To kill people living within a population, you have to be told who and where they are. You don’t just march into Poland or France from Germany and magically know who to round up and where they live ...
In Bulgaria and Italy, where the culture wasn’t as anti-Semitic, the local populations didn’t cooperate with the murder of Jews; most Bulgarian and Italian Jews survived...
Poland was also very anti-Semitic, and although there were Poles who sheltered Jews, many instead turned them in and looted their property. Some murdered Jews themselves. Very few Polish Jews survived."
Read article and comment on it here
I submitted the response, below. I hope that the New York Times publishes it.
This, assuredly, is not the way to improve Polish-Jewish relations.
ReplyDeletewe agree!
DeleteHello,
ReplyDelete"To kill people living within a population, you have to be told who and where they are. You don’t just march into Poland or France from Germany and magically know who to round up and where they live ..."
Different countries. Different Jews.
Jewish community in France was small and assimilated. Difficult to find.
Most of Jews in Poland were visibly Jewish. As for the numbers:
In 1939 there were 355 thousand Jews in Warsaw (30% of the city's population). More than in entire Palestine.
There were 205 thousand Jews in city of Łódź (33%). More than in entire France.
There were 60 thousand Jews in Kraków (26%). More than in entire Italy.
There were 25 thousand Jews in Tarnów (45%). About same amount as in entire Switzerland.
In relatively small town Nowy Sącz there were 10 thousand Jews (30%). More than in whole Sweden.
In 1939 my hometown had a Jewish population of 3800 (67%). Mostly Hasidic Jews.
There was no such town in France. I'm sure of that.
"In Bulgaria and Italy, where the culture wasn’t as anti-Semitic, the local populations didn’t cooperate with the murder of Jews; most Bulgarian and Italian Jews survived..."
Different countries. Different treatment.
Bulgaria and Italy were Third Reich's allies. Poland was a conquered country under brutal occupation.
Dr Goska, about Your response. I like it. I think it is great. But I doubt that it will be published.
By the way, have you ever heard of Father Marceli Godlewski?
https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/stories-of-rescue/story-rescue-godlewski-marceli
Facts, facts, facts. Look, all you have to do is repeat "Polaks!"
DeleteLukasz they did post my reply.
here is a link https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/auschwitz-bystander-theory.html#commentsContainer&permid=104731367:104731367
DeleteTo avoid flaunting her ignorance and apparent anti-Polish animus, Professor of Philosophy Weinberg should examine the history rather than philosophize about it.
ReplyDeleteShe states: “But one thing is clear: During the Holocaust, where the local population was more anti-Semitic, they tended toward greater collaboration, resulting in a markedly higher murder rate.”
Her argument is: The greater the degree of antisemitism among the populace, the greater the death rate of Jews.
Employing this logic, one would conclude that the death rate of Polish Jews was highest among European Jews because Poland was the most antisemitic of all European countries and because of this, Poland collaborated with the Germans more than any other occupied country. This is hogwash.
As Danusha points out, Prof Weinberg must obscure key facts to make her nonsensical case.
One fact is, immediately after occupying Poland, the Germans, not the Poles, established hundreds of ghettos and imprisoned Polish Jews in them. Another fact is the Germans, not the Poles, implemented Operation Reinhardt, the secret plan to exterminate Poland's Jews in the General Government. As many as two million Jews were removed from the ghettos by the Germans, not the Poles, between May 1942 and November 1943 and murdered at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka by the Germans, not the Poles.
The death rate of these two million or so Polish Jews was the result of secretive German planning and ruthless German efficiency. Contrary to Prof Weinberg’s philosophical fiction, this was not the result of Polish ultra-antisemitism and subsequent Polish ultra-collaboration.
She also states: “The correlation between local enthusiasm and the genocidal murder rate of the Holocaust is strong and stark, as Raul Hilberg and Hannah Arendt documented.” To the contrary, Hilberg and Arendt have pointed out that the high murder rate of European Jews was a function of the Judenräte and Jewish Ghetto Police. Hilberg and Arendt both correctly asked why they delivered many hundreds of thousands of their own to their German executioners rather than resist and make the Germans do their own dirty work.
can you send that to the New York times, or submit it somewhere else?
DeleteProfessor of Philosophy also states: "Research shows that heroic acts are usually done instinctively, without much thought at all."
DeleteIn winter 1943 three Jews came to the house of Polish farmer Karol Naziemiec. They asked him to hide them. Naziemiec knew those men. He also knew that in neighboring village entire peasant family was murdered by Germans for such "crime". He looked on his six childen and saw them "in a grave digged with my own hands. It was the scariest decision, to tell them (Jews)- fine."
Heartbreaking. And yet, in the current version of WW2 he is the Evil Nazi.
DeleteWhy should anyone doubt for one moment the Biblical warning that "the whole world" (all its institutions) lie in the power of "the father of the lie" - the one who told the first lie ever told, in Eden.
And Danusha i hope your job search is going well... i can't help but feel that this is an especially difficult moment for Polonians within American academe, with this intense campaign of POLAND!PAYUPORELSEery going on.
Lukasz can you please give us a source for Karol Naziemiec?
DeleteSure. There is such Polish book titled "Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej. Polacy z pomocą Żydom 1939–1945" ("That one is from my homeland. Poles helping the Jews 1939-1945) by Władysław Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin. Story of Karol Naziemiec is on page 526.
DeleteEnglish version of this book is titled "The Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust". But I haven't read that version so I can't tell if it's abbreviated or not.
Thank you. It's always good to say where you got information.
DeleteLukasz that book has exactly ONE review on Amazon. Mine.
Polonia does not support her storytellers That is the problem.
https://www.amazon.com/Samaritans-Wladyslaw-Bartoszewski-Zofia-Lewin/dp/B000NXYXYI#customerReviews
I didn't make the NYT Comments page as the cut-off date had expired and comments were closed. So I sent my comment above to "Letters to the Editor" at their NYT email address.
DeleteThank you Gene! <3
Deletehttps://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/297164/never-again-will-i-visit-auschwitz?fbclid=IwAR1cIneKCj-o1mIHX26kVydbGelOPQnSKOW7y7OQizf_lOZJvezx-dZiuIg A similar story about Jews would be described as anti-Semitic.
ReplyDeleteHello Mr Pankiewicz,
DeleteAnother American Jew who came to Poland to do some role-playing. To feel like a holocaust victim.
Oh-so-American in United States. Oh-so-Jewish in Poland.
He should also have visit Łańcut. In few weeks that town will be full of hasids. Just like it was before the Germans came. It's like a time travel.
Then he could do some cosplay too.
There are 317 comments there, I need many hours to read them. An example: "I am reading this just after visiting the German history museum in Berlin. It wasn't just that good people did nothing. The Nazis committed acts of violence that made everybody afraid." So 'the Nazis' allegedly terrorized good people in Germany. The real German society supported the Nazis, even former Socialists and Communists frequently did. The terror in Germany and Austria was very selective and based on informations from the society. The Gestapo was small comparing to Communist police, eg. Stasi.
ReplyDeletehttps://forward.com/culture/439133/auschwitz-exhibition-cardinal-dolan-museum-of-jewish-of-heritage/?utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%20Newsletter%20RSS&utm_maildate=02/01/2020 Does Cardinal Dolan know Catholic heritage of Poland? Pather Kolbe died in Auschwitz and about 1000 priests in Dachau.
ReplyDeleteNow there are 716 comments. One person quotes Sugihara. Sugihara cooperated with Poles in Lithuania, who copied his visas, probably without his approval.
ReplyDelete