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.

History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]


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.

History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]


Troll lesson no.1 ....... Why let facts stand in the way of a good arguement ;-))))

History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]


As a Pole I can but agree 100% with this :-)

History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]


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.


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.


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!

History / Yalta Conference and Poland [78]

Untermenschen

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


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.

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


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?

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

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereza_Kartuska_Detention_Camp

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


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.

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:-)

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.

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


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.


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?



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.


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!

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


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp#Concentration_camps

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



Or for Pilecki's state murder?

Wait on! Because Poland is still a communist state controlled by Polish Jews!

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


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 :-)

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


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 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.

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


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.


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?


Telling choice of words :-)))

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.

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


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.


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!

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.

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


Miranda your point was that:


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!


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.

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.

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]


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]


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]


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]


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]

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]

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]

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?