The BEST Guide to POLAND
Unanswered  |  Archives [3] 
  
Account: Guest

Posts by sjam  

Joined: 13 Jan 2009 / Male ♂
Last Post: 20 Oct 2009
Threads: Total: 2 / Live: 0 / Archived: 2
Posts: Total: 541 / Live: 51 / Archived: 490

Interests: Publisher

Displayed posts: 51 / page 2 of 2
sort: Latest first   Oldest first   |
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

I am sure they did, even though Kossak- Szczucka was ani- semitic - that is very Christian;)

Miranda your point was that:

don't mix religion with it. She was a good person because she was a good person, not because she was a Christian.

and my reply showed quite clearly that religious belief did play a part in her actions for good. So mixing religion with it was not mixing but a fact borne out in action.

And yet despite being an openly antisemite Kossak- Szczucka did not believe that Polish Jews should be treated as less than human. I see no conflict with this view and she was not trying to murder them or extort money from them in fact she did the opposite. So what does that tell you!

What was the penalty for smuggling? What was the penalty for aiding Jews?

German threats of execution didn't seem to stop women like Irena Sendlerowa or Zofia Kossak-Szczucka saving several thousand Polish Jews from death. They were not they only ones. Just read He Who Saves One Life by Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki and you will see not every Pole was out to extort from the Polish Jews no matter what the very real German threats were for doing so.
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

How much gold Irena Sendlerowa demanded to help the hundereds of Polish Jews she saved.... none!

That there were Jewish collaborators is not a secret if it was then you would not have been able to copy and paste references to it. It is not secret either that Poles also collaborated and exploited Jews either. I personally have acknowledged both throughout this thread. The fact that Jewish memoirs mention Jewish collabortaion often must tell you that even Jews recognise the wrongs committed by some Jews!

It seems you cannot acknowledge the fact that Poles were also as much involved in the self-serving exploitation of the ghetto Jews, as the Jewish Police, the 13's et al.

To a moral person there is a difference between extorting over-inflated price from a starving person in exchange for food to save that life than a fair trade. If such a trade could ever be fair. There is no doubting the fact that prices were extortionate because the Polish Jews had no choice to pay that price or starve to death and this fact was ruthlessly exploited by both Polish 'Blueys' on the ghetto gates, the Jewish Police, the German guards, plus 13's etc., And who was risking their lives doing the smuggling?

Of course you could say that since the ghetto Jews were going have to pay any price it might as well be to me... its going to happen anyway and of course they can't eat gold or their fur-coats, artworks or jewellery, boots, silks, and everything else they had until they starved to death.
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

don't mix religion with it. She was a good person because she was a good person, not because she was a Christian.

This is a statement of fact. Irena Sendlerowa was a Polish Christian with strong Christian beliefs and was responsible for saving Polish Jews. Read her story in her words: MATKA DZIECI HOLOCAUSTU.

She was instrumental in Zegota as was Zofia Kossak-Szczucka an active antisemite but devout Catholic who because of her Christian beliefs helped save hundreds of Polish Jews.

Kossak-Szczucka saw this largely as an issue of religious ethics. "Our feelings toward Jews have not changed," she wrote. "We do not stop thinking of them as political, economic and ideological enemies of Poland." But, she wrote, this does not relieve Polish Catholics of their duty to oppose the crimes being committed in their country.

"We are required by God to protest," she wrote. "God who forbids us to kill. We are required by our Christian consciousness. Every human being has the right to be loved by his fellow men. The blood of the defenceless cries to heaven for revange. Those who oppose our protest, are not Catholics."

So miranda it seems Christian religion and values did play a part in these women's actions after all...

... nor was it for payment in gold either!
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

I wonder how much gold Irena Sendlerowa demanded to help the hundereds of Polish Jews she saved.... none!

She must have been rich living a life of plenty then... No!

She was a simple Polish Christian, with a gracious soul.
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

You seem to want to say something, but just don't know how to do it.

Here it is again.

How many times did Nazis and their 'Bluey' collaborators (and Jewish Police. 13's et al) try and ease their consciences with that 'you can't eat gold' excuse.

No you can't eat gold and I believe you are that person that took your grandfather's gold ring in exchange for plums... because afterall without smuggling the people would have starved.

Harry/Sjam claims it was a bad thing to smuggle a scarce resource that could not be simply donated since there wasnt enough around even for Poles.

But there was obvioulsy enough food to go around to sell for gold which couldn't be eaten by those Poles who didn't have enough food to go around?

like beating up a cripple.

Telling choice of words :-)))
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

I am immoral and you are not familiar with this subject either. My grandfather gave his wedding band for a few plums during the evacuation of Warsaw. You can't eat gold, brainiac.

How many times did Nazis and their 'Bluey' collaborators (and Jewish Police. 13'set al) try and ease their consciences with that 'you can't eat gold' excuse.

No you can't eat gold and I believe you are that person that took your grandfather's gold ring in exchange for plums... because afterall without smuggling the people would have starved.

BTW:

You have seen my reference, which is a book on the subject

You just copied and pasted a reference you found to a book; not the page itself from the book which shows Franks order document. If anyone has this, which I don't, scan page 83 and post it please.
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA (born 8 June, 1955) is an English computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web.

God bless this Brit for his inventiveness and giving us all the opportunity to be together this fine sunny day! Is he a 'Jew' —I bet he is :-)
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. defines concentration camp as: a camp where non-combatants of a district are accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South African war of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners, foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during the war of 1939-45.

Similar camps existed earlier (such as the US concentration camps for Cherokee and other Native Americans in the 1830s, in Cuba (1868-78), and in the Philippines (1898-1901) by Spain under the Restoration and the US respectively[5]), the English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the 1899-1902 Second Boer War[6]. Ostensibly conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were used to confine and control large numbers of civilians as part of a scorched earth tactic.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp#Concentration_camps

No systematic brutality or torture against the Boers in these concentration camps mentioned here??

The last time concentration camps were used by the British was the forced but relatively peaceful relocation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese squatters from the edge of the Malayan jungle to "New Villages" during the "Malayan Emergency" to choke off supply and support for the Malayan Communist Party.

And why did Polish authorities spend so much time trying to extradite a Jewish Pole from the UK (Wolińska) but made no effort to try the Catholic Poles who took part in the Fieldorf 'trial' and live/lived in Poland

Or for Pilecki's state murder?

Wait on! Because Poland is still a communist state controlled by Polish Jews!
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

You are sad. Did you come up with that one all by yourself? Try this:

Do you have this book? Does page 83 reprint this Frank oder document or is it just a reference to another reference?

From the same wiki source for Polish Bule Police.

According to the German plan, the police force was to consist of approximately 12,000 officers, but the actual number of its cadre was much lower.[4][5] However, some sources put the numbers as high as 14,300.[6] The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust reports its manpower as 8,700 in February 1940 and states that it reached its peak in 1943 with 16,000 members.[7]

If the death penalty was ordered for former Polish Police failing to collaborate with the Nazis in 1939 then why do these wiki article sources state there were 8,700 "Blueys' in 1940 rising to 16,000 in 1943? Was this doubling of manpower because of executions of Polish Police during the intervening years since 1939 giving rise to greater fears amongst those who had until then not collaborated with the Nazis? If so where are these executions?

sjam:
The story of the 13's like that of the Polish Blue Police,

It isn't. 13 and Żagiew were Jewish Gestapo agents. Volunteers.

Just like those Polish Blue Police that were involved in the bribary, smuggling, corruption and murder of Polish Jews, the 13 and Żagiew Jewish Gestapo agents were all self-serving opportunists. If as you say the Polish Blue Police were there under pain of death they weren't forced to be involved the brutal exploitation of the ghetto inhabitants. They volunteered themsleves into it.

So? Without smuggling the people would have starved.

This totally moronic statement says a lot about you as a person.

... Sell me your gold watch for a slice of bread or I'll watch you starve to death....

... I'll sell you my rope to help save you from drowning!

That is probably an acceptable position for you to adopt, but not for a moral person!
sjam   
19 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Another part of the Warsaw Ghetto story:

The Jewish Order Police ((or Jewish Ghetto Police force) headquarters were located at Ogrodowa Street, which backed on to Chlodna Street. Adam Czerniakow noted in his diary on the 11 December 1941:

“In the morning at the Community. I inspected with Szerynski the new headquarters of the Order Service at Chlodna Street.” The Jewish Order Police and the Polish “Blue” Police played a key role in the smuggling carried out through the walls. The Jewish policemen found it to be a profitable business, whilst the Polish police, were also able to make a profit out of the smuggling."

The Blue Police or 'Blueys' as they were known by the Polish Jews were a Polish collaborationist police force in the German occupied area of Poland. It was created by Nazi-Germany as an auxiliary paramilitary police force in order free up German Police for othet tasks. Firstly the Polish 'Blueys' were used in criminal cases then it was later supposed to used to prevent smuggling (but in fact as Czerniakow noted they were involve in smuggling rather tha preventing it!) and they were to be used in policing the Jewish population in the ghettos. The Blue Police were also involved in round-ups and beatings as were the Jewish Ghetto Police themselves. The Blue Police were also involved in numerous killings of Jews. It is claimed that the Polish Blue Police were forced to collaborate with the Germans or face death but there is no documenatry evidence to support this claim.

It should be noted that some officers of the Polish Blue police were awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award for their help in rescuing Polish Jews.

The story of the 13's like that of the Polish Blue Police, the Jewish Ghetto Police and Polish blackmailers (known as szmalcowniki) who all exploited and brutalised Polish Jews for their own immoral and self-serving ends is an important aspect of the Nazi Holocaust.
sjam   
18 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Your wasting your time on this infinite loop of the discredited, been there before on different thread. Infinite loop of the discredited... been there before on different thread infinite loop of the discredited, been there before on different thread infinite loop of the discredited...

Must be in living in Cupertino or Milton Keynes:-)
sjam   
18 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Can you honestly say, under the same circumstances that you would not have done anything to keep your family safe, warm and fed? It's really easy to say how a person might react in a situation, but until you have walked in those shoes, you just cant.

I do have some little knowledge of how it might feel to be in this situation from my late father who was deported to Germany as forced worker in German munitions plant at Nurnberg-Feucht (MUNA-Feucht) as a 14 year old boy from Warsaw in August 1942. My grandmother a kindergarten teacher aged 43 survived KZ Ravensbruck (where she was deported to from Warsaw in April 1941) and then she was transported to KZ Sachsenhausen at some point in 1944 and then onto a sub-camp of KZ Sachsenhausen called Genthin where she was sent in October 1942, to a munitions plant where Polish women were worked to death at the rate of 500+ per month. But I have no direct experience of the life-threating fear that they must of felt and suffered at the time.

I do not blame anyone for acting in their family's best interests or for self-preservation. But it is not right to point at one group ie. Jewish police being responsible for evils against Warsaw ghetto Jews and not also include those Polish Blue police and German guards who were involved in the well published corruption and brutal exploitation of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto for personal gain rather than purely self-preservation. To me that there is a difference.
sjam   
18 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereza_Kartuska_Detention_Camp

The inspiration for the establishment of a detention centre for political prisoners at Bereza Kartuzka came from Hermann Göring's during his visit to Poland in 1934

The number of deaths in detention was kept artificially low by releasing prisoners who were in poor health.

A number of modern non-Soviet sources have also characterized the facility as a concentration camp, including Yale University professor Timothy Snyder, the Library of Congress, and the Polish Nobel prize-winning author Czesław Miłosz.

OUN members who were incarcerated at Bereza Kartuska have testified to the use there of torture. There were frequent beatings (with boards being placed against inmates' backs and struck with hammers), forced labor, constant harassment, the use of solitary confinement without provocation, punishment for inmates' use of the Ukrainian language, etc.

sjam   
18 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

Of course you should mention that polish "blue pollice" would get executed down to a man if it refused, it wasnt exactly willing.

Please. The Polish 'Blueys' weren't forced into extortion rackets; taking of bribes; beatings etc., in the ghetto and neither were the Jewish Ghetto police, nor the 13's, nor the German guards; they were all willing and eager self-serving criminal participants in the exploitation and ultimate destruction of the ghetto inhabitants.

Where is your documentary evidence that the Polish 'Blueys' were forced to police the Warsaw ghetto and take part in the corruption rackets?
sjam   
18 Feb 2009
History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [582]

They were policed by the Jewish police, who were very cruel to their fellow men. In 1942, the deportations started. The Jewish police helped the Germans to load the trains to Treblinka.

Where is the balance in that statement?
Did Polish teachers not teach you about the Polish 'Blueys'?

Polish 'Blueys' also helped Jewish ghetto police with deportations; policing the ghettos; extortion rackets; bribary and brutality against ghetto inhabitants? The 'Blueys' weren't standing there issuing parking tickets.

Fiish, if you are Jewish you might want to drop the subject unless you have a thick skin as many will deny the Jewish Holocaust happened at all.
sjam   
5 Feb 2009
History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]

Poland was savaged during WWII for no good reason and completely unfairly.

From Poland's view point it was savaged for no good reason but from the German and Soviet view there were plenty of good reasons—Living space in the East for Germany and revenge for Stalin! This was unfortunatley Poland's destiny regardless of any friendship treaties it had signed with Germany and USSR earlier and with Britain and France afterwards.

However a big mistake was that Britain persuaded the Polish government to delay mobilisation (which it did) in a vain attempt to give diplomacy one last chance.

The sensible thing to have done would have been to prevent the imposition of communism.

As Stalin had millions of communist Red Army soldiers sweeping across the soil of Poland by 1944 what sensible plan was possible to stop them and why would they want to do that? Unless you are suggesting that the western allies should have turned against Soviets at this point in 1944? What would have happened if they had: the USSR would then most likely have sat round the peace table with the Germans again so what would be the sense in creating that scenario. By 1944 Poland was a communist contolled country by virtue of Red Army already on its soil.

At the end of the war in Europe the western alies believed it still needed Stalin's mighty Red Army to help defeat the Japanese especially in Manchuria... as it turned out the atom bomb obviated the need for Stalin's support... but by then the die was cast.

Churchill was just happy to bask in his glory.

And rightly so—for all his faults he rallied a nation to the eventual victory over the German's. If pompass ass he was he also got the job done for Britain at that time; he defended Britain's interest above all else; as any nation's leader should!
sjam   
5 Feb 2009
History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]

Poland is perfect (and so are the Poles).

As a Pole I can but agree 100% with this :-)
sjam   
5 Feb 2009
History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]

Look, just stop with the facts, OK?

Troll lesson no.1 ....... Why let facts stand in the way of a good arguement ;-))))
sjam   
5 Feb 2009
History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]

It was after

My point is a simple one and one that many Poles overlook-the present boundaries of Poland were not an original idea conspired by the 'Big Three'; Sikorski, when he was alive, proposed the very same Polish national boundaries in 1942 for post-war Poland and these eventually became a post-war reality after his death. Sikorski's views were not secret and were known to the allies. So you can't say that Poland's post-war boundaries were the fault of just the 'Big Three' -the outcome was inevitable as had Sikorski lived the borders of Poland would have still resembled those of Poland today. That is the point I am making.
sjam   
5 Feb 2009
History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]

Is it not now widely accepted that the Oder and Neisse line proposal (western boundary in German territory) was not originally a Soviet concept but one that was postulated much earlier by General Sikorski as a pragmatic solution to Poland's place in post-war Europe.

An approximation of the curzon line eastern boundary was also proposed by General Sikorski. The giving up of eastern Polish territory was to be compensated by the westward shift of Polish borders to the Oder and Neisse line again this was Sikorski's concept.

Therefore this thorny issue can't be fairly or entirely laid at either Stalin's, Roosevelt's or Churchill's door. The issue was that Sikorski's plan was obviously an anathema to many less pragmatic elements in the Polish-government-in-exile and was never likely to be acceptable to them.

Though ironically Sikorski's plan was eventually the settlement that became the post-war reality however the big difference was that Stalin (with the de facto occupation of central Europe by the Red Army) was able to exploit the weakness of his western allies (including the sidelined Polish-government-in-exile) to his own ends as there was no willingness by Roosevelt and Churchill to fight the Soviets over Poland's postwar borders as after all the USSR had played a major role (one could argue the major role) in the defeat the Nazi regime.

Solidly researched reference work that discusses Sikorski plan in detail:
Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943: Sarah Meiklejohn.