Is it true that mention of the Bereza Kartuska concentration camp (1934-1939) has been banned in Poland?

[gebhk]

Hi Sid and Michael

I've had a look at the first Mary Seacole episode Michael supplied. The subject reaised my interest, me being a nurse by profession 'nall.

Sheesh

The paranoia is new - some all-pervading plot to obbliterate 'proper' (ie dated) history by an all-powerful lefty cabal on one hand and on the other a rather sad mindset that somehow if we acknowledge Mary Seacole's contribution that means that Florence Nightingale's is somehow diminished - indeed according to his sad take on the world, extinguished. Particulalry bizarre given that both the women in question appear not to have had such qualms.... The hysterics because Mary Seacole got a statue is a typical symptom - I mean, does that somehow mean that the dozens of Florence Nightingale statues all over the world no longer exist? Or is he obsessing that a woman of colour got one, to the point that he can see nothing else?

Otherwise, it's the same combo of talking through his hat (his belittling of Mary Secole's contribution and skill-set is not borne out by contemporary documents) and the less than subtle use of facts to spin an entirely fallacious narrative. For example the frequently repeated assertion that MS was not a nurse (of course she wasn't, there was no such thing as a nurse at the time) as a means to implying that FN was - which of course she also was not (see above) while, in fact, MS undoubtedly had a wealth of hands-on experience of nursing and treating the wounded and diseased, while FN had little. They were very different people who did very different things and who both deserve to be remembered for their contributions. The whole idea that the two were and are somehow in competition is, frankly, inane. It's like saying that admiration of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's paintings is a plot to eclipse Nicholas Serota.

[wm]

This is from the public broadcaster's  website and according to a professor of history:

Bereza.png (274.53 KiB) Viewed 2006 times

He says: Bereza was similar to a contemporary German concentration camp.
It's straight from the horse mouth and shows it's perfectly possible to use "Polish concentration camps" and more.

Of course, even the statement is misleading unless we know that contemporary German concentration camps weren't that bad.
That in (much larger) Dachau, between 1933 and 1937, they recorded on average 15 deaths per year (up to 2 in Bereza.)

I found the article he used in his video:

The Times.png (250.62 KiB) Viewed 2006 times

It's not especially good, but the Jewish daily "Głos Poranny" had more:

Due to the 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania (demanding to establish diplomatic relations with Poland), there was panic in Warsaw, resulting in bank runs and riots.
The riots were blamed on the Endecja splinter group "Falanga" - basically a right-wing Antifa. That was, at best, only partially true.

On the other hand, the speculators created financial panic claiming the stock market would collapse.
"Głos Poranny" gives their names:
Halpern Chaim, Frodzinsta Abram, Kirsablum Mojżesz, Wajeman Moszka, Ekstajn Izaak, Brandes Isreal, Glikson Abram, Majorka Herman, Tennenbum Henryk, Dlugołęki Stanisław, Degorski Stefan i Noiszewski Wacław.
There were three Poles among them - this maybe even reflects the real distribution between Jews and Poles in that business.
After all, Joseph Marcus, in his "Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland 1919-1939," writes that in Poland:

Forty-three percent ... of capital owners were Jewish; in the top-income group, the proportion was even higher.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Michael Kenny,

I ask again:

You raise Mary Secole as an example. What did he say about Mary Secole that is inaccurate? The floor is yours......

Cheers,

Sid

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi gebhk,

I note that you didn't contradict a single fact that "History Debunked" put forward about Mary Secole.

As I understand his argument, she was not a nurse, as the current promotion of her life would have it. She was employed to run a restaurant for officers in the Crimea. Is this not true?

You say, "MS undoubtedly had a wealth of hands-on experience of nursing and treating the wounded and diseased". What is the evidence for this beyond the claims of her own book? (An open question, as I have no idea).

Given the race and gender attitudes of the times in which she lived, she was clearly a quite remarkable woman. However, her real talent seems to have been as an indefatigable serial entrepreneur. Perhaps her statue should be in the City of London, rather than outside St. Thomas's Hospital?

There is no doubt that there has been a deliberate promotion of Mary Seacole (and others from minorities) in recent years with the aim of making our increasingly multicultural society more inclusive. I don't think this is a bad thing of itself, but it would have a sounder basis the more closely it adheres to the known facts.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Michael Kenny]

Sheesh

The paranoia is new - some all-pervading plot to obbliterate 'proper' (ie dated) history by an all-powerful lefty cabal on one hand and on the other a rather sad mindset that somehow if we acknowledge Mary Seacole's contribution that means that Florence Nightingale's is somehow diminished -

Look at the entirety of his output. He is completely obsessed with 'race' issues and any positive mention of dark-skinned peoples seems to spur him into uploading a film that give his opposing view. His latest film is where he peddles his claim 'black women' are more violent than 'white women'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVcNPG ... ryDebunked

He is a vile hate-monger.

[gebhk]

I note that you didn't contradict a single fact that "History Debunked" put forward about Mary Secole.

Not the case. I explicitly contradicted his belittling of Mary Secole's contribution and skill-set because it is not borne out by contemporary documents.

As I understand his argument, she was not a nurse,

It is an inane argument, because no one was a nurse at the time, becuase the profession had not yet been invented. He uses this argument to imply that Florence Nightingale was - which she was not for the obvious reason that the profession had not yet been invented.

MS undoubtedly had a wealth of hands-on experience of nursing and treating the wounded and diseased". What is the evidence for this beyond the claims of her own book?

I'm not a Seacole scholar so probably not the best person to ask. However, I've not come across any denial that her mother was a nurse and healer who taught her daughter from a young age, that she bagan practicing form childhood or that she nursed and treated people including soldiers during epidemics in Jamaica and Panama. I have also never come across any denial that she was practising hygiene as a key element of practice - part of the Creole medical tradition, practiced decades before Florence Nightingale incorprated it into her reforms.

She was employed to run a restaurant for officers in the Crimea. Is this not true

Strictly not true. She was not employed - the restaurant was her business. Unlike Florence Nightingale, she had to earn a living.

There is no doubt that there has been a deliberate promotion of Mary Seacole (and others from minorities) in recent years with the aim of making our increasingly multicultural society more inclusive. I don't think this is a bad thing of itself, but it would have a sounder basis the more closely it adheres to the known facts.

I agree with you, but would point out that the same applies to Florence Nightingale.

Given the race and gender attitudes of the times in which she lived, she was clearly a quite remarkable woman. However, her real talent seems to have been as an indefatigable serial entrepreneur. Perhaps her statue should be in the City of London, rather than outside St. Thomas's Hospital?

The irony of this statement in this context is that you can just as well say virtually the same thing about Florence Nightingale, probably with greater accuracy.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi gebhk,

What "contemporary documents"? We have her autobiography, but what else do we have? (I accept that you have no particular expertise in this area, but I will leave the question hanging in the hope that someone else can answer it).

If Mary Secole was not a nurse because "no one was a nurse at the time" (fair point), one has to wonder why her statue was put outside St. Thomas's Hospital?

It is first up to proponents of Mary Secole's claimed history to substantiate it. Until then it is legitimate to question it. I guess I will have to get a footnoted Mary Secole biography. (AHF costs me a small fortune in unpremeditated book purchases).

Certainly Nightingale was heavily promoted as a symbol of empire. However, she did have some medical training before the Crimean War and after it had a major influence on turning nursing into a profession. (I seem to recall that she was also innovative in the presentation of information. Didn't she invent the Pie Chart or some such visual aid?)

Finally, I often contradict Simon (the History Debunked guy). This is my last comment on one of his pieces:

"Simon has not done some of his research properly and is presenting a partially false narrative, The fact that there were not more West Indians in the British forces or working in the UK in WWII was down to British policy, not reluctance in the West Indies.

After WWI the British had disbanded all regular West Indian army units. Thus, in 1939 there was absolutely no regular base from which to rapidly expand new ones or modern equipment to issue them. When West Indian battalions were mobilized they initially had to be retained in the West Indies due to the rising U-boat threat. By 1943 two mixed brigades had been formed.

In early 1944 an expeditionary element, 1st Battalion, Caribbean Regiment, was created and sent to Italy. As it was raised on the same terms as metropolitan British units, it should have been brigaded in a British Division. However, the British were reluctant to do this. Instead, the battalion was sent on to Egypt on the spurious grounds that it lacked replacements for battle casualties. In fact, the battalion arrived WITH a replacement manpower pool, there was a second battalion forming and there were two brigades worth of replacements in the Caribbean.

In 1944 Britain, by now overextended and short of its own manpower, raised 6,000 largely Jamaicans as RAF. ground crew. These men were selected because they already had some technical experience or aptitude. After WWII they were sent home and demobbed. However, unemployment was high there and ex-RAF men formed a significant proportion of those who arrived on the Windrush in 1948. They didn't arrive to rebuild Britain after the war, but that is what they effectively helped do.

That 40,000 West Indians worked in the USA, not the UK, was the result of higher Allied manpower deployments. In 1941 it was decided that the most important immediate use of West Indian manpower was to help build the numerous US Lease-Lend bases constructed all over the Caribbean. When these bases were completed in 1942-43 and this manpower became free again, it was decided to recruit as many as possible for work in the USA to replace American manpower mobilized for the US armed forces.

There were a few skills that the UK was short of at home that some West Indians could fulfil. There was a shortage of foresters, so a thousand men from British Honduras worked in the UK over 1941-43. However, they found the climate in Scotland severe and most were repatriated in early 1944 and largely went on to work in the USA.

Thus the West Indians in the USA were never invited to the UK and those West Indians who were invited to the UK came. Furthermore, those who worked on building US bases in the Caribbean and in the USA were furthering British and Allied interests, not evading them."

Cheers,

Sid.

[gebhk]

What "contemporary documents"?

Many witness accounts/mentions, I understand. Examples include Fanny Dubberly and WH Russell. Also some of the doctors who worked alongside her. I expect the citations for her several awards might provide some additional evidence.

It is first up to proponents of Mary Seacole's claimed history to substantiate it.

I would suggest that it is up to proponents of alternative history to substantiate it in exactly the same way. Something Simon signally fails to do in this case.

Until then it is legitimate to question it

It is legitimate to question all history

I guess I will have to get a footnoted Mary Secole biography. (AHF costs me a small fortune in unpremeditated book purchases).

I suspect you may have to look up Jane Robinson's biography of MS. No idea if it is any good as a historical work but it is probably good starter. If I am in the vicinity, I will pop into the RCN library and ask what the best sources would be.

Certainly Nightingale was heavily promoted as a symbol of empire.

And many other things too, just as Mary Seacole was. And, I would suggest, the promoters of Empire big-time missed a trick when they forgot MS, by the way. For one reason or another, people use historical events and personalities to promote their world view. Nothing wrong with that. but that is entirely separate from those events and people; something which is often forgotten and we descend, as in this case, into some sort of inane and utterly artificial 'battle of the symbols' as an alternative to debating the real issue, whatever that might be. I can see why multiculturalists would see a potent symbol in MS - she was of mixed race (actually more white than black) and mixed two medical traditions to do a lot of good. While we are on the subject, I suspect the concidence that Mary Seacole became of interest to the nursing profession at a time when the Nurse Practitioner role was being developed and rolled out, a role that she is seen as being a pioneer of, is not entirely a coincidence .

If Mary Secole was not a nurse because "no one was a nurse at the time" (fair point), one has to wonder why her statue was put outside St. Thomas's Hospital?

One could, with equal legitimacy, ask 'one has to wonder why does St Thomas' Hospital house the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care and the Nightingale Museum?'. The answer, of course, is that in very different ways, both these women pioneered and made a significant contribution to different aspects of modern nursing. Should we object to a statue of Pilsudski outside a Polish military barracks just becuase he was not a professional soldier (a nod there to the topic of the thread )? OK, to be fair, even today the title 'nurse' has no legal standing in the UK, so anyone can call themselves a nurse, provided they don't call themselves a 'registered nurse' if they are not. My point, however, is that this applies to Florence Nightingale in exactly the same way as it does to Mary Seacole. Either they were both nurses or neither.

However, she did have some medical training before the Crimean War

Not that I am aware of. As far as I am aware, she self-taught herself on nursing texts and then attended a school of nursing in Germany. However hands-on she worked for only about a year on the shop floor in what would probably be called nowadays a genteel nursing home before moving into management - which was without any doubt her forte. Of the two, Mary Seacole had therefore, by far more hands-on experience. She also had, apaprently, some medical expertise which she gained 'on the job' from medics she worked alongside in Jamaica and Panama.

after it had a major influence on turning nursing into a profession. (I seem to recall that she was also innovative in the presentation of information. Didn't she invent the Pie Chart or some such visual aid?)

I think we can safely say that she pretty much singlehandedly created the nursing profession in the modern sense albeit a state register, something we would consider essential these days (a step which she opposed in fact, believing it would create an obstacle for working-class women), did not come into being until 1921, some 11 years after her death. The important thing to bear in mind for a proper assessment of her historical role was that she was first and foremost a social reformer with a particular interest in health and welfare. The pioneering of nursing as a profession was a major tool that she used to this end as well as - as you quite correctly point out - statistics. Her use of statistics to back a reformist argument was pioneering, she became the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society and her polar area diagram is now known as a “Nightingale Rose Diagram" and is still in widespread use today. Mary Seacole, on the other hand was, first and foremost, a hands-on practitioner. While espousing many of the same basic principles of nursing as Nightingale, the crucial differences are firstly that she put them into practice hands on while Nightingale used them as the foundation of a system. Secondly, Mary Seacole embodied a role, what would nowadays be called a nurse practitioner role, arguably over a hundred years ahead of her time and very different from the nursing role that Florence Nightingale was developing.

But we seem to be straying very far from the subject of the thread

[gebhk]

I forced myself to watch the other clip on MS by Simon. This one is just plain embarassing. Pretty much every other sentence contains a factual inaccuracy, often of the most basic nature. The polar area diagram is not a pie chart (even though it might vaguely look like one to someone who doesn't understand them); deaths by disease are in pink, not grey; Mary Seacole did work in a hospital; Ukraine did not exist in 1853; Mary Seacole did work as a nurse; it goes on and on.

The main thrust that Florence Nightingale's mathematical legacy has been forgotten because of the 'digging up' of Mary Seacole does not hold up for one second and Simon presents not one iota of evidence to support this assertion. It had NEVER entered public conciousness. What did was the syrupy kindly lady (angel) with the lamp and that can be squarely placed at the door of the Victorian media. The 'false equivalence' of Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale is, in the main, a strawman of his own creation.

Again the less than subtle use of facts ripped bloodily out of context to make inane insinuations, like calling Mary Seacole a 'hotel keeper' to insinuate she was not a nurse. In equal vein one could call Florence Nightingale a pen pusher or a rich layabout (she was prostrated after Crimea with what some people nowadays believe to be chronic fatigue syndrome) to the same end. None of which is in any way useful or relevant. This seems to be his stock-in-trade along with, to be polite, a tenous grasp of the facts.

The long and the short of it is that the whole modern-invented rivalry between these women is inane. Its like arguing whether Albert Lemaître was greater than Henry Ford or vice versa. The answer lies in the question. If you ask who was the greater driver, then Lamaitre is likely the answer. If you ask who had the greater impact on motoring - I don't think anyone would deny Henry that accolade. The reason Mary Seacole was forgotten for a long time was not because she was black but because she was a practitioner of the art rather than an organiser of the profession. For a host of reasons, that is the way of the world. That is why Thomas Chippendale is famous and the men who actually made the furniture he is famous for, are not. Cancelling Florence Nightingale to elevate Mary Seacole is stupid, because it does not. By the same dint and for the same reason, cancelling Mary Seacole to elevate Florence Nightingale is equally stupid.

[Michael Kenny]

Again the less than subtle use of facts ripped bloodily out of context to make inane insinuations, like calling Mary Seacole a 'hotel keeper' to insinuate she was not a nurse. .....

It is all very simple really. He hates anything that tries to portrays 'black' subjects in a positive way. Mary Seacole is a target because of her colour and nothing at all to do with her work as a nurse.

[gebhk]

Hi Michael

I somehow don't get that it's a black thing - it would be ironic if it was, given that Mary Seacole was, as far as I can make out, more white than black. I think you got it right the first time. I suspect Simon is allergic to change and with that comes an allergy to 'lefty, woke revisionist' views. I think Mary Seacole is a target because she is the subject of this sort of revisionism. It is ironic perhaps, that he is supportive of Florence Nightingale on this who was not only a 'lefty woke' but a very successful one at that! Be that as it may, I would have no problem with him if he called out the monumentally stupid and ignorant 'anti-Florence Nightingale' racist narrative of the likes of Salman Rushdie on this subject. Instead he prefers to join the cancel culture he supposedly despises and the same stupid and ignorant narrative he is against, supposedly.

Perhaps one key to this is that Florence Nightingale did not invent (modernise, professionalise - call it what you will) the nursing profession. She invented a particular branch of the profession, namely hospital nursing. Contrary to popular myth, one that Simon incidentally seems to subscribe to, she did not battle the entire establishment on her own to establish her ideas, it was an idea whose time had come. So much so that despite catering for a minority of sick and disabled people, it has become the dominant branch out of all proportion, so that in the popular perception the entire nursing profession is equated with hospital nursing and not without some foundation. Whether that is a good thing continues to be hotly debated within the profession and healthcare generally. Mary Seacole was not that sort of nurse and, indeed, never saw herself as such - she almost always refers to herself in this context as a 'doctress' - once only as 'doctress, nurse and mother' while she always refers to FN and her staff as 'nurses'. Her sort of nursing combined with doctoring aka, what would nowadays be called a nurse practitioner, aside from very narrowly defined examples during WW2, did not start emerging until the tail end of the last century. It is not entirely a coincidence, I would suggest, that the nursing profession began to take an interest in Mary Seacole at the same time. Unfortunately this dabate has been hijacked by the likes of Salman Rushdie and Simon for their own agendas even though it has diddly to do with those agendas.

[David Thompson]

Let's get this discussion back on topic.

[gebhk]

Alas, I think it was exhausted a long time ago...

[Ponury]

Answering once more. No, there is no such ban in Poland.

[wm]

There were some important differences between Bereza and Dachau.
A high-ranking official of state administration (the starosta?) was responsible for sentencing (the police in Germany), and the sentence had to be confirmed by an independent judge.
It wasn't a punishment, but isolation of people deemed a danger to public order.
The longest sentence possible was three months (up to life in Germany).