History / Polish military in 1939 in pictures. [107]


What by a Polish Nazi-fascist ? Not me. He is more of insulting to his country and the millions of Poles who were victims of his fascist heroes and is by being a Polish fascist more anti-Polish than even me ;-))

Sokrates: Still waiting for your link to where I declared Poles ran concentration camps in Poland during WWII?

Again here is your opportunity to prove me the liar - show me the link?

History / Polish military in 1939 in pictures. [107]


Still waiting for your link to where I declared Poles ran concentration camps in Poland during WWII? Are you still having trouble finding such a statement from me, could it be that you know it doesn't exist?

And you say i am the liar—here is your opportunity to prove it—show me the link?

Your silence on this is deafening but not at all surprising. LOL.

History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]


I did, a friend of mine is writing a book about the German immigration into USA, in particular the origins of the German farming community in Texas.

History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]


Also a large number of Germans emmigrated during this time to Texas. Mainly land-less tenant farmers who responded to adverts posted by Texas offering large tracts of free farm-land to German farmers as they knew them to be industrious and skilled farm workers just the sort that Texas needed to help with nation-building. Maybe other parts of US were encouraging ethnic Poles for similar reasons at the time? Texas still has a thriving German-American population

History / Polish military in 1939 in pictures. [107]


Source:
First to Fight: Poland's Contribution to the Allied Victory in WWII
Publisher: Polish Underground Movement (1939-45) Study Trust, London, England.
1 September 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0955782442

History / Polish military in 1939 in pictures. [107]

IMO the best site on the Polish defensive war September 1939.

Kampania Wrzesniowa Polska 1939

News / Do Poles in Poland really feel betrayed because there won't be any US Shield? [288]

You don't have to be a neo-facist or neo-nazi to be a patriot but neo-facists and neo-nazis believe you do in order to be considered a true patriot :-)

History / Communism fell 20 years ago, Poland led the fight since WW2 [339]


Did any Polish troops mutiny against the regime at this time or did they all just follow orders supporting General Jaruzelski and martial law?

History / Communism fell 20 years ago, Poland led the fight since WW2 [339]


I asked because if the the Polish secret Police and Polish army (and other organisations of repression in communist Poland) were predominantly, or soley, Polish manned rather than Soviet manned then could this period considered a "civil war" as SeanBM has also just mentioned?

I am newly interested in the relationship of the events of the 1980's "civil war", if it can be described as such, and the "civil war" in Poland as discussed in Anita Prazmowska's impressively researched and reasoned book; Civil War in Poland, 1942-1948 (ISBN-13: 978-0333982129. Palgrave Macmillan—2004) which I have just finished reading.

History / Communism fell 20 years ago, Poland led the fight since WW2 [339]

Was anyone ever tired or prosecuted for the massacre in Wujek mine?


Did these repressive organisations, especially the the army and secret police of the time, consist of Poles or Soviets?

Genealogy / Does anyone have any relatives who served with 1st Polish Armoured Division (Gen. Maczek) [311]


The MoD will only release service records to a next of kin. So you will need a) proof of grandfather's death (death certificate) and b) that you are his direct next of kin.

The MoD will send you a "Certificate of Kinship" form which you have to complete and send along with the documentary proof you are your grandfather's next of kin. If your grandmother is alive for instance, the law is that MoD would only release this information to her and not you. There is a fee of £25.00 also.

You can download the "Certificate of Kinship form from here:
veterans-uk.info/pdfs/service_records/raf_kinship.pdf

Contact address for Polish service records (don't worry that it has RAF in the address; all Polish service records are archived here) at MoD:

APC Polish Enquiries,
Building 28B,
RAF Northolt,
West End Road,
Ruislip,
HA4 6NG,
Tel: 0208 833 8603
Fax: 0208 833 8866

e-mail: polishastdisoff@northolt.raf.mod.uk or polishdisoff@northolt.raf.mod.uk

The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London:
The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, 20 Princes Gate, London SW7 1PT, Great Britain.
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7589 9249

The Sikorski holds all the unit records of the Polish Forces of the West including the listings of service men and women, but you would need to know what unit your grandfather served with as these records are all paper documents not a searchable database. They don't have email so you need to write or phone. The head of the archives at the Sikorski is Mr Andrzej Suchcitz. As the insitute is manned by volunteers (mainly Polish forces veterans) replies can take some time but they will reply.

Genealogy / Is there a list of names of who was in Poland's Anders army? [34]


If they enlisted from USSR then you could try:

The KARTA Center database search link below:

indeks.karta.org.pl/wyszukiwanie.asp

If you know which unit of Anders Army then try contacting the Sikorski Institute in London as they hold all of the Polish Army archives for military units and these often contain the names of serving soldiers within each regiment or unit. The Sikorski Inst. doesn't have email so its pen to paper. As the institute is staffed by voluteers (mainly Polish veterans) then it takes a while to get an answer.

Good luck with your research ;-))

History / Polish-German alliance. [489]

Airlift to Warsaw: The Rising of 1944: Neil D. Orpen: is an excellent book written by a South African pilot in the RAF who took part in the flights to Warsaw (along with British and Polish pilots) and that describes in detail the RAF flights to Warsaw. It was never going to be enough to change the outcome of the Rising given the challenges of flying thousands of miles over German lines from Italy without substantial Soviet support—which was never forthcoming.

History / Polish-German alliance. [489]


And yet on august 3rd 1944 when General Stanisław Kopański sent General Anders a telegram to ask that a parachute unit be dispatched to emabattled Warsaw he repiled that he thought the decision of the Commander in Chief of the Underground Army to launch an uprising to be a complete disaster. (source IPMS. KGA 46/IV, telegram dated 03.August.1944)

On 9th of August General Anders sent a coded message to Gen. Sosnkowski, and in sharp terms criticised Warsaw's decision to launch the uprising. (source IPMS. KGA 46/IV; M.Zarzycki—Karta no.42 dated 2004 page 140).

Anderes also pointed out in radiogram No. 2081 dated 09/August/1944 "...the troops do not understand the aim of the Uprising in Warsaw... We consider the launching of the uprising to be a serious offence and we ask —who bears responsibilty for this?"

Gen. Sosnkowski had also earlier sent clear instructions to the Commander in Chief of the Underground Army in Warsaw forbidding a Rising, but this order was ignored in Warsaw.

So even Polish policy towards the uprising was not entirely as clear cut as sometimes presented. Maybe this should be another thread?

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


They also have Polanski's Oscar winning 'The Pianist' which shows equally the Jewish Police actions in the Ghetto (but also one that helped Szpilman escape the Umschlagplatz) and the Poles help to Szpilman contrasted by the Pole who stole money from others that were trying to help Szpilman, it also portrayed German oficer who could have shot Szpilman but did not and chose to help him. It also shows the Polish blackmailers.

So you might think US and Israel has just a 'Schindler view' but this is just your generalistion and opinion but doesn't mean it is applicable in reality.



Sorry, but if that is your position then in fairness one could equally state that you have been using the facts of Jewish Police, or the 13's et alii to smear the Polish Jews.


You say it is fair now despite having previoulsy called me anti-Polish for stating what you now say is fair enough? So I will accept your agreement that I was being fair all along ;-))

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


Feel free as I don't have any issues regarding possible abandonment by my parents. They could easily have placed me in boarding school without asking my opinion, and this would have been the easier option, because my father who was deported to Germany as a young teenager missed out on his education so he was concerned that travelling around with frequent disruptions to his children's education would have put us at a disadvantage in later life, as it had been for him. But as it turned out he need not have worried as I was given the very best education at numerous Embassy schools and had also a great time enjoying the world.


BTW. I don't consider pointing out instances of Polish antisemitism or collaboration with the Nazis as smearing Poland; these are facts not smears. Just as some Polish Jews collaborated with the Nazis is also fact. I recognise both as part of Polish history whereas you do not.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


Actually, my late father, a Pole, was busy killing communist insurgents in numerous covert British military operations during these world tours—and he was very good at this job ;-))) And he certainly had some pretty wild experiences.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


Well actually yes! At aged seven I was given the choice to go to an English boarding school or travel the world with them. I chose to travel and it proved the best choice as I spent these most enjoyable years in East Africa, North Africa and the Middle East.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


From someone that proved such a lousy citzen of their own country—by abandonning it for the 'free' west thus leaving Poland to its fate—now that is pretty funny :-)))

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


Maybe 1jola is a hapless victim of Jewish propaganda that only Jews died there or maybe was just an antisemitc retort???

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Reuters: March 1, 2009

Poland formally asked the European Union for help in maintaining the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote a letter to leaders of fellow E.U. member states asking for the creation of a special fund to help carry out much-needed repair and restoration at the camp, Polish media said.

"Saving Auschwitz-Birkenau means saving the memory of millions who suffered and were bestially murdered," Reuters reported Tusk as saying. "It is the responsibility and duty of entire Europe."

The letter was dated Feb. 10 but not made public until now, according to Reuters.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Mulit-national entities pay local taxes. So in your example if the corporate taxes from selling Coke in Saudi Arabia are used in part by the Saudi Regime to support extremist Islam then I would say yes selling Coke in Saudi Arabia is funding extremism. Just as selling Coke to the Nazis was supporting the Nazis through corporate taxation did as did IBM's selling of data entry systems support it through export sales of goods.

If selling products did not support terrorism then why does/did the US of recent years have an embargo on certain products that cannot be exported to some countries if these countries are deemed to have links with terrorism etc?

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Can't really argue with who ever wrote that and it sort of illustrates the point I was trying to make.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Harry this is exactly why I personally believe there should be some distiction made between the terminology used to describe both of these types of Nazi camps and the post-war Polish internment/concentration camps-what ever they might be called.

For example; the principles involved in setting up the Warsaw Rising Museum did some research which clearly showed that the majority of those outside of Poland when asked about the Warsaw Urprising overwhelmingly linked these keywords with the Jewish Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and not the Warsaw Uprising 1944, in fact many had not even heard about the 1944 uprising! So they made the decision to differentiate the two uprisings (over a period of time) by refering to the 1944 Uprising as the 'Warsaw Rising' so there would be a distinct difference in public perception.... and no it wasn't because Norman Davies used it in his book title in case anyone asks:-)

I am not saying you should accept my interpretation nor do I see what you are saying as anti-polish and if you want to call them post-war Polish concentration camps this is fine by me as I understand what your are saying; but arriving at terms of reference that are easliy understood by all is always difficult.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


Actually not, if you want to help people understand the difference between Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps and those Post-war Polish internment/concentration camps.

For example I believe Treblinka and Sobibor were purely extermination camps whereas Auschwitz was both an exterminantion camp and a concentration camp; for the majority of Jews it was an extermination camp, whereas for the majority of non-Jews is was a concentration camp ie; Polish political prisoners like Pilecki and my Warsaw lawyer's grandfather and my own grandmother at Ravensbruck; were not automatically faced with selection for death or work unlike the Jews arriving at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

That is my view only.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


King of comedy!


Well Sokrates if you see medics at the Police station holding a big syringe ... look out as they'll have come for you :-))

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


Yes he was. But I was only asking specifically if that using the term "polish concentration camps" is highly illegal as Sokrates has been claiming.

Well that point is cleared up—Sokrates statement is ficticious.

Re-post WWII Polish camps: I am with you as far as the 'run by Poles, Poles, guarded by Poles, managed by Poles and existed at the order of a Polish government (which is made up of Poles)', but I personally would use term Polish internment camps rather than concentration camps as most people equate concentration camps=extermination camps that were part of the Nazi Holocaust. Whereas post-war Polish internment camps/concentration camps, were not, in my opinion entirely same as these Nazi camps. I agree with the point you are trying to make but not the term itself. Also can't argue against the facts that the concentration camps were used prior to the Holocaust and afterwards.


Now you move sideways once more ...

You stated specifically it was 'highly illegal to use the term Polish Cocentration Camps' —which is proved a fiction and I value our lawyers opinion any day of the week rather than your fictions.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


You have said this a couple of times so I decided to ask our company lawyers at Hogan & Hartson in Warsaw for some clarification:

"Is use the term 'Polish concentration camps' illegal in Poland? I have never heard this before and wondered if you might know if there a law that bans the use of 'Polish concentration Camps'?"

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


You asked this pumkin, warm milk drinking, silly man for that source about a polish boy who joined the Polish Jews smuggling food into the ghetto without asking for gold in return and I gave it. Seems my reply was deleted by mods. So here it is again.

Janek : a gentile in the Warsaw Ghetto / Jan Kostanski Melbourne : Jan Kostanski, 1998.

You also said no memoirs have anything to say about the Polish Blueys corruption and brutallity against the Jews in Warsaw ghetto. I gave you just one which also seems to be deleted by mods (?) so here it is again:

WHY, OH GOD, WHY? HALINA GORCEWICZ
references to Polish 'Blueys' can be found throught the book:
page 70:


page 160


Also:


Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 by GS Paulson page 145.
Poulson states that the Polish state police force in Warsaw was increased by 400 new volunteer recruits in April 1942 making 12% of the force.

The Blue Police and Blackmail.
It was not collaborating with the Germans that the Blue police posed the greatest threat to the Jews, however, but rather their freelance activities... Policemen that had once supplemented their incomes with bribes taken from food-smugglers now found a lucrative substitute in extorting money form Jews in hiding. Such instances are found frequently in memoirs.

page 145.


Ringelbulm: Relations
page 133-4
The Polish Blue Police, commonly called the Blue or uniformed police in order to avoid using the term 'Polish' has played the most lamentable role in the extermination of the Jews of Poland. The uniformed police has been the enthusiastic executor of all the German directives regarding the Jews. The powers of the uniformed police in the sphere of collaborating with the Germans concerning the Jews were as follows: (1) guarding the exit gates of the ghetto as well as the walls and fences enclosing the Ghettos or Jewish districts; (2) participating in the "resettlement actions" in the capacity of catchers, escorts; etc; (3) participating in the tracking down of Jews after "resettlement actions"; (4) shooting Jews sentenced to death by the Germans.

However like all groups there were good as well as bad. I have never denied that there were good 'Blueys' as there were Jewish Police but you have consistently tried to make out there were none as bad as the Jewish Police... which clearly is not true. You have consistently said there we NO 'Bluey' volunteers which is also economical with the truth!


Afraid not JohnP. USA was still selling Coke-Cola to the Hitler youth (and even advertised in Hitler Youth magazines) until America deaclared was on Germany in 1941 following Pear Harbor. IBM punch-card data collection machines were used by Eichman to record personal details of Jews during the Holocuast.

NYTimes Friday, February 20, 2009


query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6D6153CF936A2575BC0A965958260

But you are right pre-war most large multinational companies (from US, UK, France, Holland etc, ) had sales operations or German operating divisions that indirectly or directly funded the Nazi state and its concentration camps in 1930's Germany.

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]


The food smugglers were mainly Jewish children from the ghetto itself not Poles. Though there is one excellent memoir of a non-jewish boy joining the Jewish boys smuggling food from on the 'Aryan' side into the ghetto, but he was not taking gold or other payments for his smuggling. Title escapes me.