Jewish Nazicollaborators

[Artur Szulc]

Grisu,

It is vital to the discussion that we can agree on what is widely spread knowledge.

I wrote that the jewish Zagiew is not widely known. Sid wrote that it is beacuse Wikipedia as an article about it. Is that convincing? According to me, it is not.

Is knowledge about the Zagiew as widely known as, for example, the uprising in Warsaw 1944?

Or even the jewish Uprising in the same town 1943?

I would tend to share Sid Guttridge's view on "Poles as collaborators". I don't think, neither, that Poland is generally seen as highly collaborative and I, as well, fail to provide sources for this subjective perception.

And that is fine, cause like You say; it is a subjective perception.

I have given some sources saying that Poland is seen as highly collaborative in the jewish community.

I can provide more:

Some ten years ago, Howard Stern, said on radio that: "It was actually the Poles who came up with the plan to exterminate the Jews and they were the executers of that plan".

Lesley Stahl, the journalist, wrote in her book "Reporting Live" that is was "...the Poles with the help of their good neighbours the Germans, that murdered the Jews in the 1940´s"

Source: Dr Andrzej Sławiński
(Londyn) KOLABORACJA KRAJÓW OKUPOWANYCH Z NIEMCAMI –SPRAWA POLSKI
http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/Essays.htm

How about the documentary "Shoah" - how does it portrait the Poles?

Or the television series "The Struggle for Poland"?

Is my research bad, perhaps.
But it is I that provide source after source to my claims.

Fact is that the knowledge about the Zagiew is not widely known. And Sid just wrote that I am not sure whether a belief held within the Jewish community counts as widespread.

I will use his own argument: I am not sure whether knowledge about the Zagiew within the Jewish community counts as widespread.

------

Oh, Grisu, you quoted me wrong.

chili wrote:
The nub of this thread appears to be that a significant number of Jews believe themselves to have been betrayed by Polish collaboration with the Germans and that you believe this is a widespread perception. It is not. The general opinion on the Poles in WWII reflects their own victimhood and courage in combat.
However, now that this has been raised, where does the apparent Jewish perception that many Poles collaborated with the Germans in their destruction come from? Is it true? Is it a misconception? Is it a fabrication? Is it a fiction? Were the Poles blameless? Maligned? Misrepresented? What is the evidence?

It was not me that wrote this.

Cheers,

Chili

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Chili,

If only a number of Jews can be shown to hold an opinion, it can hardly be held to be widespread. Jews are few in number in the first place - about on sixth of one percent of the world's population - and you are only citing a few of them.

Even if I felt so inclined, I don't have to disprove your premises if you haven't first substantiated them to some degree. Until you can do so, the original premise contains no substance that merits addressing, let alone disproving.

Collaboration with the Nazis is not widely regarded as a Polish characteristic. Poland's reputation is generally of courageous but hopeless fighting in 1939, courageous combat in exile over 1940-45 and courageous fighting by the Home Army in 1944.

However, Polish Jews might well have had a very different experience of Poles over 1939-45.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Artur Szulc]

Hey again Sid!

I am the only one who has presented any sources here. But apparently it is not enough with citations from known people like a journalist, a professor, a radiohost, a prime minster, a underground fighter...and then I have mentioned one documentary and two television series, the last one from recent years (Uprising). The picture of poles in those TV-productions are not positive in any way.

Perhaps they can not represent the views of all the Jews, but the citations from them is of great significans.

I can provide more, but somehow I am convinced that that will not change anything in your mind, Sid.
And perhaps it is not necessary either, right?

And since I am not going to conduct a survey among the jewish population of USA then I think we are done here.

Thanks for the discussion!

I will end with a quotation from Simon Wiesenthal: "We have done very little to condemn Jewish collaboration with the Nazis. When, after the war, I demanded that those who had abused their office in gettos or concentration camps be removed from Jewish committees, I was told that ´this would diminish the guilt of the Nazis´".

(From Piotrowskis, Polands Holocaust. Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947, 1998, page, 75)

/C

[South]

Good afternoon Chili,

Re: "citation from them is of great significance";

I must contest this.

A journalist, such as Leslie Stahl, has zero significance. She is less a journalist than an entertainer.

Howard Stern: Ditto; same as above.

Prime Ministers - and other Chiefs of State - have severe restrictions on their public statements.

Note that Simon Wiesenthal met challenges from Isser Harel. This matter qualified as a scandal.

Warm regards,

Bob

[Artur Szulc]

Hello South!

A journalist, such as Leslie Stahl, has zero significance. She is less a journalist than an entertainer.

That is Your subjective perception. (Well, I have no doubt do that many on this forum would back you up on this one, since I am a newcomer, and for the record so far the only one that has presented any sources, but obviously the wrong ones )

But, just for the record,

So you mean that if Leo Shulman (just a name I come up with) - a nobody, living in the Jewish quarters of NY - would say the Poles planned and executed the Holocust with their good neighbours the Germans, that would have more significanse then Lesley Stahl and Howard Stern?

Even if they are only "entertainers" they have the ear of many people. Oprah W is only a entertainer but she has the power to influense people in a way that perhaps many US presidents feel jeaulos of. I am not comparing Oprah with Lesley Stahl but both must - according to your standards - be concidered as "entertainers". No?

I will return with more negative statements about the poles.

And, for the record, I is not my views. To me the polish struggle in WWII are unique in many ways (and no I have no time to give any sources for this statement, and then again, as is shown is this thread, sources are not always necessary)

Cheers,

Chili

[Artur Szulc]

…it is manifest that the local non-Jewish population enthusiastically greeted entering Wehrmacht units in 1941 and broadly engaged in collaboration with the Germans, up to and including participation in the exterminatory war against the Jews

Prof Jan T Gross, Neighbors (English edition), page 155.

The majority of Poles evinced an indifference, often rather hostile, to the fate of the Jews, expressed in a lack of basic human interest in their fate.

Prof Yehuda Bauer, in a foreword to Ringelblums Polish-Jewish Relations

One source that provides evidence that it is a common belive that poles was engaged in the Holocaust. (What I know or think is irrelevant. I know that the poles was not responsible, but that is not the issue here. You wanted more sources, well, then I am giving you more):

Hundreds of Jewish memorial books (yizkor bukher) and even more numerous testimonies of Jewish witnesses abound in frequent accusations of alleged Polish participation in crimes against the Jews. Thus, the coresponsibility of the Poles for the Holocaust is a common leitmotif of these sources.

He also states:

However, it is the duty of a historian to separate fact from fiction.

Prof Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, paper: Research before conclusion. The problems of shock therapy Jebwabne, page 2.

Below are views expressed by Jewish leaders, from Mark Paul, Traditional Jewish attitudes towards Poles, page 10-102.

Rabbi Isaac Suna, an educator at the Yeshiva University High School in New York City, who survived
several German slave labour and concentration camps, summed up his feelings thus: “I feel greater
animosity toward Poles than to the German people.”

In the adaptation of a Dvar Torah on Arutz 7, Yisrael Meir Lau, the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel,
wrote:
"… a great many Poles cooperated with the Nazis in the annihilation … of the Jewish
people. The six largest extermination camps were located on Polish territory. They knew
that with the loss of the Jews they would suffer dearly. But it did not deter them …"

Not to be outdone, Rabbi Sholom Klass used the editorial page of The Jewish Press, one of the largest
circulation Jewish newspapers in the United States, to remind his readers: “three million Polish Jews died
under the hands of the Nazis with the active or silent help of many Poles, including Catholic priests.”

In a tone reminiscent of Rabbi Lau, Rabbi Ely Rosenzweig, spiritual leader of a prominent synagogue in
Stamford, Connecticut, commenting on the experiences of a Christian Pole who survived over three years
in Auschwitz, stated:
"there is no doubt, and all authentic records of history support this, that anti-Semitism was rife in Poland in World War II, and it explains … why so many death camps and crematoria were established in the heartland of Poland"

Writing in The Canadian Jewish News (Toronto), Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa, a March of the Living
student chaperon, asked rhetorically: “… how can one go to Poland, to the country so steeped in anti-
Semitism that it eagerly cooperated with the Nazis in the cold-blooded murder of the Jews?”

Similarcharges were renewed by Rabbi Andrew Baker, the American Jewish Committee’s Director of
International Jewish Affairs, in the New York Post on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz,
who rebuked Poles for pretending to be “victims with no role” in the extermination of the Jews.

Such views and remarks have a long and undying tradition. Rabbi Bernard Rekas of St. Paul, Minnesota,
in his capacity as member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, in 1981 urged the following unsavoury
connection: “One might also philosophically reflect as to why it was that the Germans selected Poland as
the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death complex.”

Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote in a similar vein in his article, “I Can’t Go to Warsaw,” published in The New York Times on April 9, 1983. Rabbi Zev K. Nelson wrote in the Boston Jewish Advocate on November 4, 1982: “The Poles were ready and willing to join the Nazis in the annihilation of three million Jews in their land.”

Well, should I give any more sources? Beacuse this i starting to be ridicuolus.

Some days ago Sid wrote:

Where do you get the idea from that there is a "widely spread belive of a polish traitor standing in every corner "? I have never seen any such suggestion. Where have you seen this?

I think that I have founded my "idea" on facts at this point.

Sincerely

/Chili

[Marcus]

Considering the turn this thread has taken I'm moving this to the "Holocaust & 20th Century War Crimes" section.

/Marcus

[David Thompson]

We have a number of open threads on the nature and extent of anti-semitism in Poland before, during, and after WWII, to which readers can post comments. However, the topic of this thread is "Jewish Nazicollaborators," so let's stay on that theme here.

For newcomers to the H&WC section of the forum, our rules are posted here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53962

[South]

Good morning Chili,

Of course my posts are subjective and based on my perception. I strongly believe in Immanuel Kant's WELTANSCHAUUNG - "world view".

Re your hypothetical example;

"more significance" cannot be calibrated. If 2 persons are not authorities or students of a subject, being articulate or having an audience does not yield significance to their statements.

Yes, entertainers have the power - and do influence people. No; no US President would be that concerned with the influence of Oprah or someone similiar. Oprah has a narrow demographically identified audience.

See:

"War, Presidents and Public Opinion", John E. Mueller, 1973, ISNB: 0-471-62299-0 Dr Mueller's book I consider a keystone to be studied.

Yes, Oprah and Leslie Stahl are entertainers.

Some of your references above (in post to Sid) are difficult to follow from a historian's perspective (but not a sociologist's), eg:

the Rabbi Suna quote: "greater animosity toward the Poles than...".

Some American citizens were supporters of the German Nazis and some Poles fought with Jews during WWII in the Partisan groups.


Warm regards,

Bob

[Artur Szulc]

Hello South!

I do think that You are missing the point.

I wrote that it is a widely belive that a polish traitor was standing in every corner.

Sid challenged that by writing:

Where do you get the idea from that there is a "widely spread belive of a polish traitor standing in every corner "? I have never seen any such suggestion. Where have you seen this?

Now I think that I have giving enough sources where I have seen this.

The qoutations come from entertainerns, professors and rabbis. And from one jewish underground fighter.
If You want I can also give an description of the documentaries and televison series, but I do belive it is a waste of my time.

This i also very important, witten by prof Marek J Chodakiewicz:

Hundreds of Jewish memorial books (yizkor bukher) and even more numerous testimonies of Jewish witnesses abound in frequent accusations of alleged Polish participation in crimes against the Jews. Thus, the coresponsibility of the Poles for the Holocaust is a common leitmotif of these sources.

Some American citizens were supporters of the German Nazis and some Poles fought with Jews during WWII in the Partisan groups.

Yes, I know, but this is not the issue here.

I have come to a point where I accept that none of You (Bob and Sid) are going to back down a bite and write that my statement on "polish traitors in every corner" has some relevance. I have to accept that none of You accept my sources.

I it just the way it is. I am not going to loose any sleep over it but I find it amusing.

Greetings,

Chili

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Chili,

Actually, you are not the only one who presented any sources here. You asked me for some and I provided several. However, I think you deserve credit for actually backing up your proposition from multiple sources. So often posters make contentious propositions with hardly any evidence whatsoever.

My problem is that all your sources come from a narrow segment of Jewish society and are not therefore representative of the wider opinion you allege. You are trying to generalise from the specific and to wage a crusade against a

But far more importantly, you have opened up the question as to whether these Jewish sources are accurate. As I have explained twice before, Poland's reputation is generally of courageous but hopeless fighting in 1939, courageous combat in exile over 1940-45 and courageous fighting by the Home Army in 1944. It is very definitely not one that there was a Polish collaborator on every street corner.

But now that you have raised it, we have to ask to what extent the Jewish perceptions you cite are accurate. Was there a dark side to Poland's more widely known courageous resistance?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Artur Szulc]

Sid,

My problem is that all your sources come from a narrow segment of Jewish society and are not therefore representative of the wider opinion you allege. You are trying to generalise from the specific and to wage a crusade against a

I can agree on that to some extent.

But far more importantly, you have opened up the question as to whether these Jewish sources are accurate. As I have explained twice before, Poland's reputation is generally of courageous but hopeless fighting in 1939, courageous combat in exile over 1940-45 and courageous fighting by the Home Army in 1944. It is very definitely not one that there was a Polish collaborator on every street corner.

But now that you have raised it, we have to ask to what extent the Jewish perceptions you cite are accurate. Was there a dark side to Poland's more widely known courageous resistance?

All of this are important and interesting things do discuss, but not in this thread.

I belive that many of the Jewish sources are accurate, but only to some degree...I must add. I am convinced that the Poles did not behave as bad as some Jewish testimonies claim that they did. But this is, as I wrote, a totally different discussion.

Thank´s Sid, for your comments. They did push me to be more precise...

Cheers,

Chili.

[South]

Good afternoon Chili,

Perhaps I did miss the point you were making. I don't think so - but I cannot judge myself.

I deal in functional areas and not by nationalities. I've studied the Holocoast and the partisan movement. I once met a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who was hidden by a non-Jewish Polish farmer for the duration of the war.

I wrote that wide beliefs do not necessarily generate influence.

Of course there was "Polish participation in crimes against the Jews". This was not my challenge.


Warm regards,

Bob

[197752]

I remember reading where more individual Poles saved Jews more than any other country's citizens, except for Denmark, I believe. The list of Righteous Gentiles in Israel has more Poles than any other single nationality.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi 197752,

A good point. Without a measure of Polish assistance not a single Polish Jew might have survived German occupation.

Cheers,

Sid.