Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps'

Basically, yes - the European Arrest Warrant is supposed to make things much faster for justice. Poles were getting extradited back to Poland for all sorts of stupid things - because the theoretical maximum punishments for even small crimes are quite high in Poland - for instance, insulting the President.

That's why this referral from the Irish High Court to the ECJ is so important - if the ECJ agrees that there's a threat to the rule of law in Poland, it will mean that all EAW's from Poland will be reviewed instead of rubber stamped, and any EAW that looks like it's for political purposes can be challenged.


Well, imagine that the EAW system covers all 28 EU countries. I also don't think it would be possible for them to prosecute, but it would be perfectly possible to issue an EAW against the author and the publishers in order to get them in front of a Polish court.

Are you for real? The guy had a Polish surname and lived in a town in present day Belarus which was in pre-war Poland, yet the BBC carefully avoided any mention of either fact, referring him to as British (obviously he was a naturalized British citizen). It's quite obvious that they were treading carefully as a result of the new law. Now some people will no doubt applaud that, but it smacks of the Soviet Union when you're wary of even mentioning somebody's nationality for fear of being prosecuted.

Indeed. I hope further reporting of the issue will make it clear that he is a Pole who was accused of war crimes. The prosecutors say there are other cases that they are investigating, which (given that age means they could be among the last people prosecuted for war crimes during the Holocaust) will receive a lot of opublicity, whatever their nationality.

If he was in The German army he must have been Volkedeutsch.

He was an auxiliary policeman, as I recall.

Maybe, but it the dude is dead and those are only allegations of wrongdoing.

If he was Granatowa Policja (Navy Blue Police) then he is extremely unlikely to have been guilty.

This from Wikipedia;
"Scholars disagree about the degree of involvement of the Blue Police in the rounding up of Jews. Although policing inside the Warsaw Ghetto was a responsibility of the Jewish Ghetto Police, a Polish-Jewish historian Emmanuel Ringelblum, chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto, mentioned Polish policemen carrying out extortions and beatings. The police did also take part in street roundups, but not in the killings of Jews. On June 3, 1942 during a prison execution of 110 Jews in Warsaw, members of the Blue Police stood and wept, while the Germans themselves executed the victims, after the Poles refused to obey the orders of their overseers to carry out the shooting. According to Raul Hilberg, "Of all the native police forces in occupied Eastern Europe, those of Poland were least involved in anti-Jewish actions.... They [the Polish Blue Police] could not join the Germans in major operations against Jews or Polish resistors, lest they be considered traitors by virtually every Polish onlooker." Holocaust historian Gunnar S. Paulsson agrees that the role of the Blue Police was minimal: "Keep this in mind - wrote Paulsson - the Jews in Poland were isolated in ghettos. They were rounded up by German police with the aid of Ukrainian and Baltic collaborators, and the enforced co-operation of the Jewish ghetto police, but very little participation by Polish police (mainly in the smaller centres). They were taken to killing centres staffed again by Germans, Ukrainians and Balts."

I smell a rat here.

He wasn't. GP was only in GG.

Formal ones, and the German prosecutors have confirmed they're looking at others.


It looks like there were plenty of exceptions to the rule in that chaotic period. Certainbly the events at Slonim are very well documented, with eyewitness accounts.


I don't think there's anything suspicious here, any agendas. Just the prosecutors finishing off their jobs before time makes it impossible.

Personally, I think there should be a moratorium now, whetrher the war criminals are German, Polish, Ukrainian, whatever; they're all (the few that are alive) past 90 years old and it's time to move on. War crimes prosecutors should concentrate oin the American baby-killers of My Lai now, before that becomes too late.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

I didn't know that.
So what did The Germans regard his town's area as?
Did they regard it as German Ukraine?

No; Slonim is just that bit too far north. It was in the southern part (Generalbezirk Weißruthenien) of Reichskomissariat Ostland.

Thanks jon357.

So if they didn't have Granatowa Policja in this area does anyone know how it worked and what sort of "Auxiliary Policeman" he was?

Which means absolutely nothing.


Really? I just want to see Germans going after Jewish war criminals. It will never happen.
Anyway Germans are really brazen jerks, plenty of war criminals high ranking lived their life in peace in Germany, some of more disgusting creatures were mayors of towns and cities, running corporations. They are all long gone, so now they will go after 90 plus people who had been teens during the war. It is all about chasing a rabbit. They want to make the war about others - low.

How about chasing commie criminals? That would make more sense.

That could be problematic though, given that most offenses (excluding e.g. murder) have probably fallen under the statute of limitation.

@Lyzko


Which is a good thing, because it leaves room for an academic discussion on a very sensitive topic. Even today historians still disagree on how much responsibility Austrians bear for the Anschluss and its' consequences. The Nazis managed to get their supporters in high positions before 1938 and used them well, but there is a lot of evdence that the majority of the Austrians might not have been in favour of it, if given a choice. Hitler after all was desperate to prevent a plebiscite on the matter.

@G (undercover)

It's the old story of The Emperor Has No Clothes! So the Poles were "perfect" and never once complied with Hitler's anti-Semitic policies, being just like the Swedes and the Danes, is that the particular fiction du jour we're propagating today, are we?? It was ALL Germany's "fault", is that it??! If life were only that simple.

@Ironside,

"Jewish war criminals"? Hardly a comparable scenario now, is it!

And you wonder why people get annoyed with you. No of course Polish people were not perfect and yes, there were Polish people who collaborated or co-operated with the German Nazis, but this is one of many side stories to the Holocaust.

Another is that there were Jews who collaborated with the Nazis too.

So if Jewish people want to mention these side stories during a speech, they shouldn't pick and choose what ones they mention, they should talk about all of them. Yet funnily enough, the Jewish collaborators are never mentioned in the speeches, while the Polish ones are always mentioned. Do you see the problem?

So either we just say, Germany attacked Poland and brought about the Holocaust, but there were people of many other nationalities and ethnicities who collaborated with them too and leave it at that, or if we want to start to get in to detail, then we mention all the different collaborators, not just the ones convenient to mention.

You do realize that their is a moral difference between someone betraying his neighbours to the Nazis because of the reward, and someone who lives in a Ghetto/KZ and helps the Nazis because it might help him survive longer?

No one can seriously argue that the latter has morally compromised himself, while the latter is thoroughly despicable.

Kinda like Soros

The Polish Underground had courts and issued dealth penalties to 'szmalcowce' meaning those who betrayed Jews' hiding spots and Poles who were hiding Jews for money. But the Zionist media will of course never point that out. No it was all Poles - they were as bad (or in Gross' opinion even worse) than the Nazis


Well, Alfred Rosenberg would be an example of one such Jewish war criminal. I find it kind of funny that a Jew actually was actually one of the chief architects of Nazi ideology

Err, and how do you know that some Polish people didn't help the Nazis simply to save themselves? You don't know why people did what they did?

Anyway, to me, turning your 'brothers' in to the Nazis to save your own ass isn't exactly justifiable either. If a Polish person betrayed 10 other Polish people, they were then killed and later, in his defence, the Polish person said 'well I betrayed them to save my own life,' it wouldn't really fly. In the Jewish court however, a Jew using that reasoning would save himself from a sentencing. Interesting isn't it? Shows how different the cultures are.

Because Polish people were not necessarily in the same position as their Jewish citizens. If you were in a Ghetto or KZ collaborating with the Nazis might be one of the few ways you thought you could survive. I would never pass judgement on someone like this since no one could with certainty claim that given the situation, he would have reacted differently. Besides most of them were later killed anyway.

Most Szmalcowce did not have this excuse.

The Nazis' chief ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg was an ARYAN Balt who spoke German with a noticable foreign accent and was about as Jewish as Pope FrancisLOL

Numerous German gentiles are named Rosenberg, Rosenfeld, Goldberg etc.

@Wielki Polak,

Jewish capos are a ludicrous example to throw up to me, as they did what they did out of sheer survival; mistreat or be mistreated. Nobody ever accused us of being saints! What were the Poles' excuse for collaborating with various members of Hitler's henchmen?

Bs. If you send someone to death for the sake of your own survival or money, you're a scum. It doesn't matter if you're Polish or Jewish. It happened in the ghettos and among Poles. The term is szmalcownicy, BTW.

Jewish collaborators were killed by ŻOB so no, there was no understanding for them among Jews.

You think the Jews who saw their fellow Jews helping pack them in to wagons to be carted off to near certain death gave a sh-t that they were doing it for their own survival? You think the Jews who were found hiding in Polish families' homes because another Jew told the Nazis of their hiding place, thought 'ah well, they had to snitch on us to survive, so it's fine?' They must have been horrified to see other Jews turning on them, even if it was just to 'survive.' There are poems and other literature about it, by Jews, talking about the horror of seeing their fellow Jewish brothers doing this and saying that if any of those Jews survive, they must be taken to court and punished accordingly for the crimes they have committed.


Of course there isn't a good excuse for the Polish people who collaborated with Hitler's henchmen. I'm not trying to make one for them - it was despicable. It's interesting that you say nobody ever said Jews were saints, yet you'd be surprised how many recollections of the Second World War, by Jews, appear to show them in this very light - completely innocent, never put a foot wrong, it's the rest of the world that are Jew-hating anti-Semites, always have been and always will be. You know that there are already many Jews and rabbis who push this idea that the reason the Germans built the camps in Poland, was because they knew this nation would be happy to co-operate with them in eliminating the Jewish people. Lies like this have to be challenged.

My point is once again, and for the umpteenth time, that while certain Jews revealed the nadir of humanity amongst them, certain Poles did as well.

Yes, Dirkdiggler, I DO believe that Jews who loaded corpses onto wagons did so out of survival! Why, if it somehow turned out the Jews

murdered their own out of the same murderous reasons as their Christian nemeses, this would throw the very concept of good vs. evil forever out of kilter, no?

If you help kill other people in order to save your own skin, it doesn't make it okay.

For the umpteenth time Lyzko, we are not refuting the fact that some Polish people did bad things to Jews during the Holocaust, we're just waiting for the Jewish community to admit that some Jews, even if it wasn't a great number, also did bad things, and stop making excuses for them by saying they had no choice. Yes they did, they did have a choice, not to turn on their fellow man. As you said, most of the helpers were killed eventually anyway, so backstabbing their brothers and sister was for nothing. They could have died with honour, but they didn't.

Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa - Jewish Combat Organisation sentenced Jewish collaborators to death. Other Jews despised them. I remember watching an interview with Władysław Szpilman ( the Pianist) available on YouTube - in which he talks about a friend of his who joined the Jewish Police or people like Kon ( member of Group 13 - the Jewish Gestapo in the Warsaw Ghetto) with despise.

Jewish Police were volunteers often known for their cruelty. Some Judenrat members would collect money from other Jews and sent them to death. Some of them were killed later, too. That doesn't excuse them. The same applies to Poles who sent people to death for financial gain.

Wielkipolak
One hundred percent correct.

The situation in Poland at the time was desperate for Poles and Jews alike.
To apportion blame on one side more than the other is just wrong.
As in all walks of life,there are good people and bad people.
Some of the bad ones were despicable and some of the good ones were brave beyond comprehension.
Poles and Jews alike.
This is a complex history for many reasons.
But to say that Poles were somehow more guilty than Jews is ridiculous.
Poles and Jews in Poland died in equal numbers.
This is a collective historical tragedy.
We should not be bitching about who was worse or who was better.
It was the same for all Poles.
And in the end we must always remember who the truly evil ones were in this story.
And not to call them Nazis and Communists.
but by their real names.
Germans and Russians.

Yes, I am for real. Weather this grandpa did anything wrong, or If he is Polish, is totally off-topic and has nothing to do with this law. Just like "hate speech" law doesn't make it illegal to claim that Bernard Madoff is a stinking thief or report that some homo committed a crime. A BBC person got several facts and had to put it into words within 15 minutes and that's it.


Definitely not being like Swedes, who supplied and traded with Germans aka "Nazis" and definitely not like Danes, who capitulated after losing 5 soldiers and were allowed to keep their democratically elected government during their "occupation".


They were millions of Jews outside of occupied territories. Some were not giving a damn sitting in NY, others were shooting at British in the Palestine, while those in the Soviet Union were loyally serving (often in the red army and NKVD) the Adolf's ally. When you Nazis were building Auschwitz, they were busy putting Poles, Balts etc. into trains to Siberia.

But of course, as the search for each and every case when Stanisław was denouncing Mosh to "Nazis" became like a sport for some people, any mention of Moshe sending Stanisław to Gulag is "anti-semitic". Jews as a whole don't really have a good record in regard to WW2. One of (several) reasons of their whole idiotic approach to the subject, is to hide it all behind "Holocaust".

Oy vey ! Of course there's always some excuse for Jews, itsn't it ? Dude, when "Jewish Police" and your other organizations collaborating with "Nazis" were being setp-up, no one of them were thinking about survival as the Holocaust wasn't even started yet.

Yes. That was a time and place where very few people had enviable choices.