Terrible past for the Jews in Poland?

I'm Polish and I would like to see friendship instead of animosity. And not only with Jews but with all nationalities.

I'm married to a Pole in Poland and have a Polish daughter. They need me for lots of things. You don't live in Poland, Grubs, and we do just fine without you.

Merged: No Jews in Vital Public Posts in Soviet Poland, Survey Reveals

Here's an interesting article which was published 75 years ago today. Or at least I found it interesting anyway.


Full article is here:
jta.org/1940/02/25/archive/no-jews-in-vital-public-posts-in-soviet-poland-survey-reveals
I reckon it's well worth a read and a ponder.

" On the other hand, they enjoy religious and cultural freedom, except for a ban on Hebrew teaching."

Hahaha twisted definition of freedom.

Jews had been persecuted, destroyed, smashed, slaughtered so many times during history. Just in middle east during the last 700 years, 270 Million jews were cowardly killed by arabs doing ethnical cleansing.

Still they resist. And do wonderful things. What an incredible people. Of course they also have their bad apples, but the good apples usually are outstandingly good, nobel quality.

Unfortunately still today jews are discriminated in many countries. At least in Poland they have a slightly more peaceful life.

The article says that Hebrew teaching was banned in the sense that it had to be replaced with teaching in Yiddish.


Apparently, the Jewish people in East Galicia (and everyone else there including the Polish and the Ukrainians) were deprived of the value of their savings:

The repudiation of the Polish zloty by the Soviet authorities has hit the Jews, as well as others, severely since everyone had his savings in the Polish currency. Overnight the richest Jews became beggars through the effects of this decree.

Thus, it seems that only the American dollar is good for savings-keeping (but only in the drawers and not in banks as accounts may easily be confiscated - remember the recent example of the EU action in Cyprus). It would be interesting to compare what the article says about East Galicia with the situation in West Galicia which found itself on the western side of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line dividing Poland of 1939 into two parts: German-occupied and Soviet occupied. I think the German authorities let the Polish currency to continue in the Generalgouvernement (so in West Galicia) modyfying the design of banknotes, but their value had been steadily decreasing since October 1939 when the German ocupation began.

On a side note: my aunt who lives in West Galicia (and who happens to be of Jewish origin) had fallen victim of the repudiation of the old bank notes by the Bank of England some time after the WWII. She kept her savings in sterling once and she says she missed the date until which one could exchange them into new bank notes for free. I don't know how much of her story is true, however. Keep your savings in US dollars, anyway!

Part of that was likely due to the Haredim and Non-Haredi Orthodox. Hebrew was and is considered halashon hakodeshah,
translate.google.com/#iw/en/%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9F%20%D7%A7%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%94
whereas Yiddish is considered halashon hachilonit
translate.google.com/#iw/en/%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9F%20%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA
As for languages like Polish, they are considered haleshonot hagoyim
translate.google.com/#iw/en/%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA%20%D7%94%D7%92%D7%95%D7%99%D7%9D

Hey mate. This is a interesting comparison. I'll ask my dad if he knows anything. He was only a young boy, but was in Warsaw and was pretty savvy. It'd be interesting to know too how currency was used during the war and how it changed during the course of it.

Under Soviet policy, (following Stalin's annexation of the eastern half of Poland in collision with Hitler) Poles were denied access to positions in the civil service and former Polish senior officials and notable members of the community were arrested and exiled to remote regions of Russia together with their families. At the same time the Soviet authorities encouraged Jews to fill in the newly emptied government and civil service jobs. (...) While most Poles of all ethnicities had anti-Soviet and anti-communist sentiments, a portion of the Jewish population, along with ethnic Belorussians, Ukrainians and few communist Poles had initially welcomed invading Soviet forces. (...) Polish poet and former communist Aleksander Wat who had Jewish roots stated that Jews were more inclined to cooperate with the Soviets. Norman Davies claimed that among the informers and collaborators, the percentage of Jews was striking, and they prepared lists of Polish "class enemies".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland

270 million?! I know quite a lot about Jewish history and I never heard anyone make such a claim. There was plenty of discrimination against Jews in Arab countries and there were certainly pogroms during some periods. But that number of dead has no connection with reality.

I doubt there have been that number in all of history.


Yes, some tragedies.And there are those who would gladly repeat it all.


You missed out the reasons Prof. Davies gives for them being targetted after the war to carry out various roles.

Actually the Arabs and Muslims in general ARE repeating their ethnical cleansing of Jews, but now in Europe, in the streets of Paris, Marseille and London, since they already finished with Jews in almost all middle east.

Now in middle east what they are doing is to finish the cleansing of Christians (that lived in this area for more than 2 thousand years). This task is almost done.

A bit off-topic and also rather paranoid, not to mention hate-filled.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Security_(Poland)

still spreading lies Harry


i recon,it big BS..why don't you stick to your screenshots from stopfake.org.

what is interesting, in their beginnings in Poland, Jews prospered, among other things, on slave hunting of local Slaveno Polani. They profited in business with Danes and Teutons. Sure, they took best slave girls and boys for themselves.

Before you spread any more nonsense, perhaps you could come to Warsaw and visit the Jewish Museum. It would enlighten you.

It really is such a pity when people don't bother to read the links which they give.
From the JTA article which I linked to "February 25, 1940".
From the wikipedia article which gregy linked to "The Ministry of Public Security of Poland (Polish: Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego or MBP) was a postwar communist, secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954"

Gregy, even people who can't understand the word 'postwar' can look at the dates in those texts and see that the report I linked to was made some five years before the organisation you refer to came into being.


Impossible: I'd have to start doing something before I could be 'still' doing it. I don't tell lies here, as is evidenced by the inability of posters to link to or quote from any such lies.


Perhaps somebody who like to also tell us some tales about Jews murdering Slavic children so as to have blood for the matzah?
What actually is interesting is seeing how often the phrase 'Slaveno Polani' is used on the internet:
google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Slaveno+Polani&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&q=%22Slaveno+Polani%22

nonsense? i beg your pardon.

i giving respect to all innocent Jewish victims of all times throughout history. But, for sure, i won`t hesitate to remind of any innocent Slavic victims. We have to be transparent if want truly to understand historical events and prevent that history repeat itself.

Not only Jews but the complete west of Europe as well, needs to apologize to Slavs.


/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe

no,i didnt read this,consider all your links as rubbish..i see you mean soviet occupied east Poland...
well..polish citizens on those territories had very opposite opinions...especially those citizens of naboliki and koniuchy.
here some interesting story: forum.dlapolski.pl/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D1987%26lofi%3D1%26sid%3Db35173993acfc46769c58dadb7d15490

I'm sure we'd all like to see opinions from those people about the Jews in Vital Public Posts in Soviet Poland in February 1940. I myself very much look forward to you posting those opinions.


I also very much look forward to you explaining how actions taken by Soviets (whether Jewish or gentile) in April and May of 1940 affected the status of Poles (whether Jewish or gentile) in February 1940.

It really is such a pity when people don't bother to read the links which they give, although given the utterly laughable claims given by the source in question (such as "Today it is known that 80% of Polish Jews supported the Jewish Bund, which became the Polish Communist Party.") one can understand why one might not bother reading all of that source.

You think people should apologise for issues that happened over 1500 years ago? Perhaps King Arthur should apologise for fighting the Saxon settlers and Alfred the Great for burning the cakes...

I can only say I don't understand the idea standing behind expressions of regret for deeds or alleged deeds forwarded in the name of forefathers by their progeny.

It strikes me as a cultural transplant onto the European culture or as a way of extending cultural domination by addressees of such an apology on people who apologised.

"You think people should apologise for issues that happened over 1500 years ago"

What would you say about limitation period extended to 1900 years? Fortunately it is well known it has been a case of a magnanimous act of an empire rather than 1900 years of the limitation period. The same act I might add that had been badly repaid by the recipient. Would it be fair to call such a wretch an ungrateful devisee, an ingrate beneficiary?

An irrelevance.

There is little point in either beating yourself up about the deeds of others or trying to erase chapters of history in order to control a national narrative. The idea of historic national guilt is as unhealthy as the idea that any one group have exclusive rights over a territory.

It depends on whether one wants to claim the glory stemming from the achievements of one's forefathers or not.

The two concepts are not contradictory as long as we understand history is never black and white. One can celebrate the achievements of Marie Curie without apologising for the pogroms that occured during her lifetime. Unless some evidence turned up that she led or encouraged a mob herself.

If of course we do not acknowledge those pogroms, any celebration of Marie Curie's achievements is necessarily compromised since we have intentionally debased the historiography of that time.

That's not what I meant. I meant that if a person wants to say 'I'm special and you should think better of me because one of my fellow Poles one a Nobel prize in physics and another one in chemistry', they need to also say 'I'm a bad person and you should think worse of me because my fellow Poles murdered countless thousands of Jews during countless pogroms over the centuries'.

Personally I'd say that both statements are entirely illogical and more than a little stupid.

Indeed, both equally illogical but only one is common and both a distortion of the other.


Nothing can make amends for the tragedies of the past and Poland as a state is not responsible for those tragedies. Nevertheless, Poland's Jewish past is worth cherishing. The cost of renovating this important building is peanuts - and it is very much part of Polish cultural heritage. It could generate tourist income and provide employment too.

The question posed by the title of this thread is worth pondering: Terrible past for Jews in Poland?
But history in general is quite horrible. The horrors emperors, kings, princes, popes, and their henchmen and armies visited upon one another are staggering not to mention the misdeeds of individual cut-throats, highway robbers and other assorted brigands.

But for some reason the Jews, who got thrown out of one country after another, chose to settle en masse in Polish-ruled territory. Does that possibly not suggest that somehow things were a bit less horrible there? Has anyone ever heard a Jewish historian, scholar or any grass-roots Jew for that matter say: "Too bad we didn't settle in Portugal, Turkey, the Rhineland, Hungary or Serbia rather than Poland?"

Doubtful. More to do with chance and circumstance and location. Plus King Boleslaw and his need for an educated and literate class had a bit to do with it.

Remember also that the territory wasn't always Polish-ruled and was sparsely populated and circumstances changed many times over the centuries.

Have you heard any rueful Jews regret that they didn't move en masse to some other European land?
It's an established fact that Old Poland was one of the least intolerant countries back in those highly intolerant times and was relatively free of the religious wars which raged in the "enlightened" West.

Bolesław the Pious, Casimir the Great and their successors reaffirmed and expanded Jewish rights in Poland. Bolesław's Statute of Kalisz stated:
1. ...Should a Jew be taken to court, not only a Christian must testify against him, but also a Jew, in order for the case to be considered valid.

2. ... If any Christian shall sue a Jew, asserting that he has pawned securities with him, and the Jew denies it, then if the Christian refuses to accept the simple word of the Jew, the Jew by taking oath must be free of the Christian.

10. ... As punishment for killing a Jew, a suitable punishment and confiscation of property is necessary.
11. ... For striking a Jew, the usual punishment in the country shall apply.

There is a 100 limit word rule when copying/pasting from the internet.

Have you heard of any Poles, whether Jewish or Gentile who were alive in those times?


Those statutes were very enlightened for their times. Just a shame they weren't always enforced.