Karski and homosexuals

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Karski
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Karski and homosexuals

#1

Post by Karski » 29 Oct 2022, 15:17

On 30 October and 6 November, 1943, the american magazine Collier's published "Revenge in Poland, By Mr. B, as told to George Creel".

This "Mr. B." is Karski, according to Maciej Kozłowski, "The Emissary, Story of Jan Karski", English translation by Joanna Maria Kwiatowska, © The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warschau 2007,
https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/sites/defau ... karski.pdf .

The two parts of Creel's article have been brought together in a brochure, which can be consulted on the website of the University of Toledo :
https://utdr.utoledo.edu/islandora/obje ... m/OBJ/view .

In the second part, p. 32-33, Karski says :
A large percentage of the Germans in Poland are homosexuals. You may remember that Captain Ernst Roehm advocated this degeneracy in a book that was compulsory reading for his Storm Troops. In the cities, Black Shirts are under orders to abuse our boys, and the guards in concentration camps and labor camps, recruited from the slums of the Reich, practice perversions in every form on their young prisoners. Hoffman, the loathsome creature our death squad stabbed to death, was a leader in this campaign.
In every possible, horrible way, the Nazis try to deprave our youth. Goebbels, that foul cripple, floods the land with pornographic magazines, filled with lust and obscenity, and the only motion pictures shown in Poland are vile beyond description. Free brothels for the use of Polish boys are maintained in many places, and there is an increasing use of candies containing drugs. Another Hun activity is the operation of casinos in towns and villages, where youngsters are taught to gamble and drink.

War Against Viciousness

We fight back as best we can, but it is very difficult. Only yesterday I received a cable reporting that Hans Schillinger, head of the bureau running these casinos, had been executed in Warsaw by a punitive detachment. Our underground papers print the name of everyone seen entering a cinema or reading a German magazine, and sentence of ostracism is passed. In extreme cases, where we are convinced that a boy has been debauched beyond cure, and is a danger to his fellows, the court orders his elimination.
Are there other sources that confirm that the Polish underground applied the death penalty to incurable young Polish homosexuals?
Thanks in advance for every answer.

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wm
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Re: Karski and homosexuals

#2

Post by wm » 29 Oct 2022, 15:49

In Poland, especially in the Second Polish Republic (in contrast with the US and Western countries), homosexualism wasn't criminalized, so obviously, all that is propaganda and nonsense (including the brothels and orders to abuse boys.)
I suspect Mr. George Creel invented the story himself because Karski, as a socialist, wouldn't go there.

An ad for the article (from "The Cincinnati Enquirer")
karski.jpg


Karski
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Re: Karski and homosexuals

#3

Post by Karski » 29 Oct 2022, 16:05

wm wrote:
29 Oct 2022, 15:49
I suspect Mr. George Creel invented the story himself
It is possible : "The word "creeling" during, and for some time after, WWI, became part of the American language, among the press and Congress, to characterize obfuscation and falsification. It was coined in "honor" of George Creel, the Wilson loyalist and Chairman of the Committee on Public Information (1917-19), considered by most historians as the first USG propaganda agency."
(John Brown's blog, October 29, 2014
https://johnbrownnotesandessays.blogspo ... eling.html )

But what do you mean by " because Karski, as a socialist, wouldn't go there." ? Karski was not a socialist...

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wm
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Re: Karski and homosexuals

#4

Post by wm » 29 Oct 2022, 16:36

He wasn't a card-carrying socialist (although they say he grew up in an environment of strong socialist traditions and social justice), so I suppose it would be better to say he was a progressive person.
His birthplace, Łódź, was one of the most progressive cities in Poland, ruled by the socialists (with the communists in tow) in alliance with Jews.

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wm
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Re: Karski and homosexuals

#5

Post by wm » 29 Oct 2022, 23:17

Thinking about it, the source of all the information was unmistakably a Pole, presumably an eyewitness. A foreigner wouldn't know all the facts and wouldn't understand their importance to the Poles. It's not even modified or "improved" for propaganda purposes; it was what Poles knew and believed.

Even in the homosexual scare part, "floods the land with pornographic magazines" (an exaggeration but seen like that by many) and "the operation of casinos" (although only in a few cities) were well-known concerns of the Polish Underground.

But Karski, a well-educated person and a diplomat, should have known that "Captain Ernst Roehm advocated this degeneracy in a book" wasn't true. And that there were no "free brothels for the use of Polish boys."
Or that it wasn't true that "our underground papers print the name of everyone seen entering a cinema or reading a German magazine" - although the ostracism was real but largely ineffective.
It's a strange mixture of facts and nonsense.

But the most strange is that nothing was said about the Holocaust, although in occupied Poland in November 1943, the Holocaust had been basically completed.

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