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

Many Polish-born Jewish Holocaust survivors have testified that their Polish gentile fellow prisoners were often most unkind to them in captivity, principally because they weren't Christians, thus perceived as "Christ killers" and other malarky!

The truth cuts both ways, as I've reiterated here numerous times.

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

Spot on, cms:-)

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

If Biblical Law existed, it might prove a very different story.

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

The history is complicated, since the role of primogeniture plays a significant part in all this going back to Biblical times, actually, pre-dating recorded history of the period.

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

These supposed counter arguments don't exactly equate in magnitude! Always easy to blame the victim for the act of the perpetrator.
@Maf, no need to try again, pal! Whether it's a few million vs. several hundred at Jedwabne, it was several hundred too many!

Study / British School of Warsaw in Wilanow [73]

Liberalism was more "in" fashion than it has become, soon as folks out there realized that much (though admittedly not all) progressive liberalism actually required work:-) Then, they jumped whole hog on the conservative/Republican bandwagon and decided to trade in their conscience for peace of mindLOL

How can peace and happiness be built on others' misery? Answer: It can't!

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

While even Ambassador Azari and even Netanyahu both agreed separately that Poland never "instigated" the events leading up to or during the Holocaust, there were numerous Poles who gladly turned in Jews (both partisans and others) in exchange for the peace of mind of payment, much of it generous indeed:-)

The Nazis counted on this, therefore led a successful Poland Campaign, and in fact, exterminated the bulk of Polish Jewry.

Poles SHOULD feel at least historically, if not collectively, responsible for such events as wartiime Jedwabne, but especially post-War Kielce.

Study / British School of Warsaw in Wilanow [73]

Ergo, conservative instructors think they aren't? Not sure I quite grasp the logic here.

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

Because the Sinti-Roma sadly never had any major PR group speak up on their behalf, spread the word about their suffering. that's why!

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

Correct, Atch! Conservative Judaism though had its roots in the New World, that is, in North America, brought to the States by a German-born rabbi, David Einhorn, who advocated a less literal, freer interpretation of the Talmud!

Small wonder, as German Jews were always more assimilated than, say, Polish, Russian, or Eastern European Jews, typically from poor shtettl communities.

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

Bibi's got some control issues, that's for sure! He's supposed to have a fearsome temper and is known to be quite abusive in private life.

Travel / Why do you visit Poland? [223]

And don't forget the late, lamented PolonisLOL

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

True, gregy!

The Jews of wartime Europe had no place to turn. The American Jewish Congress and Rabbi Dr. Stephen Wise should have been ashamed of themselves for looking away at a time when such auxilliary organizations and the US Jewish Community could have been of tremendous help.

Roosevelt too was not at his best either, I'm ashamed to admit, caving in to Sen. Long and ordering the SS-Missouri not to stop in Havana but instead return to Europe. SHAMEFUL!!

Yet, what could he really have done? He didn't want to be assassinated now, did he? A truly great American president nonetheless.

Travel / Why do you visit Poland? [223]

I do hope to return one day. This time, instead of a day and a half in Szczecin, I'd want to spend at least a week in Wroclaw. The architecture, particularly the Old Town, is magnificent!

Perhaps, time and money permitting, I'd like to fit in a trip to Krakow to see Wawel:-)

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

Although I don't recall their names, a number of non-Jewish (Polish and German) Holocaust historians, at the risk of being vilified by their own, have come out and stated that any insinuations that somehow Jewish acts of violence aka "war crimes" (in the words of PiS supporters) against Polish gentiles displaying anti-Jewish collaborationist hostility or Nazis and their sympathizers might be equal to their converse, are tantamount to revisionist history and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible as inciting hatred and bigotry.

Comments from the peanut gallery?

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

Ever asked yourself about the other side of the story, gregy, or did you just jump on the bandwagon like nearly everybody else? What was their motivation?

Was it justifiable or merely malicious?

The answers might surprise you.

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

Your blood references sound frighteningly close to Nazi talk, Dirk! You should be aware of that.

Only an ignoramus believes that blood and ethnicity are in any way connected. Sure, the blood of an AIDS patient to be certain will be tainted.....because he has AIDS, never because he happens to belong to a particular ethnicity!!

Ilness knows no national distinction; it's an equal opportunity destroyer.

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

No, Dirk. The moral of the story is that the more quickly the Jews had been assimilated into Polish culture (perhaps paying only lip service to the Catholic Church will practicing Judaism at home), to a degree as they were in post-Enlightenment Germany and France, things might have turned out a great deal differently, maybe more happily, for concerned!

While I'm not suggesting that the latter was of much use to the German Jews when Hitler came on the scene, one never quite knows how events had unfolded had the image of the Jew not become demonized as it had.

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

@Dirk et al.

There were plenty of totally assimilated Polish Jews (and half-Jews) whose names I've mentioned several times on PF, who contributed richly to Polish culture!

Not every Polish Jew was a Yiddish-speaking yeshiva brukha from some shtettl in G_d knows where:-) Stereotyping cuts both ways, as I've said often before:

Not all Polish gentiles are/were drunken, ignorant, Jew-hating louts and peasants, neither are/were all Polish Jews pale-faced yeshiva boys, davening from dawn till dusk, disrespecting their Christian neighbors' culture!!

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

You're damned right, buddy! Poland may be such an example.....or, naturally, the US under you know who! Germany by contrast, is one of the most self-scrutizining, maddeningly self-examining nation on earth today.:-)

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

...and because he mesmerized an all too gullible public into believing that he and he alone was Germany's savior!

Life / Why are Polish people so strange & unusual? [51]

Yep, Johnny!

What I meant by distinguishing between Jewish and non-Jewish Poles is simply that in the end, both are Polish nationals and citizens, they just practice a different religion. You see, I've come to the conclusion that nationality as opposed to ethnicity, is sort of like a club. If the members pay their dues, why oughtn't they become (and remain) members, huh? But unlike a club, one's membership in that nationality never expires, save if the citizen chooses to relinquish their citzenship, i.e. choose an different nationality:-) Their religion though will, of course, always stay the same. A Catholic is a Catholic no matter in which country they live, same for a Jew or any other.

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

@Dougpol and TheOther, we seem to have misunderstood the use of the word "democratic". Indeed, it has often been an incorrectly used term throughout history, e.g. The German "Democratic" Republic, however in 1933, Germany was still in the shadows of the albeit ill-fated Weimar Republic prior to Hitler's seizure of power. Therefore, by his very being elected, rather than literally thrust, into office by mob violence, one can conclude that he was "democratically" elected. The election process is one of the cornerstones of Western democracy and so I apologize for splitting hairs about this.

Interesting to consider a side issue, namely, that ordinary German citizens weren't threatened outright if they didn't vote for Hitler, that is, pollwatchers never tried to scare them away at the polls, in rather stark contrast to African-Americans in the US South being frightened and harrassed by local authorities into not voting for the leader of the very country in which they were citizens. And I'm speaking of long AFTER 1924, following the law which finally allowed blacks the right to vote.

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

Again, it might not have been a "fair" election in terms of the outcome, but yes, it certainly was democratic, TheOther!!

Life / Why are Polish people so strange & unusual? [51]

One's very first impression, at least in my case, of multi-aged male Poles who've crossed my path over the years (especially if I were speaking to them in English at first, rather than Polish!), is that of smart aleck, full of one upmanship and seemingly invasive questions about me, followed by blunt, snap judgements as to who they think I "must" be, based solely on their initial impression.

I've come to expect same whenever I meet up with a male Pole (Jewish Poles as well). and I've never been disappointed to date:-)

Examples: "So why you are speaking Polish?", "You must be Jew, yes?", "You are married?", "Why you never lived in Poland?", "You talking **** about Poland...!" etc.

On the other hand, at least one cannot accuse them of NOT speaking their minds. However, it does tend to put on on the defensive a little, even if this wasn't exactly their intent.

I merely take it all with humor, plus a healthy grain of salt and never let it bother me.

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

@Dougpol, slight correction here. A majority of the poorer classes DID in fact vote Hitler into office, it was however the military who felt that once voting Hitler in, they could easily sway him to do their bidding! The less fortunate sectors of German society felt they had no choice but to elect Hitler; even Hindenburg (senile at the time though he was) was fooled when he conceded official power over to Hitler.

The point is that Hitler was voted into power, DEMOCRATICALLY too, one should add:-)

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

I'd have to honestly take a close(r) look at some brick-and-mortar sources for that, I'm afraid. Wiki's limited in more ways than one, furthermore, it surely won't be the first time either that the perpetrator's cried victim!

This pernicious slander that the Jews have something in their genes which makes them so rapacious for power that they seek to take over the world has to be finally put to rest. As it can't be proven, it has zero validity:-)

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

If you mean Jews killing gentile Poles who sought to kill them, you're historically right. The example though beggars comparison....except to an anti-Semite.

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

Poles weren't murdered in Israel, were they? Yet Jews were murdered in Poland. The families and survivors of Auschwitz wound up where?? In Palestine aka modern Israel.

Guess, Netanyahu and Ambassador Azari see some connection there.

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

@Dirk,
The Israelis might well be as misguided as they Poles in this respect, or even the Nazis! In poetry, we do speak of "foreign blood" (The Marseilleise, for example), yet we know in reality that such doesn't, cannot exist....if you believe in science:-)))

As to why the Jews kept getting thrown out again and again from most European countries has as much to do with Catholic dogma concerning alleged Christ killers as anything else.