm not a camel... xD

I honestly have no strength for you, TheOther... :) What the hell is wrong with you?
I wrote about historical facts because the overrepresentation of Jews in directorship of the MBP in 1944-1954 is a historical fact and you seemed to be undermining it: "The MBP numbers above are to be taken with a grain of salt then."


You didn't. Not the first and most probably not the last time either...


Gee, I hope you don't make a living as a comedian.
And I'm a PO voter if you have to know. My very first parliamentary election I took part in was when we voted PiS out of power - and that was the sole reason I participated in it, actually - just to get rid of PiS :)


Why on Earth would I waste my time like that? If you know about Polonius3' post that would shed new light on what Polonius3 wrote on page 11 then, by all means, direct me to it.


True, the same can be said about all the rest of the countries of "the communist block" that were "liberated" by the Soviet Union and countries like Estonia that were incorporated into the Soviet Union against their will.


Yup.


I meant that you did misunderstand what I wrote... It's late and I'm tired, sorry ;P

Sorry, that's nonsense. He was responding to this:


The sentence about the Lutherans has absolutely nothing to do with it.


The point still is: many of these Jewish people were Polish. You differentiate between them, and my first question in this thread was "Why?" Back to square one?


Unfortunately, many Slavs don't like certain uncomfortable questions. What do I do? :)


You know, that may really be the case. I've seen it quite often here over the years that Poles come across as overly nationalistic, stubborn and incapable of accepting opposing views. Westerners on the other hand might give the impression of being quite arrogant. That's at least what East Germans tell me about their West German counterparts. I'm sure there are many other negative attributes that I forgot. Growing up in different political systems, the language barrier and other factors are responsible for all that in my opinion, and it will take at least another generation to overcome this.


So what do you do with those 3.5+ million Polish members of the communist party? Deny that they ever existed? I've seen this question popping up after the fall of the Wall already with the East German SED members.