People of the New World can't differanciate when it comes to Europe.

[Dauphin]

I thought the "official" story told to the people was that the Jews were being relocated and given their own lands in Russia and the Ukraine.

[Adalbertus]

I don't know how many believed in this official version. I'll have to ask Daddy. Most people will have realized that being a Jew wasn't the best thing - the Kristallnacht was clearly visible to anyone. But there were two classes of concentration camps, the "normal" ones and "Vernichtungslager" (there were only a few - Auschwitz was one of those) where there was a Jew, Gypsy, etc. killing "industry". The existence of the second class could be hidden behind the fear that was about the "normal" ones - and to which also misbehaving "ethnic" Germans could be sent to. - I know it was dangerous to ask too much about the concentration camps.
Again a story of my family: One of my grandfathers was born in Mörchingen/Morhange which became French after WW1 - He was an "idealistic" supporter of Hitler. After he left his military service (after 3 days due to severe heart problems) he had a job in Straßburg/Strasbourg and was offered a house for himself and his family which was formerly occupied by Jews. He declined, because he didn't know what to tell them (the Jewish family) when they came back. - I don't know what exactly he thought but certainly not about that they were killed.

Needless to say he felt betrayed by the Nazi after the war; and he had a lot to do about identity finding, in addition to feed a wife and four children.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Felch X
Poland and France collaborated a great deal with the Nazis in regards to anti-semitic activities, and they weren't traditional allies of the Germans at all.

France - yes, Poland - no. Don't talk about something if You don't know a thing about it.
Comaprison of France is offending for Poland;
France wanted to appease Hitler, Poland wanted to get him our of Germany until he'll frow in power (France didn't like the plan). Poland fought the germans until the end, France capitulated and collaborated through all the war (de Gaulle
had almost no support at the start and there were more Poles in Normandy than Frenchmen). Frech Vichy officials
helped Germans in search for Jews, Poland was the first to inform about the Holocaust and it had special Jewish ministry, and a special office for helping the Jews.
It wasn't always quite successful -but there was no comparison to German behaviour in France and in Poland;
Poland had no chance of saving Poles from Germans,
and no chance to save Jews from germans. Fench Vichy authorities could try and they didn't.

[Aeson]

How is saying "People of the New World can't differanciate when it comes to Europe." any different than saying "Europe was Nazi."? They are both overgeneralizations.

[Chris 62]

Silly one Paiktis.

Vichy even had a nice little force called the Milice, to help round up those damn jews.

All the countries Hitler allied with helped, and most of the occupied nations as well (Denmark is a notable exception, the Danes managed to save Jews with Sweden's help).

You can yell from the rooftops that it was only the Nazis, but they had LOTS of help.

[Boris Godunov]

Poles? Hurt Jews? Oh, Never...

http://www.wjc.org.il/publications/policy_dispatches/pub_dis60.html

March 2001
Polish Society Looks Backward and Inward:Revelations about the slaughter at Jedwabne force Poles to confront their history
At issue:

The revelations contained in Prof. Jan Gross' new book Sasiedzi [Neighbors] have forced Polish society to reassess the way in which Poles confronted the Shoah. According to Prof. Gross' research, it was local Poles that were responsible for a horrific slaughter in the town of Jedwabne, not German occupation forces. In July 1941, in an orgy of bloodletting and looting, some 1,600 Jews lost their lives - the great majority having been locked in a barn that was doused with kerosene and burned to the ground. In recent months, Polish society has devoted considerable attention to a debate on the event itself and its meaning to Poles in contemporary Poland. The Jewish world is also observing this process with keen interest.

Introduction
Over the past five years, but especially since the process of the restitution of Holocaust-era property began, much of Europe has begun to look backward and inward - to re-examine its war-time history. In this process many sacred cows have been slaughtered and national myths shattered. Poland, the epicenter of the Shoah, has not been exempt from this process. In fact, in history-conscious Poland, the re-examination of contemporary history began somewhat earlier -- in the period leading up to the collapse of Communism.

Polish society has always seen itself as the "Christ Among Nations", and given its history - that view is entirely understandable. The fact is that Poland suffered enormous losses in the Second World War, more severe than any other belligerent, Those losses included the complete destruction of its capital, Warsaw, and much of its economic infrastructure. Nearly the entire Jewish population of Poland perished -- victims of the 'Final Solution' -- and some 3 million ethnic Poles also lost their lives. At the end of the war, Soviet 'liberation' brought Soviet subjugation.

Poles have constantly perpetuated the notion that theirs was a country without quislings. In other words, unlike the rest of German occupied or dominated Europe, the Germans were unable to find local fascists or traitors to do their bidding. Certainly when compared to the record of other countries such as France, Norway, or the Netherlands, to say nothing of Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary or Romania, this perception of Poland's experience was not entirely without foundation. History, however, especially Polish history, is considerably more nuanced than that. But the imposition of Communist rule blindly bolstered this contention and prevented any objective examination of history. It also relegated Jewish suffering on Polish soil to a mere footnote.

In Jewish circles, both in Israel and the Diaspora, a different view prevailed. Until this very day, Poles are generally seen as implacable antisemites whose complicity in the Shoah was both clear and unmistakable. Consequently, the general perception of Poles and Poland has been, for the most part negative. The fact that Poland was permeated by virulent antisemitism in the years leading up to the war, that murderous antisemitic outrages were perpetrated there even after the Germans had been chased out, and that the Jewish remnant fell victim to a witch hunt in 1968, contributed to this view. Moreover, the instances of Polish betrayal of Jewish fellow citizens were not forgotten and were often trumpeted in popular literature, including in mass circulation books by writers such as Leon Uris and Gerald Green, of which melodramatic movie adaptations were later produced.

However, and only with limited success, Polish society has always steadfastly protested against the prevailing perception of Poles as accomplices in the destruction of Polish Jewry - and some have even accused Jews of an anti-Polish bias. Poles have pointed out, time and again, that acts of selfless heroism on the part of Polish Christians who saved the lives of several tens of thousands of Jews, have largely been forgotten, or at least not given their due. They also charge that many Jews forget the fact that Poland was itself under German occupation and that it was the Germans who planned and executed the so-called 'Final Solution'.

Polish society and the Jews: A mixed record
The fact is that Poland's war-time record was a mixed one. On the one hand, it is now widely acknowledged that the dangers in Poland in rescuing Jews were far greater than in most other places in Europe (there was a death penalty that even extended to the rescuers' immediate family and sometimes their neighbors as well) and that the number of rescuers there was far greater than had been estimated originally - the rescue of even one person often required a whole chain of conspirators. It is also recognized by all serious historians that there is no basis whatsoever for the oft-heard charge that the Germans elected to establish death camps in Poland because they believed that Poles would acquiesce to them or even aid in the destruction.

But at the same time, it is now clear that the extent of Polish complicity in the destruction of their Jewish neighbors transcended the presence of the so-called szmalcownicy [blackmailers] who sought to ferret out Jews in hiding in order to blackmail them - and whose existence has always been a source of shame to all decent-minded Poles.

However, in recent years, Polish society has had to contend with a series of revelations that have not enhanced the nation's self-image. Significantly, some of these have come from within. Among the most notable was the 1994 discussion revolving around the series of reports in the highly-respected liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza that revealed that in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 [not to be confused with the Ghetto Uprising of 1943] certain elements of the Armja Krajowa [AK - Home Army] murdered Jews. Those revelations produced a storm of controversy and accusations against the reporter, Michal Cichy, who was subjected to a torrent of abuse and even accused of being a closet Jew.

Over time, Polish society, at least its intellectual elite, has come to terms with these facts. And they have slowly begun to filter down. For example, public opinion surveys demonstrate that Poles display a far greater awareness today of the magnitude of Jewish suffering (such as, for example, the number of Jewish victims at Auschwitz-Birkenau) as compared to Polish losses than they did 10 years ago.

The Jedwabne Revelations
In the summer of 2000, New York University professor Jan Tomasz Gross, a Polish Jew who emigrated to the United States, published a book devoted to a description of a gruesome massacre carried out by the Polish population of the predominantly Jewish town of Jedwabne [near Lomza]. According to Prof. Gross, the little known story of how 1,600 Jews met their death at the hands of their Polish neighbors was subjected to a Communist cover-up.

In his book Sasiedzi [Neighbors], Prof. Gross presents a comprehensive and detailed picture of how Polish townspeople organized and executed the slaughter. He also discusses the hasty post-war trial in which a handful of the perpetrators were sentenced to prison terms. A monument erected near the site of the crime blamed the Gestapo and the German gendarmerie, and the tragic events at Jedwabne, known only to the townsmen and the handful of survivors, never appeared in the history books.

The publication of Prof. Gross' findings has produced a wave of controversy. Certain elements in Polish society, especially those within the Catholic nationalist camp, have reacted with considerable consternation and have attempted to deny all responsibility for the outrage. They suggest that the thoroughly discredited conventional version of events - that the pogrom was orchestrated and carried out by German forces -- is true, despite the fact that even some of the perpetrators have admitted that this was not the case at all. In a press interview, one of the surviving killers claimed that the Jews were going to be killed in any case, so what difference did it make if Poles dispatched them? Cardinal Glemp, the country's Roman Catholic primate, who has a long record of vitriolic antipathy toward Jews, grudgingly admitted the facts as portrayed by Prof. Gross, but then went on to compare the event to the bloodshed "among neighbors in Palestine". Jedwabne's parish priest, Edward Orlowski declared: "The Germans did it… the Poles only helped with the transportation and they were forced to do so… What happened in Jedwabne was a battle against Communists and not the Jews."

Others claim that while Poles may have been responsible for some of the deaths, the incident must be looked at in light of the Jews' behavior during the Soviet occupation from September 1939 until June 1941 and ascribe a '*** for tat' quality to the killings. In this spirit Father Orlowski called for Jews to apologize to Poles for the wrong- doings the priest alleges were committed by the Jewish citizens of Jedwabne during the period of Soviet occupation.

To his credit, the mayor of Jedwabne, Krzysztof Godlewski, has encouraged the population of the town to confront its past, but his efforts have met with little success. Happily, as a whole, Polish society has, for the most part, faced up to the crime. Prof. Jerzy Jedlicki, for example in the influential weekly Polityka wrote: "Not without reason have bitter recriminations accumulated on the Jewish side. Neither [the Jewish] recriminations nor long-standing stereotypes nourish our own accounting with history… On the contrary, if they nourish anything all, it is a stubborn denial of all Polish guilt and the repudiation of unpleasant elements of our heritage. However, ultimately, that has not to do with the outside world, but rather with ourselves so that we could finally speak with one another openly. Only in this way can we free ourselves from fears and complexes."

President Alekasnder Kwasniewski has called for a public apology and a ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the massacre. It should also be pointed out that the old monument which blames the Germans for the crimes has been removed, and a new marker, which accurately describes the event, is planned.

"Hast thou murdered and also inherited?"
The coincidence of the Jedwabne revelations and that of the fierce debate on the question of re-privitization is an ironic coincidence. Prof. Gross' research makes clear that many of the local Poles saw their Jewish neighbors' misfortune as some kind of El Dorado - an unparalleled opportunity for self-enrichment - and helped themselves to Jewish property.

The fact that, barring a presidential veto, the Polish government appears poised to enact legislation that would clearly discriminate against Jews by allowing only for restitution claims brought by Polish citizens, represents an act of extraordinary effrontery. The Sejm has, after a stormy debate, rejected a Senate proposal that would have allowed for foreign citizens not domiciled in Poland to claim property. In effect, the theft of Jewish property carried out by those who took part in the slaughter in Jedwabne, would be legalized. Jewish property plundered by the murderers and later seized by the Communists would be returned to the murderers, not the heirs of the victims. This can only be described as travesty evocative of the scriptural "Hast thou murdered and also inherited?"

In the wake of the pogrom in Kielce that claimed the lives of 42 Jews in July 1946, the late Professor Stefania Skwarczynska published an article in the independent Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny in which she wrote that the natural reaction to such situations is an attempt to evade responsibility. Prof. Skwarczynska wrote that guilt could not be shifted on anyone else's shoulders and decried the attempts to blame outsiders, "because even if 'a foreign interest' was at play here… does a healthy society allow itself to hang the interests of its enemies on its belt?"

How Polish society reacts to the current revelations, and the extent to which they seep down to the grass roots, will have a significant impact on Poland's international image. It will do much to shape the Jewish world's perception of the "new Poland". The young generation of Jews, those born after the Holocaust, will certainly see these events as a test of the sincerity of Polish society's attempts to achieve a genuine reconciliation with the nation with which it co-existed in good times and bad, for more than one thousand years.

[Bereta_Eder]

Why is the discussion centered around Jews like they were the only ones suffering?

[Rogan Josh]

Well, the US did ignore the entire problem for a considerable length of time when countries like Britain were fighting Hilter tooth and nail.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Well, the US did ignore the entire problem for a considerable length of time when countries like Britain were fighting Hilter tooth and nail.

Hitler wasn't lobbing rockets at New York and Washington, now, was he?

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Hitler wasn't lobbing rockets at New York and Washington, now, was he?

So you are saying that the US never attacks first?

Yeah...right....

[Chris 62]

Why is it you always try to blame the US for Hitler?

If your country had any backbone under Chamberlin, it would have never have come to the US/USSR having to save your backsides.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh


So you are saying that the US never attacks first?

Yeah...right....

Oooh! Nice straw man!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DaShi


Oooh! Nice straw man!

Beat me to it!


At any rate, RJ, nooooo, that's not remotely what I was saying. I was just pointing out that the Brits were fighting tooth-and-nail, as you put it, because Hitler was at their doorstep and bombing the bejezuz out of them. America was under no direct threat, so there wasn't much call to get involved with yet another European war.

And, ya know, the UK declared war on Germany, not vice-versa, so it's their own damn fault they were fighting tooth-and-nail.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I was just pointing out that the Brits were fighting tooth-and-nail, as you put it, because Hitler was at their doorstep and bombing the bejezuz out of them.

And, ya know, the UK declared war on Germany, not vice-versa, so it's their own damn fault they were fighting tooth-and-nail.

Don't you realize that these two statements are contradictory?

I am not saying that the US was to blame for Hitler ( ) -- just that it is not fair to blame the rest of Europe (or even all of Germany). Every country was at fault to some degree, and none were entirely to blame.

[Ned]

paiktis22, the United States rounded up the Japanese and the western part of the United States and placed them in concentration camps during the war because some of them, not all obviously, were considered to be a security threat. Giving the Europeans the greatest benefit of the doubt, it could have appeared to the average European that Hitler’s rounding up of the Jews and placing them in concentration camps was for the same reason: security. The average American did not know of the death camps until after war. I would not be surprised that the average European did not know about them either.

While Hitler clearly was a racist and labeled the Jews "untermenschen," he also denounced the Jews as being Socialists and Communists. After the attack on the Soviet Union, the rounding up of subversives in Europe may just as much sense as rounding up of the Japanese did in United States. That Hitler went one-step further and created the death camps is something that most people probably did not expect.

It would have been interesting to see how the people of Europe, indeed people in Germany, would have reacted had a they known of the Holocaust at the time it was occurring.