News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]

Looks as though Poland's Ruch Narodowy is going to see if this anti defamation law means a damn.

timesofisrael.com/polish-nationalists-seek-probe-of-rivlin-over-holocaust-remarks

They have called for an investigation in to whether the Israeli president said Poland was also responsible for the Holocaust while on Polish soil, as the Israeli media have reported.

Work / A predictable "Is my salary high enough post" - Krakow 13,500PLN GROSS Month [30]

Well I won't comment on if a Polish national would be being paid twice as much, because I don't know, but these questions about whether it is possible to live off x amount in Poland are hilarious.

8,300 per month and no rent to pay? Of course you can live off that in Krakow. The average wage in Poland is about 3,000 PLN per month as far as I know, and people on that wage have to live in Krakow too, and pay house costs, so yes, you are earning more than enough to be able to live a comfortable lifestyle.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]

The planting of those 'this is a Polish concentration camp' signs was terrible, but isn't as a big of a deal, as you will always find a few idiots among thousands who want to cause a problem or be controversial. Although interestingly I hadn't see it covered by any Polish or Israeli media - I only found out about this on twitter [as I imagine you did delph]. Has anyone here read about these signs in the media?

What is troubling is that the president of Israel said what he said. It's just like with the initial outrage. The fact that the Israeli media went for Poland was one thing, but prime minister Netanyahu criticising Poland raised it up a notch from Poland vs Israeli media to Poland vs Israel.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]

Not meaning to kickstart this thread again but as relations between Poland and Israel had cooled off a little in recent weeks, or at least, people had moved on to other issues, the Israeli President seemingly ignited the fire again with the following statements a few days ago in Poland.

"There is no doubt that there were many Poles who fought the Nazi regime, but we cannot deny that Poland and Poles had a hand in the extermination." [This statement breaks the Polish law if it was said].

He is also reported to have said "The country of Poland allowed the implementation of the horrific genocidal ideology of Hitler."

timesofisrael.com/poland-and-poles-helped-in-nazi-extermination-rivlin-tells-polish-counterpart

Neither of these comments have been seen on video but were apparently stated in a private meeting between the Polish and Israeli president, even though the Times of Israel claims it was said during a press conference [I watched the press conference and it wasn't said there].

Interestingly, President Duda said these words were never said by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, although the Israeli President has not denied saying them, despite it being all over the Israeli media now, and his spokesman confirmed when asked, that the statements quoted in the press are correct and were said.

During the March of the Living the Israeli President said that Poland was fertile ground for the Nazi Germans to exterminate Jews, because of all the antisemitism. This speech was broadcast live and can be watched on youtube I believe.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]


I don't think he's baiting, I think he is just biased.

I of course agree that there are many good Jewish people - it would be absurd to tar an ethnicity/religion with a broad brush. Sadly many others give them a bad name.


Not that I know of, but if somebody here does know of one and can point us to such a book, I for one would be very interested.

There have of course been books talking about exploitation of the Holocaust [Norman Finkelstein's 'The Holocaust Industry' is probably the most known and got him banned from Israel]. There is also a book called 'The transfer agreement' detailing a pre-war pact between Zionists and the Third Reich to transfer thousands of Jews to Palestine in exchange for putting a stop to the worldwide Jewish-led boycott on German products.

There certainly aren't many of these types of books though and I don't know of any detailing Karski's report and how it was ignored by Jewish organisations, although it has been spoken about by many commentators in Poland, even on TVP recently [after Israel's overreaction to the law]. It wouldn't surprise me if a book was written about it soon and/or a documentary made.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]


Lyzko has got a definite bias against Poland and it appears to be linked to his dislike of the Catholic Church, that he accuses over and over again of pushing antisemitism. As Poland is [and was during the war] majority Catholic, he believes Polish people in general were antisemities because the church was antisemitic [according to him].

Of course the proof of widespread antisemitism in the Catholic Church is nowhere to be seen, unless he wants to point us to a few more convenient books by authors who claim it was there. The Catholic Church might have mentioned that Jews wanted Christ to be killed, as in Christianity [not just Catholicism], this is believed to be factually true. I wouldn't call that antisemitism though, just what the church believes to be fact. If anyone goes to church now [as I do], they can tell you that when talking about Jesus being crucified, the general emphasis is on how 'we' [people collectively] are responsible for this horrific act, rather than blame constantly being put on Jews specifically.

Also, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but once again Lyzko is concentrating on the evils of others. 'Oh but there was a lot of antisemitism in Poland. Oh but the Catholic Church didn't lift a finger when this was happening.' Does he say anything about the USA and the powerful American Jewish organisations that were told about what was going on and didn't care? Nope, let's concentrate on the non-Jews.

If I were Jewish, I would be very upset at the non-Jews who took part in the Holocaust and those who turned the other way and ignored it. I would however be absolutely distraught to hear about Jews who turned on their fellow man and helped the Nazis, and the Jewish organisations who could have helped but didn't do anything. That would upset me much more. I would think 'non-Jews did terrible things to us but it was to be expected, there was much antisemitism around, but for our own people to turn on us and ignore us during this time, that's unforgivable.'

Interestingly Lyzko [and many Jews] doesn't take this approach. He prefers to concentrate on the terrible crimes of non-Jews, while excusing Jews for anything bad they might have done, trying to explain it or make it out as if they had no choice. It's an interesting mentality.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]


I for one I am completely okay with you saying that, but what bothers me is that while you make that [true] statement, you are not willing to make the same [true] statement about Jews who collaborated. For some reason you seem so focused on the Polish collaborators. Is there any particular reason for this?

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]

Looks like Daniels can't stay out of Poland. He briefly went a little quiet on the Polish front and I quietly hoped he would take his claws out of Poland, but he was recently invited to wPolsce [again], an internet news show by the Karnowski brothers and has been tweeting about Poland more and more.

It's a shame, I like the Karnowski brothers. I don't know why they feel the need to push this guy in to people's faces. I assume, since they're very pro-PiS, if PiS welcome him, they feel they should be promoting him too.

Interesting thing to consider. Tyrmand and Daniels are supposed to be very good friends, yet Tyrmand doesn't like the Karnowski brothers one bit and has even been blocked by their magazine Sieci on twitter for constantly criticising them.

Daniels on the other hand, did an interview with Sieci not so long ago and appears on their internet TV news show wPolsce from time to time. Wonder how this makes Tyrmand feel?

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]


By 'level the playing field' you mean have Poland share the responsibility of the Holocaust with the Germans, but not discuss any of the Jews who committed atrocities against their own people, right?

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]

Nope it isn't fair. I'm a great believer in remembering, honouring and learning from horrific events of the past, but not in eternally playing the victims, particularly if those who are playing them aren't the actual victims. I'm also against blaming people of the same nationality, colour, religion etc. of those who do or once did something terrible, hence I don't believe modern day Germans have anything to feel guilty about.

I don't think Poland is nation that constantly plays the victim or points the finger at Germany for what they did in the war, but recently some have tried to unfairly blame them for the Holocaust, so they had to fight back. As for the reparations stuff, again, it hasn't been brought up for a long time and probably still wouldn't have been, had the [German led] EU not constantly been hounding Poland and interfering in their rule of law. Mentioning reparations from the Second World War was Poland's way of saying, 'okay, you wanna play hard ball, here's an invoice for all the damages you caused all those decades ago.'

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

You can't, because it is yet another statement Jon pulled out of his behind, with no evidence to back it up.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

Have you been living under a rock Jon?

Nobody is stopping these women from protesting. On the other hand, try inviting a right win lecturer to a university.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

Funny how liberalism, freedom of expression and all that is now much more tolerated by the right than the left, who try to shut down any thoughts they disagree with.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

On this particular point I disagree with Ironside. I don't think communists and socialists and progressives are the same thing. They are all to the left for sure and have similar ideologies in many areas but aren't exactly the same.

For example, there are actively communist countries right now that don't support gay rights, so they couldn't be called 'progressive.' Also, many socialists are against communism, but for a socialist style society. It's complicated.

It's the same with the right, there are many strands who agree on many things, such as their dislike of the left for example, but don't agree in other areas. For instance, some people who are on the right in Poland are very pro-American and pro PiS, while others aren't, but yet they both of them see themselves as right wing.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

Jon, you're an idiot. I've tried to avoid that label for as long as I could, but you make it impossible to avoid it anymore. You're literally the definition of an idiot.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


Oh you'd be surprised.


I was thinking the same about you

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


I hear this type of argument made a lot and don't agree with it. The answer to dealing with bad things can't just be 'well if it's illegal it will be worse, so we should legalise it.' They've used the same logic for drugs, prostitution and other things.

I'm against abortions of sick children. I believe they have a right to life. Women do have a choice, they have a choice not to get pregnant. Once they do though, unless that pregnancy was caused by rape or their is a risk of them dying giving labour, they need to have the child. Nobody is forcing them to get pregnant and nobody is forcing them to take care of the child once it is born, if they don't believe they are able to. It's all about saving the life of the unborn baby, that's all.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


I take your point delph. In this case I would be more for pressuring the state to offer the families more support, than aborting these babies.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


I think it's looked at from a moral standpoint. One of the key arguments that has been brought up recently, is that babies with downs syndrome often get aborted and it's currently legal to do in Poland. The majority of people with downs syndrome are capable of living an independent life and statistics show that 90% of them are happy [higher on average than people born with no illness, more of whom tend to be unhappy]. So the question is, why should it be legal to abort them, when it isn't legal to abort babies who will be born healthy, particularly since they can live their lives normally and are happy? Also, if we can abort babies who are born with an illness, perhaps we should also have the right to perform euthanasia on elderly people, who often pick up illnesses in old age? I know this is legal in some countries, but in Poland it is considered morally reprehensible, as life is sacred.

At first I was also quite against the idea of tightening an already strict abortion law, but after hearing their points, I can see what they are getting at.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


Typical Jon, making stuff up again. What else can he do I suppose? He must be bored out of his mind.

I didn't insinuate that thousands of women were paid to attend. I was questioning where you got your information that none of them were paid.


Have you read social media posts by writers and 'journalists on the internet [you know, people who can write well]? Many of their posts have grammatical errors, spelling mistakes etc. You know why? Because they are written in a hurry and they don't care all that much about the grammar - they just want to make their point there and then. It's the same with me and a lot of people. Perfected grammar on an internet forum isn't exactly top of the priority list. Some of us don't have the kind of time on our hands as you do, to read over what we've written multiple times and make sure everything is grammatically tip top, while sipping on whatever the choice of alcoholic beverage is for the day. Keep drinking and posting Jon - your posts are providing us with a lot of laughs.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


I suppose you've looked in to my education background have you? Stick to the drink mate and try to interact with people as little as possible, to avoid embarrassing yourself.

Your arguments are arguments losers make, when they see they are losing. You don't like being challenged so you start to attack your opponent personally, despite knowing nothing about them.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


Ha! Keep trying.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

I highly doubt an elderly conservative lady would say that Jon, so you can stop lying. Sounds much more like something an elderly leftist would shout during a march, setting a great example to the young adolescents around her.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


Oh but the left does this a lot. I've seen it in America many times. During the women's march in the USA, not only did it turn out to be more of a march against Trump, that I suppose if pushed, you could say was in some way related to women being mistreated given the negative perception of some of the comments he has made in the past, but there were also Black Lives Matter signs and gender neutrality stuff - like you say, stuff that had nothing to do with the march. It's almost as if people just throw all the left wing ideas in to one bag, no matter what the protest is specifically about, and then bring them up. It's laughable.

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]


And you know this how Jon? Have you somehow confirmed this beyond any doubt with your own research?


Good question. Probably because it's 'ulica i zagranica.' Not only do they want to take to the streets to protest but they want the world to be able to see how 'unhappy' people are in Poland under the 'tyrannical' Catholic party currently in charge.

As I already mentioned, the majority of people appear to be happy with who is in charge, hence why every poll that comes out shows PiS support 3 times as high as the closest opposition. But obviously the false message to foreign media and observers is 'Polish people are miserable, please help us, please find some way to impeach this tyrannical government.'

News / Thousands of Polish women attend Czarny Piątek rally in Warsaw [780]

Isn't it funny how when an event like this happens, people like to claim 'this shows that Polish women blah blah blah?' No it doesn't - it show that the Polish women who turned up have these views.

There are also many women who didn't show up, because they don't agree with the woman who did show up and have no problem with restricting abortion laws further.

Why do some people find it so hard to accept that people have different views in society? Some people think one thing, others think a different thing, hence democracy is the only real way to solve it. Stop trying to turn every protest in to a 'sign' that Polish people are against this, or fed up of that.

KOD protests were also covered all the time as 'this shows the Polish nation has had enough of the PiS dictatorial government.' It didn't show anything of the sort and opinion polls show this, with PiS always being way ahead of their opponents.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]

I don't think PiS give that much of a damn about international embarrassment or ridicule Jon. They've been attacked by most mainstream foreign media pretty much since they won the elections and they are plowing on with their elections promises.

I think they just don't want to cause too much friction with the USA and Israel [particularly the USA] but also know they cant repeal the law, otherwise people in Poland would turn on them.

If the Constitutional Tribunal points out some flaws in the law and PiS changes it, they think it won't look as bad as changing it because Israel and the USA told them too. I'm not sure people in Poland will buy it though.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]


I think that people will see through it. I am sure that they were already suspicious of Duda passing it on to the Constitutional Tribunal after he signed it, something we wouldn't have done if Israel and the USA had not kicked up such a fuss. Any changes the tribunal makes will be looked at as appeasing those two countries, although if it is just the one change, that the tribunal has raised concerns over so far, it might not get quite the uproar as it would have it say, the tribunal said the entire law was unconstitutional, something the lying Israeli media has already stated in some of its headlines to confuse people.

Either way PiS are definitely doing what they can do appease both sides.


I thought the change was that the law wouldn't apply abroad? Foreigners who come to Poland and break this law, would still be punished I assume.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1538]


This can't be done for one very simple reason, explained already. It would lose PiS a lot of support if they give in to Israeli and US pressure.