Poland, the Holocaust, the Brute Polak Image, Jailers, and Storytellers

Otto, author of the blog post "Ripples of Sin," about being the son of a Nazi soldier, keeps sending me images from old issues of LIFE magazine.

I keep telling him that rather than sending me images and his thoughts about them, he should type them up for a blog entry.

He tells me he has no time.

So, I, the woman, must be the man's amanuensis.

Some of the pictures are below.

You get the idea. In the 1940s, while the war was going on, LIFE magazine and other American media acknowledged that Poland was being horribly victimized by the Nazis.

In more recent days, Poles and Poland are Bieganski, the Brute Polak, the dirty, primitive Catholic peasant, more responsible for the Holocaust than Hitler himself.

What's the solution?

The solution is easy. Poles and Polonians need to unite and support their scholars and storytellers. Buy and use Bieganski. Support other truth tellers like John Guzlowski.

Alas, Poles and Polonia don't do that. What are Poles and Polonia doing now? Passing laws to send anyone who uses the words "Polish concentration camp" to prison for three years.

Sad. Self-defeating. Self-parodying, even. This law will only increase the Bieganski image's power. This law positions Poland in the fascist camp, against free speech, fearful of the free flow of information, against the pillars of Western civilization.

This law announces, "We Poles are so afraid of our own inability to tell our own story that we must act like thugs to others who have better storytelling power than we believe ourselves to have."

Poles, when you shoot yourselves in the foot like this, you make people who love you weep.

Otto wrote:

"The caption of this photo reads 'Jews In Warsaw Must Wear Yellow Stars.'  

Now I can disseminate this and give people the impression, through nothing more than a factual quote, that Polish Jews were forced to wear Juden stars and people will think 'Ah hah, see I told you! Poles created the Holocaust!'

In reality that not all there was. It does say that but the real story is that this occurred in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Poles get tagged for abuse is because there is no consequence. Academic trolls get away with half-assed research. Regular people with an agenda gets a free ride to pull history, 'facts' and the stories they want to hear any which way. Morons who need to step on someone to feel taller get to make themselves feel good. It's all good because they feel safe to do so.

I remember when blacks had to ride in the back of the bus. Then push back. So I think, effective or not, the smartest thing Poland can do is to show teeth."

In a contest of storytelling, the "teeth" Poland, Poles, and Polonians need to show is support, not for their jailers, but for their storytellers.

Buy and use Bieganski, Echoes of Tattered Tongues, and other books by and about Poles.

***

Udpate: 

John Guzlowski, a Polish American storyteller, just sent this in:

"Yes, you're right. I was at a Holocaust FB page yesterday, and all the talk was about how this new law is an attempt by Poles to cover up their complicity in the Nazi death camps. No arguing could dissuade the people saying this. Not mentioning the 5 million Polish Catholic civilians who died in the war, not mentioning the tens of thousands of Poles who were killed for helping Jews."

"Is the New Polish Law an Attempt to Whitewash Its Citizens' Role in the Holocaust?" Link here. 

Source of the photos is LIFE magazine here.

And TIME-LIFE here

This photo is from Smithsonian. The rest are from TIME - LIFE