The Jews of Poland

[4thskorpion]

I don't know what dog-tag have to do with anything. Especially those not connected with the 1939 war.

Because you wrote this through ignorance of the subject:

Your story is highly unlikely.
There was no need to identify a Polish soldier of Jewish origin.

Polish dog-tags were marked with the soldiers religion so that if he died he could be buried in accordance with his faith. In Zitler's case MOJ for Mojzeszowa, and for the Polish Jewish para "MOJZ" both Polish army designations for the Jewish religion. :roll:

As I said a Polish soldier of Jewish origin fighting in the 1939 Defensive War was easily identifiable by Germans (because of his papers), and he had no reason to hide his identity. In fact he shouldn't have hidden his identity, because the Hague Conventions required he gave it to the POV camp administration correctly.

If you say that pre-war dog tags were not marked as such and so by implication the Zilter dog tag is "highly unlikely", then prove it.

Also with your extensive knowledge of the subject please tell us when did a soldier's religion get added to Polish dog-tags after 1939 and why did the Polish army have them so marked if his papers identified him and his religion?

As I said .....

Indeed you do say.

[wm]

Because you wrote this through ignorance of the subject:

I meant by the Germans, as Zitler claimed:

The Germans could not tell the Jews apart from the other Polish soldiers. They depended on the Poles to tell them that.

Because the information they were supposedly diligently seeking was readily available. That dependency was not needed.

The problem is that his story is cartoonish and inconsistent. That he was laughed at is quite believable. The rest who knows - especially without listening to the other side. One sided stories, on their own are generally of little value.

This is the man he mentioned, second lieutenant Adam Walczak

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He was born in Berlin but undoubtedly was a Polish patriot, known and dedicated Scouting activist (pre- and post- war), a war hero, a partisan hero. He escaped from German captivity, then from Soviet captivity, for many years was persecuted by the Communists, he wrote a few books about the war times.
I would be nice to compare his story with Mr Shep Zitler's story.
Because as far a I can tell second lieutenant Adam Walczak was a decent man.

Also with your extensive knowledge of the subject please tell us when did a soldier's religion get added to Polish dog-tags after 1939 and why did the Polish army have them so marked if his papers identified him and his religion?

Dog-tags serve a different purpose than service books. Although some information is duplicated for obvious reasons.

[4thskorpion]

Because you wrote this through ignorance of the subject:

I meant by the Germans, as Zitler claimed:

The Germans could not tell the Jews apart from the other Polish soldiers. They depended on the Poles to tell them that.

Because the information they were supposedly diligently seeking was readily available. That dependency was not needed.

So you say but this not based on any opinion but your own.

The problem is that his story is cartoonish and inconsistent. That he was laughed at is quite believable. The rest who knows - especially without listening to the other side. One sided stories, on their own are generally of little value.

As Zitler wrote, he was laughed at for his poor Polish language accent and not his story!

I would be nice to compare his story with Mr Shep Zitler's story.
Because as far a I can tell second lieutenant Adam Walczak was a decent man.

From you inference Zitler was not a decent man....why? Because he wrote negatively about Poles and the antisemitism he experienced from them and Walczak did not so therefore Walczak was a decent man. :roll: :roll:

Also with your extensive knowledge of the subject please tell us when did a soldier's religion get added to Polish dog-tags after 1939 and why did the Polish army have them so marked if his papers identified him and his religion?

Dog-tags serve a different purpose than service books. Although some information is duplicated for obvious reasons.

wm, you introduced the Polish army service book as your argument that Zitler's Polish army identity disc, which has his religion stamped on it, was not credible because this data was contained in his Polish service book therefore superfluous on an ID disc. Is that not what you implied? But now, in a not surprising volte-face, you acknowledge that dog-tags were marked with a serviceman's religion. :roll:

[wm]

I didn't say or intended to say anything about the discs, they are irrelevant.
The point is the Germans did have all the information they needed (thanks to soldiers' papers and actually thanks to those discs) without any investigations, so his story is rather suspicious.

His story has no background. He didn't really say what happened there. He said more about his car or finding job in NY than about Poland.

There was nothing wrong with selecting the POWs according to their ethnicity or religion. The Germans had the right to do it, if for good, lawful reasons.
Who were the Polish helpers? A POWs camp committee? If so they were doing what they were supposed to do, maintaining order and all the papers.

I would understand he wrote what he wrote during the war. Maybe he was hazed in the Army it happens. But sixty years later?

Did read anything about his unit? About his former colleagues? There is quite a few books on this subject.
Did he join any veterans' organizations, what about the annual veterans reunions?

Maybe he would learn eventually that he wasn't alone in this unit. That Jews and other minorities were maybe even majority there, that 50% of soldiers were illiterate.
All we have: The anti-Semitism was terrible. Although according to Jaakow Kaplan, living in the same town:

Yaakov’s parents were not religious. They never attended Synagogue and didn’t keep kosher. At home, the Yiddish and Polish languages were spoken.
Yaakov remembers his and his family's situation till 1939 as a very good one. Some of Yaakov’s parents’ friends tried to convince them to leave to Palestine but Yaakov’s parents refused to leave.
Yaakov remembers that there was some kind of anti-Semitism, but he had never experienced it. He didn’t have Polish friends. He also reminds that expression “Jew” was rather not in use – “Mosaic confession” was used. From 1933 there was no liking for Jews, but mostly from the German's side.

And what I meant was that he was laughed at for his poor Polish language.
Although in the Army there were language courses for soldiers like him.

[4thskorpion]

Remains of Polish Jew whose wife and children were gassed at Auschwitz before he was dismembered and pickled in a test tube by sadistic Nazi doctor (Dr August Hirt) is finally laid to rest 72 years later.

A Polish Jew whose body parts were pickled in a test tube by a sadistic Nazi doctor has finally been laid to rest 70 years after he was murdered.

Menachem Taffel, a dairy merchant who lived in Berlin, died a hideous death so Dr August Hirt could preserve the skulls and bones of 'these sub-humans' so the 'degeneracy and the animality of these Jews', could be documented.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... later.html

[RG]

, you acknowledge that dog-tags were marked with a serviceman's religion. :roll:

I do not understand what is your point? The shape and information on Polish dog tags was established in 1931 (if I am correct). The fact that information on religion was to be mentioned is obvious. In Polish prewar army there was a plethora of various religions so there was a need to mark it to avoid situation that soldiers would get improper funeral service. In polsh army there were priests of various religions whou could give final service to their coreligionists.

[4thskorpion]

, you acknowledge that dog-tags were marked with a serviceman's religion. :roll:

I do not understand what is your point? The shape and information on Polish dog tags was established in 1931 (if I am correct). The fact that information on religion was to be mentioned is obvious. In Polish prewar army there was a plethora of various religions so there was a need to mark it to avoid situation that soldiers would get improper funeral service. In polsh army there were priests of various religions whou could give final service to their coreligionists.

What you say about Polish dog-tags is perfectly correct as I am fully aware of however wm did not agree that was so.... at first.

The point was that wm in an earlier post, through ignorance of the subject, implied that because the Polish serviceman's religion was noted in his service book there was no reason for it to be stamped his pre-war dog-tags as illustrated in the Zitler article and therefore the Zitler story was "highly unlikely" as was Zitler's description of the antisemitism he experienced, etc. etc.

Hopefully that fully answers your question?

[RG]

, you acknowledge that dog-tags were marked with a serviceman's religion. :roll:

I do not understand what is your point? The shape and information on Polish dog tags was established in 1931 (if I am correct). The fact that information on religion was to be mentioned is obvious. In Polish prewar army there was a plethora of various religions so there was a need to mark it to avoid situation that soldiers would get improper funeral service. In polsh army there were priests of various religions whou could give final service to their coreligionists.

What you say about Polish dog-tags is perfectly correct as I am fully aware of however wm did not agree that was so.... at first.

The point was that wm in an earlier post, through ignorance of the subject, implied that because the Polish serviceman's religion was noted in his service book there was no reason for it to be stamped his pre-war dog-tags as illustrated in the Zitler article and therefore the Zitler story was "highly unlikely" as was Zitler's description of the antisemitism he experienced, etc. etc.

Hopefully that fully answers your question?

Not so fast. Not every Polish soldier received his dog-tag, and the second, sometimes they received blank plates and filled it by themselves so it is not certain he wrote his religion.

[4thskorpion]

so it is not certain he wrote his religion.

You think so?

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Do you have further examples of pre-war dog tags to compare?

[Ponury]

Among the Jews incorporated into the Polish Army in 1939. There were many heroes. Of the total number of incorporated approx. 150,000 killed almost two thousand, although these figures are not accurate. In the German POW camps, Jews were left passed to the Gestapo and placed in ordinary camps. Majdanek Jewish non-commissioned officers of the Polish army refused to swap their uniforms for prison stripes, for which they were persecuted.

Why, before the war, the mass of well-known personalities, including several generals were Polish Jews. Even well-known educator Janusz Korczak was a major in the 1920 war ...

[4thskorpion]

Jews at the Battle of Arnhem (September 1944) by Martin Sugarman

Twenty eight Polish Jewish Airborne Soldiers (from the relatively small Polish Brigade) fought at Arnhem, of whom ten were officers - see "Jewish Military Casualties in the Polish Armies in WW2" by Benjamin Meirtchak, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1995. Many more did not admit to being Jewish; it has been possible to trace the names of only about half of them here: Jewish Airborne Soldiers

Some had enlisted as Catholic and Atheist - and one even as C of E, extremely unlikely for a Pole! This yet again is clear evidence of the fact that many Polish Jews lied about their religion (for fear of capture by the Germans as well as anti-Semitism in the Polish Forces) and obviously the real number of Polish Jews serving is a great underestimate.

The 21st Independent Parachute Company included at least 26 Austrian, German, Polish and Czech anti-Nazi Refugees, who volunteered from the Pioneer Corps (M Middlebrooke p 33), using mostly Irish and Scottish Nommes de Guerre - almost all of whom were Jewish. In the novel "The Four Sergeants" by Zeno aka Lamarr aka Allerton, their courage is described as outstanding by the author, who fought with them. Survivors Solly Scott, Peter Block and many others attest to this as does Gen. Urquhart in his book "Arnhem” on page 29.

Jewish Airborne Soldiers were awarded

DFC – 2
DFM - 1
Certificate of Gallantry - 1
MM - 5
MiD - 4
OBE - 1
MC - 5
CBE -1
DCM - 1
Polish Virtuti Militari - 2
Polish MM - 5
Polish Bronze Cross of Merit - 1
Polish Cross of Valour - 1
Bronze Lion of Netherlands - 1
Dutch War Cross - 1
Dutch Knight Officer of the Order of Orange Nassau – 2

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David Salik (1914—2012)

Polish Jewish paratrooper who was decorated for his initiative during the disastrous Allied attack on the Dutch towns of Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Wolfheze, Driel and the surrounding countryside from 17–26 September 1944.

David Salik was one of the last surviving veterans of the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade which was dropped at Arnhem in September 1944. A sergant in 3rd Parachute Batalion, David Salik had survived imprisonment in a Soviet labour camp , in 1942 he served with Polish forces in Iran, Iraq and Palestine and was later awarded the Polish Field Para badge, the Medal Wojska Polskiego—Military Medal and Bronze Krzyż Zasługi—Cross of Merit with Swords and 4 British campaign medals. At the war’s end David Salik was to be one of a small number of Jews from his home town of Sanok, Poland to have survived the Holocaust.

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[4thskorpion]

Research Reveals Jewish Officers Among Katyn Massacre Victims

At least 262 Jewish officers were among the over 4,000 Polish officers whom the current Polish government now states were massacred by the Soviet Union in World War II among them Major Baruch Steinberg, chief rabbi of the Polish army.

[Ponury]

Thanks for Salik`s story. Our hero!

[4thskorpion]

Thanks for Salik`s story. Our hero!

Jewish soldiers like Salik put lie to myth that Jews made poor soldiers and fighters!

For those not familiar with Polish forces insignia, you will note in the first portrait of Salik he is wearing the Polish paratrooper wing badge on his left breast to show that he completed the para training course successfully. In the second photo he is wearing the Polish para wing with the later added wreath to signify he had taken part in a drop during a combat operation.

[wm]

Among the Jews incorporated into the Polish Army in 1939. There were many heroes. Of the total number of incorporated approx. 150,000 killed almost two thousand, although these figures are not accurate.

This amounts to one percent. In comparison, in the September campaign the Polish Army suffered irrecoverable casualties of 66000 - seven percent.