News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

I really ought to have made abundantly clear that I am NOT an advocate of so-termed "collective guilt/shame", or I never would have invested so much of my time and money in living in Germany as well as visiting, not to mention enjoying the brief period I spent in, Poland! That's for starters.

Secondly, even though a third-generation American, ergo,one whose ancestors weren't involved in either slavery or the slaughter of Native Americans, I nonetheless DO feel a twinge of guilt in as far as those crimes were committed on the soil on which I live.

Concerning Pani Kurek, I'd have to read her work both in the original along with in entirety to be able to judge for myself.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

You throw that example up to ME??!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

I know Gross has been attacked, WielkiPolak. Truth tellers usually are when the truth becomes too uncomfortable:-)

Language / Issues understanding "to go" verb in Polish language [18]

@Thank you, Johnny and kaprys!

You're welcome, sir! One never stops learning about their native language included.

@kaprys,

Careless of me. Naturally, "PO"- and not "PRZY-"jechal" in that context. I ought to have remembered when I was in Poland, the announcements saying "Pociag ODjechal!", in Polish, English, and German:-)

He WENT by car to the restaurant. = On przyjechal do restauracji (..no need to mention "..ze samochodem.."!!).
She took a cab. = Ona pojechala z taksowka,
The bus/train already left. = Autobus/Pociag juz odjechal.

My memory occasionally needs to be jogged, thanks!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

"@dolno, hate to disappoint you, but Jedwabne and Kielce themselves shame the Polish nation. Historians such as Jan Gross and others have merely brought it to the much needed attention of the an all too gullible public!

Language / Issues understanding "to go" verb in Polish language [18]

In addition, if one wishes to indicate "going" ON FOOT vs. some other way, such as taking the bus, one may, of course simply use "isc"/"pojsc" pieszo or piechota!

Predzej poszedlbym pieszo niz przyjechal z autobusem. = I'd sooner [rather] go on foot than take the bus.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

@G,

To submit to the attitude of "that's the way it is", almost a resigned Calvinist "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.." mentality is precisely what mainstream Western tradition ISN'T all about!! Passivity and fatalism are the enemy in this case. Holocausts ARE preventable, so long as one sees them coming and can change hearts as well as minds. Fairness is what the Judeo-Catholic tradition strives to achieve.

@dolnoslask,

I never once uttered the statement that either the Polish gov't. or the vast majority of Polish people were directly "complicit" in the Holocaust. Go back and re-read my various posts, which are written in plain English:-)

What I did say, is that, while Poland did in fact take more than a hit during WWII, moroever, had a strong, nationwide resistance movement against the Nazis, Jedwabne and particularly Kielce (perpetrated AFTER the War was over), shall remain Poland's Nan King Massacre, their My Lai, their shame. The Kielce Pogrom was not committed during war time and therefore cannot be justified as such.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Noone should "get used to" something which is already an aberration and should never have been in the first place.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Holocaust relativism runs rampant here on PF!

Life / The Art of Complaining by Polish people [47]

So true! No one country has a monopoly on any set behavior pattern.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Obvious here that the lessons of the Holocaust have yet to be learned, and likely, never will be at this rate. Your fallacious logic is unimpressive to say the least.

Explaining that the Nazis slaughtered millions of Jews and others ought not be met with "Oh, but you crazy Jews killed far more....!!" etc. ad nauseum.

Go back to school, before or after you have your diapers changedLOL

Language / Issues understanding "to go" verb in Polish language [18]

In English, we are far less directionally specific than in Polish!

If I say, "I'm going to Poland.", it's obvious that it's not on foot. Therefore, I needn't specify that I'm "flying" or even sailing by ship, to Poland:-)

In Polish, "Ide do Polski." might well cause the Poles much amusement. Probably, "Odlatuje do Polski" would do the trick nicely,
i.e. (literally) " I fly [this one time] off to Poland".

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Nevertheless Johnny, I'm sure you would be raging inside, outside, from all sides, with bitterness if the people who killed your people, stole their property and for years resisted compensation until literally pushed to the walls, were living high off the hog at the government's expense and whose crimes became whitewashed.

Now, I realize that the Germans had their noses rubbed in it far more than the Poles. However, the question of culpability needs to be spread around. I extend the word "culpability" also to include any Jews who either willingly and traitorously in any way collaborated with the enemy for the sake of quick, easy gain.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Yet Germany after the War was lauded as the great country for the best beer, machinery, beautiful women, the most dynamic economy on the Continent (and still is!), the best socialized society, where former top as well as lower-level Nazis continue to receive generous pensions while survivors in Israel continue to languish.

That sure is a double standard, whereby the US praises the same country which nearly wiped out an entire people who helped to contribute to Germany's greatness.

See something wrong with this picture??

Things will get a lot worse if somebody doesn't, and soon!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Poland has a naturally bordered territory, something Israel never had. If you also remember, Germany was always known up through the early 19th century as the "land in the middle", because her borders were always shifting. How ironic that you and various others accuse Israel of "illegally" taking over other people's territories, whereby the latter became the Nazis' stock and trade.

Talk about double standards!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

@Johnny,

Well, how convenient that "interpretations vary" when YOU'RE trying to push YOUR agenda through regarding YOUR version of historical accuracy!
America was taken from the Natives and indeed formed into the United States of America for political reasons, religion only entering the equation as
we all know that our Founding Male W.A.S.P. Fathers were themselves deeply religious (although perhaps not always exactly 'spiritual') men.
Much might also be said about the Puritans who either desired religious freedom or were pushed out of England because they were troublemakers there too:-)

Concerning the original thread topic of the criminalization of anybody who refers openly to Polish Death Camps, there is something to be said for
those Poles who did in fact collaborate with the enemy as well as those who valiantly resisted the Nazis, many of whom paid for it with their lives!

Poland has no fewer saints vs. sinners than any other country, so let's not put them on some sort of moral pedestal.

Same for the Jews.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Here you merely show your deep seated anti-Semitic prejudice!! America wasn't a nation either until declared one by the white man, purely for political reasons.

WE were the interlopers, after all, NOT the Native Americans whose land we in point of fact stole outright from under their noses!!!

You're merely rationalizing, as all bigots do, unconcerned with facts, merely with facile justifications to satisfy your own bias.

According to the Bible, ancient Judaea was to be the land of the Judaeens, present day Jews.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Here I agree! Their stand on the Falashas is ambivalent too, to say the very least:-)

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

I'm not crazy about Zionism either, although one, that is, any thinking person (Jew or gentile) can readily appreciate why ZIonists feel as adamantly about their cause as they do! Why ought the Israelis be the only nation on earth without a bona fide homeland of their own?

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Nonetheless, post-War American, US-born. There's a difference.

Life / The Art of Complaining by Polish people [47]

I was simply making a joke apropos, nothing more!:-)

In fact, the art of complaining has become part of the Austrian, especially, Viennese, lingo from time immemorial. Optimism in Vienna (having lived there for a time) is often suspect and considered too "American" for most people's traditional tastes. Only recently, according to the NYT, is positive thinking in France actually being given intellectual credence. Go figure. That apparently it's also a Polish trait I heard for the first time just several days ago when I read the current thread!

Life / The Art of Complaining by Polish people [47]

Again, it seems they've been learning this fine art from their Austrian neighbors:-)

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Finkelstein is not only neither a survivor himself, nor even the offspring of survivors, he has been reviled by nearly every survivor as well as non-survivor group in the country!!

Be wary of the rogue historian trying to play into the hands of the Irvings, Leuchtners and the rest of the deniers:-)

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

While not a Zionist, but as a fellow Jew, I can well understand their zeal, even if misplaced at times! And NO, I never was a supporter, rather, a detractor of, and always reviled the likes of a Meier Kahan and his ilk, just in case you're wondering.

@NoToForeigners, your very moniker suggests a deep prejudice, quite unbecoming of you, either as a Pole, a modern, post-War European, above all, as a Christian!

This persistent myth that Jews are greedy by their very nature suggests a complete ignorance of history as well as gross double standard concerning human behavior

in general!!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

To quote Sir Winston Churchill, who saw his country through even far rougher waters than those of today, "Democracy is the least effective, most ineffectual form of government known! Yet do we know of any one better?"

Without idealism there can be no humanity, and without the latter, there remains only barbarism. Something to consider well, even when the world seems to spin helplessly out of control. Cooler heads prevailing, needn't always mean taking the path of least resistance. Expedient doesn't necessarily mean right!

Life / The Art of Complaining by Polish people [47]

Guess the Poles have been taking lessons from the Viennese!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

In the latter instance, property title would have to be considered, since the "leaving" of the former tenants/owners might not have been legal.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Seems to me an extreme overreaction, don't you think, rather like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Putin's Russia for example...although of course he denies it vehemently! Almost reminds me of that great film >The Lives of Others<, where the young playwrite Georg Dreymann accidentally angers Commisar Hempff by talking about how repugnant he finds blacklists in his country which singled out and nearly ruined the career of his good friend and fellow playwrite Jerska. Hempff threateningly denies the existence of such, wagging his intimidating index finger at Dreymann, "You really should watch your phraseology from now on, sir!"

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

The IPS-law is nonetheless universally seen by the rest of the world as punitive, to say the least!