History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

A long post about nothing because obviously you didn't understand what I was driving at. Will post a Polish explanation in a day or so:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Folks, culpability in time bears the fullness of responsibility, if not directly, then indirectly. Sources for my posts? Lack of knowledge about WWII?
I ask the naysayers among us to read the history for themselves. Anybody can label someone a "counter revisionist" for attacking revisionist claims, such as those of Messrs. Irving, Nolte or Hillgruber, among others.

Ever read Goldhagen's controversial best seller "Hitler's Willing Executioners", or perhaps even more trenchant because written by a non-Jewish historian, "Ordinary Men" by Christopher Browning?? The contents may surprise most of you, shock some of you, and I hope, enlighten the rest of you:-)

I expect to receive the usual denial of the truth. Indeed, the truth can on occasion taste like a mouthful of worms, and yet, in this era of "fake news", it's salubrious for sure to bask in the healing waters of veracity:-)

Happy Reading!

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Never once did I state on this, or for that matter, on any forum, that "the Poles built the camps", point blank!! This alone would be an out-and-out lie, worthy even of a libel suit. No argument there, not now, not ever. Merely wish to set the record straight:-)

However, as the old saying goes, "It takes two to tango." The measures imposed on the Danes by Plenipotentiary Werner Best for aiding Jews, giving succor to resistance fighters and the like, were as harsh as any imposed on the Poles.

The difference is merely that, Poland's huge resistance movement aside for a minute, the invading Nazis once again were banking on the local cooperation of the peasants, farmers and small-townsfolk throughout the countryside, not only of Poland, more so even, of Latvia and Lithuania (traditionally also seats of Jewish learning for centuries), for help in ridding Europe of her Jews.

These are facts. If you don't believe me, read Lucy Davidowicz, Raul Hilberg, and scholars far more learned than any of us here.

@Bieganski,

Your English could also be called "Googlish", but never once did I have to consult a phrasebook trapsing around Sczcecin! I waited till I returned to the hotel:-)

@kaprys,

I make no bones about the fact that Jews in Communist Europe numbered among the worst. With the blatant exception of course of Ceauscescu, Hungary's Rakosi Matyas was a vicious, unrepenetant swine who all but turned his back on his own people, changed his name, and adopted the ideology which would help him feather his nest. Not a Jew I'd be proud of!!

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

The fire-bombing of Dresden was no piker either, I'll have you know:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Indeed, and fecking lucky to have 'em too, I should say:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Often one will state or quote, only later to have discovered this or that to be slightly less than accurate:-) Nothing I've posted here has been any more than (on occasion) a tad off, yet certainly within the limits of historical exactitude. In the scheme of things, my posts are well-informed, admittedly imperfect from time to time.

In college, our European history prof also confessed to having placed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as 1941, immediately making mention of said error by the start of our next class. In 1981, we didn't have the "benefit" of instant Google.

I endeavor always to do the same.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

My statements are neither of the above! One rarely has all the prerequisite info at one's fingertips. Furthermore, I used to teach history. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't.

Recently, a Polish gentleman with an accent one could cut with a sierp(LOL), claimed he was an English teacher...not in Poland, but in (of all places) Boston, Mass.

In America, anything's possible:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Oh, ok! Thanks for that.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Good example. Krakow and, I think, Warsaw as well. Check me on that one, I've no stats off the top of my head:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Well, not entirely accurate, but yes, Poland did suffer physical damage, yet nowhere near the extent of cities like Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Munich or Guernica in Spain.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

I never contended that the "threat" (my word here, not yours) was in any way equal. What I said was that the manner with which it was handled varied considerably from country to country.

Hungary, for instance, had the infamous "Arrow Crossers", local bush league Nazi sympathizers and emulators who organized squads to murder the Jews of Budapest by throwing them into the Danube, shooting them first, then dumping their bloody corpses into the waters.

Denmark, by contrast, organized local citizenry EN MASSE to fight against, rather than overtly cooperate with, Hitler. Recall Kaj Munk's moving (and final) Sunday morning sermon, which he never finished, and began (paraphrasing from the original) "My fellow countrymen, it is high time we rose from the comfortable complacency of our pews this Sunday morning, returned to our homes and seized arms to fight against the common enemy!"

According to reports from the time, NOBODY lingered for a moment, and the church stalls were EMPTY within minutes as the populace, both young and old, left the building to act as their pastor had instructed.

Multiply thousands of Sochas Pileckis etc. by nearly every second Dane:-) Do the math, fella, the arithmetic's staggering!

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

All populations were threatened by the Nazis. It was a question of how they dealt with the threat.

Even in "halcyon" times in Poland, according to Roman Visniac along with other older contemporaries, often in the smaller villages, a well-aimed rock through the window around Christmas, followed by "DIRTY JEWS!" wasn't far behind.

Then again, Jews DID often react to such by spitting on select religious icons in a local church, I won't say they didn't. The latter though, WAS to an extent understandable revenge for being attacked in the first place.

Jews aren't "saints" either, smart guy!

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Nonetheless, Poles most certainly did acquiesce to some degree, at least to the anti-Semitic decrees of their German overlords!!
The Nazis were evil, yet hardly fools. They counted on the intrinsic anti-Jewish hostility throughout much of Central and Eastern Europe, hoping that the local populace would join them in their racially-driven purges.

The fact that the Poles, certain Hungarians, Ukrainians, Norwegians etc. even resisted as much as they did, took the Germans by complete surprise.

Travel / Why do you visit Poland? [223]

No, jon, I've not as yet had the privilege of visiting much of Poland! Gdansk aka Danzig is a city I've always wanted to visit. Once knew a young lady attending the Polytechnika in that city and found the architecture from what I've only seen heretofore in photographs enchanting:-)

Travel / Why do you visit Poland? [223]

I'm an American who enjoys many of the beauties of America. I also recognize that many places, such as Stone Mt. State Park in Georgia, for instance, were places for KKK rallies, well up until the '80s!

Poland has places of great natural wonder as well, Tatry, for instance, Zakopane, along with picturesque resort villages along the Baltic etc.. I enjoyed being able to visit Szczecin and have a lovely meal in a first-class Old World-style restaurant in the lovely Stare Miasto, talk to locals in their own language and experience the country which gave us Chopin, Mme. Curie, Paderewski, along with a host of other luminaries.

Please though try to understand that NO country is any one thing. France is long the most popular tourist stop in the world, yet along with the wonders of Versailles, Paris, and so forth, there was Drancy, not something of which any Frenchman is consciously proud.

Germany, the best example after Poland, or Austria, are unparalelled throughout Europe in this traveler's experience for their scenic splendour and preserved elegance. And yet, next to the Oktoberfest Capital of the World, lies Dachau, a source of bruising shame to all but the most monstrous.

Poland, in the end, was no worse, yet surely no better, than any other European country during WWII.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

How is it then, that the Nazis tried to erect similar such sites in, among other places, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Scandinavia and France, yet failed in large measure to the extent of Austria, Germany, and Poland?? The Nazis had their greatest "success" in places such as Poland, Ukraine, above all, Latvia and Lithuania, traditionally seats of Jewish diasporic learning, today, graveyards for Jewish life. Why? Care to explain? Sheer coincidence, perhaps?

All it took for the Nazis to seize control of a given territory of interest, was for the local populace en masse to support them!!

Just remember the words of John Steinbeck: "My greatest fear would be to be condemned to be an anti-semitic dictator in Ireland, for fear of being laughed to death!"

Without grassroots support, albeit not nationwide, Auschwitz would never have become what it became and Oswiecim would merely have remained another sleepy Polish small town.

Anti-semitism etc. doesn't operate in a vacuum, spiritus. It's a disease which needs feeding as surely as you and I need water to drink, food to eat and air to breathe!!

Travel / Why do you visit Poland? [223]

Yep, there's plenty of that. As far as the cheap vacations and beautiful girls, hate to break it to you, but surely Poland holds not monopoly there.

Try Slovenia, Czech Republic, the Dalmatian Coast, or Bulgaria for that matter:-)

Work / Business ideas for Poland [63]

Poland can certainly use all the "progressive": business ideas she can possibly get! The IT sector though's pretty much glutted by this time though.

I wish you success:-)

News / Mister President Andrzej Duda - Best Poland could get. [96]

He's a bad lot all right. Plus, he seems unsure of his own previously stated positions, for example backpeddling on that judicial independence issue. Appears he caved, didn't he?

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1049]

Hardly surprising, as it's their native tongue:-) However, Mr. Troll-in-Residence, I know plenty of US kids who speak English much better than youLOL

News / Mister President Andrzej Duda - Best Poland could get. [96]

Either "Mr. President" or "President Duda". In English, "Mr. President Duda" would be superfluous:-)
Just thought I'd let you know.

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1049]

"...You bring light unto my soul,
I shall forever love you."

I realize I clearly took a few 'poetic liberties' here, but then, for the sake of register, I made a judgement call, folks!
:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Indeed.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Thus far, you've been accusing nearly everybody of "BS pop culture". Sure you aren't projecting a little?
:-)

Genealogy / Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light [511]

You're trolling again, Ironside.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Missed a thread recently apropos, by indeed a true hero of the entire Shoah in Poland at any rate, was Janusz Korczak! Giving up one's own life in order that children not even related to him, but in his care, should not feel alone in their hour of direst need, is perhaps the highest level of humanity we know.

Genealogy / Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light [511]

"Smooth generalizations might work......"

So what d'you want me to do, Ironside, learn to stutter?
:-)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

Yes, exactly rozumiemnic!

I should have written "way station", not really an internment camp, you're absolutely right:-) Even today, many French (Marine Le Pen, for one) refuse to admit France's clear complicity during the War.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]

France though was scarcely a picknick either, Dirk! Don't forget that while admittedly there was no exact equivalent of Auschwitz or the German Gestapo to speak of, and the majority of French were dyed-in-the-wool anti-Nazi, she did nonetheless have Drancy, an internement camp to the South of France, the Vichy regime played on the centuries-old anti-Semitism of the peasant classes, and the local police often turned in Jews to the Germans.

If you recall a most poignant film, made around 1980 or so by Louis Malle, "Au Revoir Les Enfants", the two Jewish boys were turned in to the Gestapo by traitors, eager to score browny points with the police.

On the other hand, as noted before, France had perhaps the most visible resistance movement in Europe (don't let's not forget Jean Moulin), second only to Denmark and possibly Norway ("The Heroes of Telemark"):-)

France also has had a tradition of anti-Jewish hostility, from the snide writings of Voltaire (oddly enough, an otherwise most enlightened man) up through Edouard Drumont just prior to the Dreyfus Affair, followed by faschist types such as Pierre Laval and others.

No, France, like Sweden and a few others, was NO haven per se during WWII. Merely, their PR was ten-times or so more successful than that of Germany, Poland, even Austria and Switzerland.

Genealogy / Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light [511]

Right! It simply means that Poland was no more, nor less immune to the influences of non-Polish peoples traveling through the country than anywhere else on the continent of Europe; Poland is ethnically no "purer", even if more homogeneous that many other countries:-)