Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

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Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#1

Post by henryk » 08 Mar 2016, 20:26

http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/2438 ... ote]Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles' to open this month
PR dla Zagranicy Nick Hodge 08.03.2016 18:55
Poland's first museum in tribute to those who aided Jews during World War II will open on 17 March, it was confirmed on Tuesday.
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma. Photo: wikimedia commons
The museum is based in the south eastern Podkarpackie region in the village of Markowa, and it will be named in honour of the Ulma family, who were shot there by the Nazi-German occupiers for sheltering Jews.
“We want this museum to portray not only what happened in the Podkarpackie region, but also what happened in the entire country,” marshal of the region Władysław Ortył said during the press conference. “Last year the then culture minister Małgorzata Omilanowska agreed to change the designation of our museum from a regional institution to one of a national character,” he noted.
On 24 March 1944, German policemen shot eight Jews who were being sheltered by the Ulmas, together with parents Józef Ulma and Wiktoria Ulma (who was pregnant) and their six children.
Over 6600 ethnic Poles are commemorated in Israel's Garden of the Righteous in Jerusalem for aiding Jews during World War II. Tuesday's conference was held in Warsaw's POLIN Museum of the history of Polish Jews. (nh)[/quote]

Markowa is about 10 km southeast of Łancut, and about 20 km east of Rzeszów.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#2

Post by 4thskorpion » 09 Mar 2016, 18:14

Interesting how the many now want to share the halo for the righteous actions of the few!

Also interesting to note that 36 kms north of Markowa on 8 july 1945....
On July 8, 1945, attackers said to belong to the underground NSZ killed three of eight Jews in Opoczno, Lodz province, including thirty-two-year-old David Mandelbaum, an Auschwitz survivor who had just returned to town.67 The entire Jewish community of Lezajsk, near Rzeszow, appears to have been liquidated altogether on August 7, 1945, when, in what was evidently the deadliest single outbreak of anti-Jewish violence before the Kielce pogrom, sixteen Jews were blown up by a bomb planted under the house that they all shared. 68


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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#3

Post by henryk » 09 Mar 2016, 21:59

http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Micro ... 203128.pdf
This is reference 68 in the message above. The article analyzes the reasons for the post war killings of Jews and concluded no one reason predominated, ie, anti-Semitism was not the main reason.
Contemporary observers of this violence tended to explain it as the result of a combination of factors: the persistence of a long-standing tradition of animosity toward Jews that was not overcome during the Nazi years, but actually exacerbated; a similar continuation of the pre-war tendency of certain right-wing Polish political parties to portray Jews as Poland's enemies; the prominence of Jews in the highly unpopular new regime; and the dashed hopes of those Poles who had taken possession of abandoned Jewish property during the war when they discovered that the Nazi occupiers had not rid their country of Jews altogether. In fact, most analyses of the problem represented all of these factors as complementary, each adding to the situation's volatility.11
In contrast, latter-day historians - to the extent that they have commented upon the full range of violence at all - appear more inclined, as in the specific case of Kielce, to separate the conceptual from the contextual factors and to assign prominence to one or the other set. Hence, for example, in a comprehensive treatment of the establishment of communist rule, a leading Polish scholar asserted quite confidently that "the fact that a victim [of an armed attack] was a Jew or was thought to be a Jew was one cause of aggression but usually not the only one" and that "postwar anti-Semitism was directed less against the Jews and more against the communists who were thought to be Jews."12 Arguing against this tendency to subsume Jewish victims under the rubric of those who died because of their commitment to the communist regime, an Israeli historian has claimed that "it is possible to distinguish clearly between violent attacks upon the regime and its agencies on one hand and the persecution and murder of the Jews."13 Another student of the period has contended that "the situation of the Jews in Poland in the first years after the war was largely determined by deep-rooted historical, economic and psychological factors” and that the argument “that too many Jews held important posts in the government, the Communist party and the security forces..., though widely used ...., did not determine...[the tenor of] Polish-Jewish relations after the liberation.”14
Table 3: Summary of Jewish deaths by violence, November 1944 –
December 1945, according to unidentified report, February 1946
Total Bialystok 38 / Kielce 79 / Krakow 15 / Lublin 69* /Lodz 51 / Rzeszow 34 Warsaw 57 / Other 8 Total 351
Table 5: Approximate numbers (to nearest 5) and percentage distribution
of Polish Government officials and supporters killed, September 1944 –December 1946
Month Killed PCTG
Sept 1944 55 0.9
Oct 65 1.0
Nov 65 1.0
Dec 75 1.2
Jan 1945 110 1.7
Feb 190 2.9
Mar 280 4.3
Apr 340 5.2
May 565 8.7
Jun 535 8.3
Jul 195 3.0
Aug 155 2.4
Sept 195 3.0
Oct 185 2.9
Nov 190 2.9
Dec 165 2.6
Jan 1946 195 3.0
Feb 235 3.6
Mar 240 3.7
Apr 285 4.4
May 305 4.7
Jun 295 4.6
Jul 270 4.2
Aug 240 3.7
Sept 370 5.7
Oct 360 5.6
Nov 170 2.6
Dec 145 2.2
In the final analysis, therefore, it appears that those contemporary observers who, in private discussions at least, pointed to a
multiplicity of factors as responsible for armed attacks upon Jews in postwar Poland, while assigning primacy of place to no one factor in particular, displayed a keener understanding of the situation than later writers, who have insisted upon representing the violence as either contextually or conceptually driven. The story of postwar anti-Jewish violence actually demonstrates the complex interplay of context and concept as determinants of the tenor of Polish-Jewish relations.

Source: Yad Vashem Studies Vol. XXVI, Jerusalem 1998, pp 43-85.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#4

Post by wm » 10 Mar 2016, 00:00

In war people are expected to die in large numbers.
And as it happened, there was a civil war in Poland induced by the victorious allies and their efforts to force a totalitarian communist government on Poland. It seems in their self righteous wisdom they knew better what the Poles wanted, what the Poles needed. So in fact the blood of those people is on their hands. As some say: you break it, you own it.

And anyway considering the tens of thousands of victims of the communist postwar terror and of the civil war those events are just footnotes in the history of Poland.

Actually the NKWD building was the main target in Leżajsk, and some claim the Jews there were NKWD collaborators.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#5

Post by 4thskorpion » 10 Mar 2016, 00:04

The violence and killings were anti-Jewish. The anti-Jewish disturbances or riots were the result of the spreading of false blood libel accusations against Jews in a dozen Polish towns – Kraków, Kielce, Bytom, Białystok, Bielawa, Częstochowa, Legnica, Otwock, Rzeszów, Sosnowiec, Szczecin, Tarnów as well as many other smaller towns in central Poland.

Are there monuments in recognition of these victims of Polish anti-Jewish violence?

Is it also not true that many of those Righteous Poles who aided Jews were often abused with violence and betrayal by their fellow Poles and had to keep their assistance to Jews secret from their neighbours in fear of retribution?
Last edited by 4thskorpion on 10 Mar 2016, 07:45, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#6

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 10 Mar 2016, 00:10

blood libel accusations against Jews
After ~5 years of being exposed to Nazi German propaganda, the worst of all existing anti-Jewish stereotypes was still blood libel?

Very strange: https://www.google.pl/search?q=Der+Stur ... rmer+Juden
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#7

Post by 4thskorpion » 10 Mar 2016, 07:52

Peter K wrote:
blood libel accusations against Jews
After ~5 years of being exposed to Nazi German propaganda, the worst of all existing anti-Jewish stereotypes was still blood libel?

Very strange: https://www.google.pl/search?q=Der+Stur ... rmer+Juden
...and yet Peter that was still all it took for Jews to be killed by fellow Poles for being Jewish survivors in post-war Poland - a persistently ingrained Polish stereotype against Jews based on the false "blood libel" of old.

According Prof. Wierzbieniec, of the Institute of History at the University of Rzeszów, the anti-Jewsih riots in Rzeszow were not the only case of violence against Jews the area. According to the official data in the region of Rzeszow during March 1945 there had been 23 assaults on Jews, in April one person of Jewish origin was wounded in an attack. In June 1945 there was one Jew attacked and two killed, in August 1945 there was an attack which two Jews were killed, three dead and one wounded - such was the aggression by local Poles in relation to the handful of Jews from Rzeszów who survived the horrors of war.

June 12, 1945 local newspaper ”Dziennik Rzeszowski” reported on the front page the discovery in one of the houses the mangled corpse of 9-year-old Bronisława Mendoń. The body was found at ul. Tannenbaum 12 in which the militia were said to have found the body on which the skin of the face of the murdered child was torn and the muscles of the legs and hands were severed.An autopsy also suggested the young girl had been raped.

Leaflets were circulated in Rzeszów, which reported the capture of a Jewish rabbi, in whose house it was alleged were found the remains of the bodies of Catholic children. This coincided in time with the gruesome discovery made on the evening of June 11 in the building at ul. Tannenbaum by eight militia/policemen who were called to the address by one of the residents, who found in the basement a bag with school books belonging to the missing girl. During a search of the building militiamen allegedly came upon a terribly mutilated child’s body. Suspicion fell immediately on the Jews in the building especially since the Tannenbaum apartment block was home to the Rabbi Leib Torna. Militiamen said the murder was definitely doing the Jews who needed the blood of the Catholic child.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#8

Post by henryk » 10 Mar 2016, 20:54

4thskorpion wrote:The violence and killings were anti-Jewish. The anti-Jewish disturbances or riots were the result of the spreading of false blood libel accusations against Jews in a dozen Polish towns – Kraków, Kielce, Bytom, Białystok, Bielawa, Częstochowa, Legnica, Otwock, Rzeszów, Sosnowiec, Szczecin, Tarnów as well as many other smaller towns in central Poland.
Per my message Yad Vashem states anti-Jewishishness was not predominant. Why disregard the analysis of this Jewish organization?

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#9

Post by wm » 11 Mar 2016, 00:25

Well, it is not true that many of those Righteous Poles who aided Jews were often abused with violence and betrayal by their fellow Poles and had to keep their assistance to Jews secret from their neighbours in fear of retribution.

Kielce was a case of moral panic among the local rabble, in a town already on edge for unrelated reasons. It was a surprise even for the officer in charge of the investigation.

Kraków was a confrontation between a few Jews and lumpenproletariat in a well known pre-war shithole.

The others, i suppose mostly results of a forced fishing expedition anyway, were confrontations between Jews trying to regain their pre-war economic footing with the people who took their place.

Their common denominator is they all happened during the first, the most bloody periond after the WW2, when murder, rape and robberies were just a part of the daily life of many people.
So the question is why should we care. Those cases, except Kielce, didn't even make a dent in daily murder statistics in Poland. Maybe it seems cruel but the Jews weren't some kind of white baby seals that should have been protected at all cost, when the lives of the native unattractive brown seals were of no significance.

Because as I said those cases, except Kielce, didn't even make a dent in the daily murder statistics in Poland. People were killed in large numbers on daily basis then.


And in Rzeszów, in the cellar of a tenement building a schoolbag of a missing young girl and then she, seemingly skinned alive was found.
The severely disturbed people of that town understandable cast suspicion upon those living in that building, and they happened to be Jews.

As some maybe know this type of buildings were usually guarded by a janitor/concierge, the entrances locked at night, cellars inaccessible from outside and locked too.
So it is reasonable to suppose that one of them actually did it, and in the end got away with it.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#10

Post by 4thskorpion » 12 Mar 2016, 08:58

henryk wrote:
4thskorpion wrote:The violence and killings were anti-Jewish. The anti-Jewish disturbances or riots were the result of the spreading of false blood libel accusations against Jews in a dozen Polish towns – Kraków, Kielce, Bytom, Białystok, Bielawa, Częstochowa, Legnica, Otwock, Rzeszów, Sosnowiec, Szczecin, Tarnów as well as many other smaller towns in central Poland.
Per my message Yad Vashem states anti-Jewishishness was not predominant. Why disregard the analysis of this Jewish organization?
Because the target of this Polish violence in the towns listed were Jewish (survivors of the Holocaust) and the reasons for the violence was the ingrained Polish stereotype of "blood libel" against Polish Jews. Rumours of Jewish "blood libel" was all it took for anti-Jewish violence and murder to erupt against Holocaust survivors in post-war Poland.

Recalling Rzeszów June 1945, Militiamen said the murder was definitely doing the Jews who needed the blood of the Catholic child.
Blood libel (also blood accusation) is an accusation that Jews kidnapped and murdered the children of Christians in order to use their blood as part of their religious rituals during Jewish holidays.
USHMM - THE KIELCE POGROM: A BLOOD LIBEL MASSACRE OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#11

Post by 4thskorpion » 12 Mar 2016, 09:25

It is fitting that these 6,000 Poles should be honoured for the courage of their actions but the "Righteousness" of 6,000 does not mean that Poland was of itself a "Righteous" nation of around 27 millions in which circa 3 million Polish Jews were murdered, some of whom were murdered at the hands of local Poles, no matter what the instigators of such a monument would like to propagandise to the world.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#12

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 12 Mar 2016, 12:07

4thskorpion,

Check official numbers (as of February 2016) of 'Righteous Gentiles' per each ethnic group (those who belonged to national minorities were not assigned to Poland, even if they were pre-war Polish citizens): http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/statistics.asp . Polish contingent is the most numerous in absolute numbers, and 2nd only to Dutch in per capita terms. If we want to be fair then we should compare the ratio of 'Righteous Gentiles' to 'Nazi collaborators' in each nation, and see how Poland compares with France, Lithuania, Ukraine, etc.
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#13

Post by 4thskorpion » 12 Mar 2016, 13:53

Peter K wrote:4thskorpion,

Check official numbers (as of February 2016) of 'Righteous Gentiles' per each ethnic group (those who belonged to national minorities were not assigned to Poland, even if they were pre-war Polish citizens): http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/statistics.asp . Polish contingent is the most numerous in absolute numbers, and 2nd only to Dutch in per capita terms. If we want to be fair then we should compare the ratio of 'Righteous Gentiles' to 'Nazi collaborators' in each nation, and see how Poland compares with France, Lithuania, Ukraine, etc.
I do not dispute that there are more Poles on the list of "Righteous" but when these 6,000 courageous Poles are held up as an representing the Righteousness the entire Polish nation that is a false and disingenuous representation of history. Especially when a few kilometers away from the site of this monument Poles were acting in a less than righteous manner against the Jewish Holocaust survivors!

There was a controversy recently when Gross pointed out that during World War II Poles killed more Jews than they killed Germans!

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#14

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 12 Mar 2016, 15:13

4thskorpion wrote:There was a controversy recently when Gross pointed out that during World War II Poles killed more Jews than they killed Germans!
The problem is that he did not back up this claim with any evidence. And it seems that he was comparing the number of German soliders killed by Poles, to the number of Jewish civilians killed by Poles. Why didn't he include also ethnically German civilians killed by Poles? It also seems that he didn't include losses inflicted by Polish forces fighting alongside Western Allies (PSZ in the West) and the Red Army (LWP in the East), but only took into account German losses in September-October 1939 and in areas of occupied Poland between 1939 and 1945.

He also isn't clear, what does he actually mean by "Jews killed by Poles".

Does it include Jews denounced to Germans by szmalcowniks or handed over by collaborators, but killed by Germans?

"During World War II" - I guess it means since 01.09.1939 until 02.09.1945.
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Museum of Poland's 'Righteous Gentiles'

#15

Post by history1 » 12 Mar 2016, 15:31

henryk wrote:[...] Why disregard the analysis of this Jewish organization?
LOL
The Auschwitz Memorial & Museum is publishing on their FB page that the SDG Herbert Scherpe was an SS- officer who murdered teens, in reallity he held only the lowest NCO rank!
They also mention "Germans" as guards of a certain workgroup, without any evidence that they were Germans at all and not eg. Trawniki men. Also it´s very ashameing for them that they are not naming the units /SS men, once the called them Nazi Germans or Nazi Germany and even not SS men. But with the new politic in Poland the apopriate term is only the generalise "Germans".

Or to give you another example: The USHMM claimed in on of their posts that the photo shows forced laborers in a sewing workshop in the Litzmannstadt ghetto. I asked who was forced to work there exactly because as I know from numerous scientific publications and original documents (letters, cards) most people there wished to have a wrok place to have an income and to be able to buy overprized food but also because in the workshops an additionaly bowl of soup was delivered to every worker! They also claimed that my informations are incorrect and that I need to look on their social media guidelines (which they only share on ther website, but no hint at the FB -page!). And that wa the reason that they dleted my post. Once again I posted my totally correct information and pointed other totally OT posts out which they did not complain about or delete, starnegely all where from Poland. I also corrected ( posted a information about the 20000 men and 1000 teens there ) the wrong statement of another woman below their post who claimed that in Ravensbrück were only women imprisoned. And another woman looking for a gypsie forced labor camp and confusing it with Ravensbrück I told that it´s a mistake because this was in Ravensburg and she was overjoyed.
But what did the USHMM - they BLOCKED me and deleted my comments, and caused with this action more misinformation in only this one post then their upload is an information!

Conclusion: No one tells me that there is ANY institution with reliability!

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