Voices from Poland

[kowalskil]

A Book, entitled "How Polish People Helped Germans Murder Jews;" was published recently (January 2013) in Poland.

http://www.czarnaowca.pl/literatura_faktu/jak_polacy_niemcom_zydow_m,p720952114
I hope it will be translated into English. The author, Stefan Zgliczynski, is a journalist associated with the Polish version of Le Monde Diplomatique. His book generated many interesting comments on a Polish website:

http://www.polityka.pl/forum/115927...ead?addPost=true&parent_id=1160679#commentBox

The link below will take you to selected observations (translated by me).

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/xenophobia.html

Thay are worth reading and thinking about

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html

 

[Peder]

A Book, entitled "How Polish People Helped Germans Murder Jews;" was published recently (January 2013) in Poland.
l

I hope it will be translated into English too. But I also hope that the gist of it will be "How (Some) Polish People Helped Germans Murder Jews." The events in question are horrific and ghastly beyond any redemption, and too easily forgotten or disbelieved with the passage of time, but I still hope that demonizing a whole nationality is not an accurate summary.

 

[Meadow337]

I think it is not an entirely inaccurate statement. It would be more true to say 'Some Polish people rescued some Jews' - the same goes for any other nation that tacitly or overtly helped persecute Jews, all those who stood by and did nothing, said nothing, ignored what was going on, pretended not to know, not to see, and did not object were all guilty of 'helping'. The Holocaust was too big a crime to avoid guilt for those who were there and did nothing.

 

[SFG75]

An inspirational WWII Polish story would be the tale of the Orzel which escaped under guard and later on, sank a German troop ship. Read about it in Churchill's first volume of WII history, a good story that not a lot of people know about.

 

[Meadow337]

I'm sure there are many stories both told and untold of people risking their lives for others.

BTW - Unfortunately this link doesn't work:

http://csam.mail.montclair.edu/~kowalski/xenophobia.html

 

[Darth Eget]

It is survival of the fittest. You, I and EVERYBODY will do ANYTHING to survive. The desire to survive is the prime directive for the human race. Humanity is an animal; every animal will fight to their last breath to countinue existing in this great experiment we call Life. Yes, it was immoral, but can YOU really say that you wouldn't do the same if by not doing it you wouldn;t be BREATHING the next day? If you could be executed for refusing, including your WHOLE FAMILY, are you telling me that YOU wouldn't do it? You ask the question YEARS after WW II, in safe times and you presume to know what YOU would do?
Ask Syrians what life is worth. I bet they would tell you life is worth ANY sacrafice they have to make. Yes, it is worth taking up arms and taking the chance of DEATH for the rebel Syrians. It is wroth being bombes, being sniped at and executed, The Polish people had been betrayed by Russia and Germany; before they came out of a period of time when their country had been divided. Their country had been restored after WW I, and invaded by the Nazis. Polish children had been stolen from their parents of they were blue eyes and blond haired. Their culture had been brutalized and attempts to make the Polish language disapear had been tried by Russia and Germany.
THey were brutalized, oppressed people. Their lives were forfeit if they tried to resist. In that context, while their behaviour may not be admirable, it is understandable.

 

[Meadow337]

I'm sorry but if that were true why do we hold people accountable for war crimes and other atrocities? The answer is because neither "following orders" or "doing what you have to" are acceptable excuses for immoral behaviour.