Poles and (Polish) Jews... Victims of war... and beyond

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Fair enough. This thread like many others could drag on forever. If we're accepting the wiki facts on this, the majority of victims were likely non-Jews and the majority of the Jews were Poles. That means clearly Poland and its citizens were the main victims (but far from the only ones). This country was extremely ethnically/religiously diverse pre-war, today it is one of the most mono-cultural countries in Europe. Yes the Jews were just selected to a man for this horrible fate, but did it matter who you were and why once you were selected. Even in the exclusively Jewish Lodz Ghetto there were dozens if not hundred's of Christians among the victims (Jewish Maids, spouses of Jews, second/third generation Christians etc). Attached to the Lodz Ghetto was a "school" for the children of parents the Nazi's decided were undesirable. They suffered the same fate of slave labour and starvation, and were taught by Jewish teachers from the Ghetto. What's the difference.

Maregaea you don't appreciate the anti-semite shite some go on with here, don't belittle the suffering of some people families and call it whinging.

If it annoys you move on to a different thread.

You're bypassing the fact that plenty of the victims were in fact soldiers, fighting either with or against the Nazis and her allies. If you want to do in absolute figures, then you surely did not forget the Soviet Union with nearly half of all the victims/casualties of the war. This not only includes soldiers, but also civilians, which number is not even fully established. It's a vast country, yes, but still, over 20 million casualties is more than the whole population of a lot of the current countries of Europe/EU. Also, don't forget that Russian soldiers, once they were captured, were as good as dead as they too systematically got starved to death or simply murdered. Only a very small fraction of the total captured Russian soldiers survived the war. This is a fact that all too easily is overlooked on this forum when talking about victimisation and all.

One could, if following absolute figures, easily point out that the Soviet Union was the biggest sufferer in WW2. And I don't even want to touch the point of the most prolonged fighting that took place on Soviet soil and the lands that were destroyed in the process. And let's also not forget the mass murders of the civillian population of Russia that came under Nazi occupation, which was just as brutally treated as the civillians in Poland.

Taken all this in consideration, who would you say, was the biggest sufferer of WW2? I would say it was Russia.
Like it has been said in this thread and the 120 thousand other threads about this subject, Poles did somehow have a choice: when you commit with Jews, you're a goner, stay away from them and you won't be touched. And as far as the future extermination of the Polish ppl as planned by the Nazis is concerned, well, it is what it is, a future plan that was never carried out, so we impssbly can say if this would become truth or not.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_World_War_II

>^..^<

M-G (just look up the numbers, then you know how suffered the most in absolute terms)

I heard the punishment for helping a Jew in Poland was the immediate execution of your whole family. The number of people recognized in the yad Vashem who helped the Jews is 5742. It would take an extraordinary type of person to risk their families life for a stranger maybe if it was just my own life I don't know?

If you use that logic how many British, French or North African victims had the Nazi's. For that matter New Zealand, Canada, the USA, India, Nepal....... Now we're splitting hairs. The borders of Europe were very different at the time. If you want to get into military causalities you're talking a totally different story. I'm well aware of how the Nazi's treated the "occupied" civilian populations.

This thread is about whether the use of the word holocaust should be used exclusively to define Jewish victims of the Nazi's. Nothing you have said defeats that notion, in fact I think you have endorsed it.

I think you didn't understand what I was trying to point out with the example of the Russian soldiers in captivity, so let me try and make it a bit more clear. Hardly any, if any at all of the Western soldiers captured were deliberately killed off by the Nazis. Russian soldiers, on the other hand were deliberatedly killed or starved to death and since they weren't in active service anymore, disarmed and all, they can count as civilian victims too. That is, if you want to follow the rule of "victims" in the sense of killing unarmed ppl. In fact, most Russians that were killed during the war, were actually not killed in active service, but in concentration camps, which makes them part of the victims of the Holocaust. There is a substantial difference there.

If you want to incorporate the Polish victims, you for sure have to incorporate the Russian victims as well.

I have never said that I have anything against the incorporation of Polish victims into the whole of the Holocaust and I have also explained that the Holocaust wasn't adopted by the Jews at all as trademark or sth, but that it came in use generally as the other names were either too particularistic or too hard to pronounce for the average Westerner.

I have also explained that "Holocaust" was a generic Greek word that kinda came in handy as household name for the conglomerate of diverse exterminations performed by the Nazis: easy to pronounce by all nationalities.

Furthermore, I have many times explained that the focus was mainly on Jews due to the fact that right after WW2 Poland disappeared behind the Iron Curtain in the Cold War. If this wouldn't have happened, Polish victims would have been part of the focus as much as the Jews were. But since the Jews and Israël were part of the "free world", naturally the focus (in the West) shifted more to the Jews as they were more easily available, accessible than the Poles (let's not forget the group who got neglected everywhere, even in the "free world", the Gypsies with about a million victims as well; in a way they are the group that deserves the most pity of all the victims).

"Pogrom" on the other hand, is a Russian word to discribe specifically the murder of Jews. It was a word that was specifically created by Russians to give the various killings of Jews for various reasons a name. Sth completely different than Holocaust, sth that uneducated ppl don't seem to grasp. There were no Pogroms against Poles or Russians, ONLY against Jews and as far as I know hasn't it been used in any other context than killing of Jews, where ever this may have taken place.

Perhaps the best description of the Holocaust would be: "the non-fighting related killings of unarmed people on an organized scale to a near-extinctional status." Or: "The killing of unarmed ppl to a near extinctional state in a non-battle operational context." I think that comes closest to what it grasps. I think any of these two descriptions make it pssbl to cover all victims like Jews, Russians, Poles, Gypsies, Homosexuals, (Mentally) Handicapped, Political Opponents, Blacks (yes, there have been black KZ-prisoners), captured Resistance fighters (if not shot immediately) and so on.

To be honest, I think that Wikipedia covers that sufficiently. They put focus on the Jewish Holocaust because they were the biggest group (also a group that hadn't done anything than being a Jew and unlike ANY group of victims of the Holocaust didn't have any other choice than to die, like the Gypsies as well; they were in the same boat as the Jews for that matter). Also this biggest group is used to describe the processes of the Holocaust which were for all groups the same, once captured and interred in a KZ.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Hogwash MG. If anything is going to be incorporated it’s the Jewish victims. First and foremost all the civilian casualties during the war were citizens and nationals of various European countries be it Polish, Russian, Hungarian, German what have you, they were the citizens of those countries period. Yet when it comes to the Holocaust issue all of a sudden it’s THE Jews. What’s that all about? Did the religion of a Polish, Russian, German citizen elevate to the status of nationality? I don’t think so. There was no state of Israel at that time either, so in essence one could argue that the only victims of the Holocaust were the civilians of various European nations and be counted as such. Furthermore, I will argue that the focus was mainly on Poles with extreme prejudice towards the ones of certain religious belief.


You couldn’t be more wrong. That’s the twisted distorted recent definition of a word as borrowed into English language to mean just that. The word ‘pogrom’ had many meanings, most common was ‘total military defeat over ones enemy ‘. It wasn’t until 1880’s and 1890’s when it took on this meaning as well when a series of anti-Jewish riots swept Russia. Even the Jewish newspaper of the time ‘Izraelita ‘ referred to them as the ‘events that recently took place’ not ‘pogrom’ which now is synonymous with ‘Slaughter’.


So did the mentally retarded, homosexuals etc., what makes one group special above all others to be counted as separate entity yet other groups counted as per their nationality, citizenship?

Why you are not thinking to include 27 millions of Russian victims as well? 27 millions against 20 thousand is a good reason to do it.

Ditto.

I'm trying to stay on topic. Unlike your original assertion above, you are now agreeing that the term holocaust is not exclusively a Jewish term. That's what the thread is about. I'm not arguing anything else.

As I've said people of all religions and nationalities died under the Nazi's and should be all counted as victims of the Nazi holocaust.

It was a concentration camp fot Polish children inside the Lódź Ghetto. If interested, I ahve posted about it before.

... and on PF, on this thread, starting with post #309:

The Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei in Litzmannstadt was built in the fall of 1942 inside the £ódź Ghetto on the order of SS Reichsfuerher Himmler. Complete with 3 meter walls, guard towers, and SS staff, this concentration camps housed Polish children aged 8-16, and in the girl section as young as two. All children worked 10 to 12 hours a day on starvation level "meals," were brutaly beaten, and sometimes murdered. It operated inside the ghetto till the end of war. German and Polish sources list it as a concentration camp, but Holocaust sources seem very reluctant to even mention it so don't expect to find a lot of information on it. I'm not aware of any books in English on it, but there is a German book and one Polish one. The Polish text is:

Józef Witkowski: Hitlerowski Obóz Koncentracyjny dla małoletnich w £odzi, Breslau (Wrocław) 1975

The USHMM (US Holocaust Memorial Museum) lists this book in their bibliography and describe it as such:


First of all, they failed to translate the tittle, which is 'Nazi concentration camp for youth in £ódź." All of the sudden the Nazis are Germans, and the concentration camp is an orphanage(sic) for orphaned Poles. It was not adjecent to the ghetto, but was inside the ghetto walls. The only thing they got right is that the internees were transfered to Ravensbruck or Auschwitz on their 17th birthday.

Had this been a concentration camp for Jewish children, you, dear reader, would have heard about it. As it stands, there isn't even a wiki entry on it.

Here is the german wiki link:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugendverwahrlager_Litzmannstadt

My translation:

"...The planning for a "camp for protection of Minors East" begun already 1941.
The idea came, after own admission, from Hans Muthesius who was annoyed/disturbed that because of "lack of special care institutions" foreign (especially polish) youth got send to german care institutions.

Ont 15th November 1941 Heinrich Himmler ordered the accelerated building of the camp.
With a memo from the 30th. May 1942 the told SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl that it isn't justifiable to use SS-guards and that the overseeing has to go back to the criminal investigation department.

The camp was being build under the overseeing of the SS, but ruled and run was it by the Reichs departement for the fight against youth criminality, a special departement of the female criminal police...."


No, it was definitely not an orphanage (even if very young children were tested if they were able to become adopted by german families).
It's official goal was to protect Germans from criminal polish youth.


That doesn't seem to be true...at least it isn't mentioned anywhere.

That is clearly wrong.


You mean it is not mentiond on the one German wiki entry which basically downplays it, kind of like The US Holocaust Museum, but not as severely. It is described by a Polish historian in the text I refered to earlier. Pay attention. I also linked on AHF to a German text; I kind of doubt you have read it.


That's nice to know, but we are not interested in Nazi propaganda at the moment.

Just have a look at this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom

Quote:


So I guess that clears this misunderstanding on your part.


Have a look at this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention

Read article IV, it gives a definition of what a POW is. Note that Civilians and Soldiers in captivity are treated under the same section.

As for THE Jews, well that has been a lengthy process by the countries themselves. When Jews did sth good, they were civilians of that particular country; when they did sth bad it were suddenly THE Jews. It was like that long before the war, so the Jews said: if we're gonna be THE Jews when some of us do bad things, we might as well be THE Jews if we do sth good, hence, we're THE Jews. Also, they have been treated by all the "good" countries as an isolated group for centuries anyway. So it's not a surprise. And besides, the Poles themselves for the biggest part didn't see Jews as Polish, so to include them as Polish citizens AFTER the Holocaust would SEEM like an attempt to make the Holocaust aimed at Poland mainly or make it an exclusively Polish thing, which it wasn't. I'm not saying that it is, that's why I added "seem" in capitals; it just looks that way.


If you had read well, you could've seen that I mention these specific groups as well, even the fact that there were black ppl in the KZ's.


That's what I'm arguing for in my last two previous posts.


I still stand by this remark. The point was that the Holocaust is generally mentioned as the event that killed the Jews, while for Porajmos there is no other inclusion except Gypsies. I still thnk you didn't understand what I was saying.

And as for on-topic: I'm on topic as can be. If you want a seperate entry for the Poles, one cannot escape a seperate entry for the Russians, be they POW's or Civilians or the 1 mln Russian Jews that were killed. It's not a matter of exclusivity, but if you want that, you indeed should invent a term like I coined earlier, sth like "Polonocide". Or simply leave the Wiki entry as it is, as it does justice to the proportions within the whole of the Holocaust, because, if you want to keep strictly to civilians, the Jewish group of victims was the biggest in absolute terms: (according to the Wikilink I posted earlier):

Jews (total): 5,752,400 (of which Polish Jews: 3,000,000 and Russian Jews: 1,000,000)
Polish Civilians: 2,380,000 to 2,580,000; Russian Civilians: 12,254,000 to 14,154,000

Actually, if you look at these figures in an absolute way, Russian Civilians were the biggest group, but those include partizans as well, just like the number of Polish civilians include resistance fighters, while the Jews didn't have large and organized partizan groups or the like, besides small factions here and there, which mainly have survived the war anyway. So you tell me: in absolute figures, the Russians would be the biggest victims, in relative terms it's the Jews; don't you think Wiki does justice to the proportions within the event of the Holocaust? If there is anything to be adjusted, it's minor things and there should be an entry for the Russian victims as the Polish ones are already covered in there.

>^..^<

M-G (fair's fair)

Look at the sources....the documents are all there!


There is no downplaying...it's all there, in all their horribly "glory". Inclusive links to further
information and sources.


Read the sources.


Just show us his sources...(or we can put it into the same drawer like the infamous but never seen "Generalplan Ost")

PS: The camp worked on after the war did you know that?

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Jugendverwahrlager_Litzmannstadt

Original mail:

...

My translation:

"...About Jugendverwahrlager Lodz. There is told that the leftovers of the camp
were removed 1947. That is absurd! My brother and I were admitted on a Friday
the 23th April 1948. That is my name day, this has a special meaning in Poland, that's
why I remember the date.
On Sundy the 9th May our mother was allowed to get us home again.
We were admitted because our mother refused to work the whole day because of us.
Only the unflinching support of her "Kierownicka" is it thanked that we came free..."

What do your sources say about inmates who reached their eighteenth birthday? Our sources say they were transfered to Ravensbruck or Auschwitz.

As to the


There were also female sadists by was not run by them.

What sources? Bring them please....

And as I took the pain to translate german texts into english you could do the same for the sake of a discussion on an english-language talkboard, thank you very much!

Especially this here:


Again...your historians must have some sources...they should be in german so no need to translate them for me!

You mean Eugenia Pohl?

Or after the war Eugenia Poll who was able to work and live in Lodz until the 70's when she was finally comprehended and sent to jail?

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Interesting facts about her too:
/wiki/Jugendverwahrlager_Litzmannstadt#Nachkriegsgeschichte



Curious...no leaving for Germany at the wars end? "Influential guardian" in the polish city council???

Interesting indeed. >^..^<

M-G (tiens)

And what does that tell you, I wonder?


According to you who was the camp commandant?

Poll was in communist Poland. Hans Muthesius did really well in free Germany as a prominent politician. You can look him up on German wiki yourself.

I would say the Chief of the Criminal Police of Lodz...at least that's what the source calls him.
The misunderstanding seems to be that he also held the rank of an SS-Obersturmbannführer.
And it is a fact that the SS tried to grasp as much of the state police under her influence as she probably could during her rise in Germany but when Himmler complains of the use of SS-guards and demands that this camp comes under the ruling of the criminal police then that is what happened.

Listen Jola, this camp was a crime and horrible as it is but in the context of the topic there hadn't been comparable camps for jewish kids at all, they never even got this chance...maybe we should stop here.


Yes?
And communist Poland wasn't interested in hunting war criminals?

And no...I'm not interested in your polish text...that is rude!

Actually nothing. You were talking about female sadist leading the kids' camp within the Lodz ghetto and since I only knew that name besides Karl Ehrlich's name in connection to these ghettos I was just wondering whether you meant her.

But what it tells me beside this is that the officials were kinda sloppy finding her after the war.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Postwar Poland's Justice and Security system, at the decission level, was staffed by Jews. At that time, they were more interested in chasing down Polish soldiers from AK and falsely accussing them of being fascists(sic) and often setencing them to long prison terms or even death. Chasing sadists who committed crimes against Polish children was not their priority.


I don't care what you would say. If you have a name, give it.


Oh, I'm sorry, but I do want you to read how Germany treats organizers of concentration camps for children. You become a respected politician.

Bratwurst, it's no use. He will do this over and over again. Poland did nothing wrong and when sth bad happened like failing to catch a war criminal, it's the Jews, not the Poles themselves. And even if you get him to admit that Poles did sth wrong, it's either very minor or they were forced to do so by the Jews, the Commies or the Madhatter's convention. By now you should know how he is.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

The Jewish prosecutors on the Polish side were not interested in Katyń at Nuremberg and raised no substantial objections that the Germans did it.


That's right, I have his name and now you do too, but you wrote the camp was run by:


so your source is completely wrong.

Since you're admin, can you bring back my hussar? Give yourself a helmet too.

Hunting crimes against Jews - yes, hunting crimes against Polish children - not in this lifetime.

i dont agree because israel has used the holocaust to justify every action in the middle east "we can't let another holocaust happen again" and blah blah blah meanwhile you dont see poland using its terrible history of repeated partitions mass murder and soviet domination to act like a pitbull on steroids across eastern europe. There have been no well known movies documenting the mass murder of poles by the nazis. I and most americans have simply neger heard about the mass murder of poles. Even the year and a half i spent in poland i heard very little about it. Had i never seen "katyn" i would have never inquired.

That the jews had it worse is arguable but silly to say anyway.

That racism resulted in the mass murder of certain groups of people into the MILLIONS is unprecedented and both the fate of the Jews AND the Poles should serve as warnings about where racism can lead.

The nazis wanted to exterminate all jews, to that end 6million jews died half of which were polish jews. The nazis wanted to destroy poland and all poles to that end 5 million poles died a little more than half of whom were jews. Does the extra million jews hat peroshed warrant people forgetting the pligh of the poles?

You just don't like Israël, do you? Otherwise you would not have entered this argument into the discussion as it has nothing to do with the subject as such. I will therefore disregard it.


So Hollywood has to popularize the mass murder of Poles? I still believe you don't understand the topic as such. I tried a few times to make it clear, but you're kinda set in your ways, so there is no point in explaining you any further that the way you're thinking is wrong and that the Polish victims already sufficiently have been dealt with in the Wiki page concering the Holocaust.


This prove my previous remark. YES, the Jews had it the worst of all the victims. I'm sorry if you cannot imagine that, but it is true. They had no other choice than to die, to die and again to die. Poles had a choice and many took that choice. Jews didn't have that choice.


It already does and there is no need for you to punch ppls noses onto it once more.


Now you listen to me, and you listen well, son. NOBODY has forgotten the plight of the Poles. And if you want to know why it's not as often mentioned as the Jews' fate, I would suggest you read all of my previous posts as I have explained thoroughly why that is.

One extra million of Jews, yeah, it's going off the big pile anyway, isn't it? 6 million Jews, of which there were 3 million living in Poland, not being recognized by many Poles as Polish citizens, should not be counted as Poles. Take 3 million off the 5 million Poles and that leaves you with 2 million Poles that have perished, if I were to make the same distinction as the Poles themselves do. Still a huge number, but it's just 1/3 of the number of Jews that died. So, 4 million extra dead Jews would be a more correct statement. And if a ppl wants to prevent Arabs from doing the same all over again (and we know that the Arabs would do so if they got the chance, given several testemonies) it's understandable that the Israeli want to prevent that.

But pls, try to read my previous posts and pls do try to understand them. If you don't, it's ok, just ask. I'd be happy to explain and expand a bit further if you need.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

No, but they are popping out Holocaust flicks at at a steady rate. We would be satisfied if they only wouldn't put Polish flags waving in a concentration camp. I think that was is Sophie's Choice.

Agnieszka Holland is making a Holocaust film a the moment; it must be a run for an Oscar.


I'm sure you will find people in Holland who consider you a filthy Jew and not a Dutchman. For this reason you should be called Jewish, but not Dutch, following your reasoning.

Ehm, that would be a no. In the Netherlands things like that are not an issue.


I am only following the Polish reasoning. Before long I have argued that Polish Jews were in fact Polish citizens. But then a few Poles popped up (can't remember if you were among them, but heck) and said that they were not Polish citizens. So there you have it.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

"The Jewish prisoners were those who managed to escape death on the very first day of their detention. As a rule, on that same day they lost many members of their families, sometimes their whole immediate families. This was the beginning of the camp ordeal, incomparable to the fate of the non-Jews. For the 'Aryans', Auschwitz was 'only' a labour camp, destructive and potentially fatal. Their families usually remained free. The Jews perceived Auschwitz as a death camp, frequently the site of the passing of their whole families. No waited for them outside the camp, and no one prayed for them. Even if their subsequent camp experiences resembled those of the other inmates, their fate remained different.'

Krawjewski, S. 2005. Poland and the Jews: Reflections of a Polish Polish Jew. Kraków: Austeria, p. 35.