THANK YOU! Dziekuje!

Thank you to James Conroyd Martin, author of Push Not the River, Karen A. Wyle, author of Twin Bred, Pani F, who chooses to remain anonymous, and Eugene Sokolowski.

These kind and generous souls donated the $150 necessary to update Bieganski's cover. 

THANK YOU! 

Buy Push Not the River at Amazon

Buy Twin-Bred at Amazon

The Statute of Kalisz in First Things by Filip Mazurczak

First Things published an article by Filip Mazurczak about the Statute of Kalisz. You can read it here.

Filip Mazurczak Interviews Halina Szpilman, Widow of Wladyslaw Szpilman

Filip Mazurczak interviews Halina Szpilman, widow of Wladyslaw Szpilman, subject of the Roman Polanski film "The Pianist" here.

Excerpt: Szpilman, who was of course Jewish, was very attached to Poland, his fatherland. 

"He was very attached to Poland and could not imagine life elsewhere. My husband always sat on the chair where you are sitting right now and got very upset when a guest sat there, because he believed that was his place. This was his place, and Władysław believed that he lived there and he was born there. He spent his whole life in Poland, including the worst period, that of German occupation. Some people found it strange that he could have lived in the same place where he lost his family. In any case, he was very strongly connected to his fatherland."

Filip Mazurczak Interviews Antony Polonsky on Several Key Questions

An interview between Filip Mazurczak and Antony Polonsky covers several key questions in Polish Jewish Relations. Full text here.

Excerpt:

"There is now a clearer understanding that the mass murder of the Jews during the Second World War was initiated and for the most part carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany and by the German people who largely followed its lead. It is also understood that the reason for siting death camps on Polish soil is that this was where most of European Jewry was to be found. In addition, it was far from the front and also away from Germany and Western Europe."

Karen Armstrong Is Not a Scholar and She Should Not Be Allowed to Prostitute the Holocaust

Recently Karen Armstrong, a faux scholar beloved of the left, accused Bill Maher and Sam Harris of paving the way for another Holocaust. I was very troubled by this and American Thinker published my piece today expressing that offense. You can read the piece at American Thinker here or at my other blog here.

Student Handout: "A Relatively Large Number of Poles Collaborated with the Nazis."

A document identified at the top of the page as a "student handout." Milaca, Minnesota. K-12, that is kindergarten through 12th grade. 

"A relatively large number of Poles collaborated with the Nazis." 

Not so in France. "Many French citizens found it difficult to accept that Jews were being deported and began helping Jews...Germans realized they couldn't rely on the French."

"Most Dutch were reluctant to cooperate" with the Nazis...The German occupation of the Netherlands is considered the most ruthless in Western Europe" [emphasis added -- the Nazi occupation of Poland was the most ruthless, but Poland is not in Western Europe.]

"Many Italians assisted Jews." 

Pope Pius XII is seen as a silent collaborator. 

Entire document here. 

"I Would Curse This Miserable Country..."

It's always hard for me to explain to people what "Bieganski" is about. It's not a nationalistic rah rah Poland book. It's a book about stereotypes. 

People sometimes then ask, "Oh, so you are saying that there are no Polish anti-Semites or antisemitism?" 

And the answer is "No, of course not. Of course there are Polish anti-Semites and there is Polish antisemitism. Rather 'Bieganski' points out that stereotypes are used in discussions of Polish anti-Semites and Polish antisemitism in a way that is not helpful." 

I just stumbled across a fairly typical example on the web.

In May, 2014, the Jewish week published an article about someone who "scrawled" a swastika on a transformer in Bialystok. You can read the article here.

Such an event calls for rational discussion on how to combat antisemitism. 

In the comments section, one finds this: "I would curse this miserable country, but it already is. It is filled with Poles." And this, "Our only defense, our only solution....a strong and united Israel to serve as warning to anti-semitic people the world over that their time will not come again." And this "When will we Jews finally turn our backs on this poisonous little land?"

There's a degree of hate there that needs to be understood before we can move forward.