Here:
http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?Id=3868
Whatta scumbag!
However, "The Pianist" offers two very unusual elements not common to this genre (and for very good reason). The first is the strange emphasis on the role of the Jewish auxiliary police used by the Nazis to keep order in the ghetto. These individuals (identified as "collaborators" in the film's press notes) are shown to be as thuggish as their Nazi overlords, though their level of importance is fairly overdone here. Second and more disturbing is the depiction of the Polish people's attitude towards their Jewish neighbors.
Except for a single character (a shrewish busybody who discovers Szpliman hiding in a vacant apartment), "The Pianist" presents a Polish population which seemed to go out of their way to aid the Jews and even claimed to be ennobled by the Jewish bravery in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Of course, anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Polish history will have problems with this blowtorching of history (the Jewish Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland were greeted in 1946 with a gruesome state-sanctioned pogrom); while there were Poles who did aid Jews during the war, they were clearly a tiny minority. No one could ever confuse wartime Poland for wartime Denmark.
He doesnt know history at all, please help me out to correct his review (which is actually not a review)....
I tried and he has made a complete fool out of me....
Here is my first email to the author of this article:
And here is his first reply:Dear Sir or Madam
I had a terrible misfortune of reading the review of the most recent Roman Polanski’s movie – The Pianist, which is available right here:
http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?Id=3868
It is a well written review, but one of the paragraph, which I am quoting below is very troubling, ignorant, not fair, and full of lies:
“Second and more disturbing is the depiction of the Polish people's attitude towards their Jewish neighbors.
Except for a single character (a shrewish busybody who discovers Szpliman hiding in a vacant apartment), "The Pianist" presents a Polish population, which seemed to go out of their way to aid the Jews and even claimed to be ennobled by the Jewish bravery in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Of course, anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Polish history will have problems with this blowtorching of history (the Jewish Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland were greeted in 1946 with a gruesome state-sanctioned pogrom); while there were Poles who did aid Jews during the war, they were clearly a tiny minority. No one could ever confuse wartime Poland for wartime Denmark. “
I am Polish, and I would like to assure you that NONE of the sentences above is true. According to the official Israeli web site, devoted to “perpetuate the legacy of the Holocaust to future generations”, Poles got the biggest number of awards of “the Righteous Among the Nations”. Out of all countries in the world, the Poles got most of these awards - 5,632.
http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/righteous/ ... teous.html
This number would have to be multiplied by the x number of the Poles who got caught and killed while helping out the Jews, x number of the Poles who were rescuing the Jews but did not have enough evidence to get the recognition (or decided to stay anonymous), and finally the x numbers of Poles who were just forgotten.
It is not a tiny minority as claimed by the author of the article (who claims to know Polish history as well –how ridiculous). All of these people were/are real heroes. Poland was the only German occupied country in which the official punishment for aiding the Jewish people was death. Many people decided not to help, but it was because they were afraid for themselves. This fact is not difficult to understand, do not hold this against us the Poles. Therefore helping out the Jews in Denmark was the mere acts of mercy, helping out the Jews in Poland was the act of absolute heroism, and the comments like in the article are not appropriate. Moreover it is like a slap in a face.
Poles and Jews coexisted for a millennium on a Polish soil. Poles were always very tolerant of their Jewish neighbors. The accidents of violence happened of course, but they were happening on a very small scale. Majority of the Polish population did not have anything against the Jews. Unfortunately, the WWII has destroyed the balance between us, but it wasn’t the Polish fault. The Nazis did cause that entire massacre, and they should be to blame. Do not forget that ever.
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/
The link above will provide for some additional reference….
The statement: “the Jewish Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland were greeted in 1946 with a gruesome state-sanctioned pogrom”.
Is a pure lie. In the incident in Kielce, in 1946, the Polish mob killed 39 Jews and 2 Poles. But I would like to point out that the perpetrators got caught and executed. The justice was done. The relatively small incident like that should not label the entire nation.
Please remove the remarks to the Polish history from your article, and issue an official apology.
Regards,
Adam Lepczak
P.S. You should be really embarrassed about it….
So I wrote back:In a message dated 1/20/2003 1:28:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, FilmThreat writes:
Moreover it is like a slap in a face.
Poles and Jews coexisted for a millennium on a Polish soil. Poles were always very tolerant of their Jewish neighbors. The accidents of violence happened of course, but they were happening on a very small scale. Majority of the Polish population did not have anything against the Jews.
Sir
As the author of the review of "The Pianist," I would like to respond to the comments directed to my editor.
Your knowledge of the history of Poland's Jewish population is selective, at best. Prior to the German invasion of Poland, the Jewish population of that country was excluded by law from various segments of the economy (including agriculture, which was the main focus of the Polish GNP at that period). Jewish students in Polish schools were forbidden to sit with their peers in classrooms and were segregated to "Jewish benches" (the only country outside of the Nazi orbit where this took place). Violence against Jews in Poland was frequent and encouraged by Polish police, who made no effort to halt the attacks.
Poland was not the only country in Nazi-occupied Europe where death was sentenced to those aiding and assisting Jewish individuals. That death sentence was enforced across the entire occupied continent during wartime.
The pogrom at Kielce is 1946 was not a "relatively small incident" as you described it. I would refer you to http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/Kielce.html which goes into detail on the involvement of the Polish military and local police in the massacre and subsequent cover-up; even the U.S. Ambassador to Poland weighed in on the incident.
I would also refer you to the review on Film Threat for the documentary "Farewell to My Country," which is made by Jewish filmmakers from Poland. None of the Jewish people featured in the film have fond memories for how they were treated in Poland.
In 2001, Poland's President Kwasniewski issued a formal apology to the Jews of Poland for the country's historic anti-Semitism. However, anti-Semitism continues to thrive in Poland, as witnessed by the popularity of Radio Maryja and the refusal of the Polish Catholic Church to acknowledge its history of anti-Semitic teachings (which have been in violation of the Second Vatican Council's rulings from 1962) or to rebuke clergy from using the pulpits to create religious hatred.
And your comments dismissing the actions of the Danish people in saving the Jewish population of Denmark during wartime as a mere act of "mercy" is insulting to the heroism of the Danish people and the Royal Family of Denmark (who, unlike the Polish government of the same era, did not leave the country once the German tanks rolled in).
Sincerely,
Phil Hall
Contributing Editor, Film Threat
And here is his last reply:The pogrom at Kielce is 1946 was not a "relatively small incident" as you described it. I would refer you to http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/Kielce.html which goes into detail on the involvement of the Polish military and local police in the massacre and subsequent cover-up; even the U.S. Ambassador to Poland weighed in on the incident."
This is a single out accident, which should not be used to label the entire society. In the unforunate massacre, 39 Jewish people died, as well as two Poles. All of them were attacked by the Polish angry mob. The perpetrators of violence have been caught and brought to justice. Moreover they have been executed. The Poles have apologised for the massacre many times. This violence was very unforunate, but once again, it cannot represent and label the entire society. Unforutately, in every nation there are some right-wing idiots. Even it the United States, the African Americans were granted all of the civil rights in the 60's. Recently Mr. Trent Lott who was a republican made some racist comments and had to give up the position of senate majority leader. Because of that, is it fair to label the US society as a racist society? No, clearly not.
Nevertheless, the death of 39 unfortunate victims cannot compare with thousands of Jews saved by the Poles during the WWII. Once again, there are mostly Polish names that were awarded the The Righteous Among the Nations award for rescuing the Jews. Once again, 5632 Poles were awarded the award. 20 to 50 Poles were participating in the pogrom in Kielce. Please look at the numbers, especially when compared to the other nations (Denmark). Also take a look a this resource:
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com
In addition, believe me, it was no picnic in Poland for the Poles during the WWII. We were almost as much victims of the holocaust as Jews. In addition, what about this official list of 700 brave Poles who got killed durring the WWII while helping out the Jews? How this number can be compared to the single incident in Kielce for we the Poles have apologised many times?
"Your knowledge of the history of Poland's Jewish population is selective, at best. Prior to the German invasion of Poland, the Jewish population of that country was excluded by law from various segments of the economy (including agriculture, which was the main focus of the Polish GNP at that period). Jewish students in Polish schools were forbidden to sit with their peers in classrooms and were segregated to "Jewish benches" (the only country outside of the Nazi orbit where this took place). Violence against Jews in Poland was frequent and encouraged by Polish police, who made no effort to halt the attacks."
It might be, my friend but you have failed to answer my question about the reason that so many Jewish folks lived in Poland during the entire millennium?
For overall majority of Jews, the Polish soil before the WWII was a homeland. They were allowed to practice their culture, language (Yiddish was developed and used in Poland), and religion. Why no one gives us a credit for that? If the Poles would be a visious anti-Semites there would be no culture (which was flourishing right before the WWII) no language, and no churches. Once again, the incidents happened but they were limited to the small part of the Jewish and Polish society.
"In 2001, Poland's President Kwasniewski issued a formal apology to the Jews of Poland for the country's historic anti-Semitism. However, anti-Semitism continues to thrive in Poland, as witnessed by the popularity of Radio Maryja and the refusal of the Polish Catholic Church to acknowledge its history of anti-Semitic teachings (which have been in violation of the Second Vatican Council's rulings from 1962) or to rebuke clergy from using the pulpits to create religious hatred."
The apology proves only that we had enough "balls" to admit that certain elements in Polish society were racists. You are right about the Radio Maryja, but at this point, it has nothing to do anymore with the Catholic Church. Once again, the influence of that radio is limited to only stupid, frustrated group of people who have to blame somebody for their total failure in life.
"And your comments dismissing the actions of the Danish people in saving the Jewish population of Denmark during wartime as a mere act of "mercy" is insulting to the heroism of the Danish people and the Royal Family of Denmark (who, unlike the Polish government of the same era, did not leave the country once the German tanks rolled in)."
I didn’t mean to offend anybody, but if you compare the living conditions in Denmark and Poland, that is clearly the case. No one was hunting down the people in Denmark like the Polish folks. Some elements of Danish society were fighting among side of Germans in the SS Wiking division...
Right here:
http://www.wiking.org/images/danmark.jpg
http://www.ordonnans.demon.nl/wiking.htm
As you can see, the right wing elements are common and present in any country, is it fair to label the Danish people as a Nazi just because there were some Danish folks in the VERY NAZI SS division? I don't think so. (There was no a single Pole who volunteered to the German army by the way ).
Also, your web site is a movie review web site. It is beyond its scope to go into history of Polish Jewish relations. The fact is that the Pianist is based on the actual story. It happened that both Mr. Polanski and Mr. Szplilman would not have survived without the Polish assistance.
It is not a crime to make a movie about it, because that was a reality for these people.
Nothing is going to change that no matter how much you don't like it.
No one has a right to make a movie in which the Poles are actually helping the Jews?
I wonder why? Once again, the comments like that is a slap in the face against these 5632 Poles and 700 others who died while trying to help. Overall close to 50 000 Jews got the assistance for the Poles. You might not like it but that IS THE FACT.
People like Mr. Phil Hall had to spoil the beauty of the movie by throwing some "facts" which have nothing to do with the story at all, and are not relative to the movie or its construction. What a shame. Once again Mr Hall how the pogrom in Kielce is relative to the movie?
Sticks and stones can break my bones…
I need you help folks, there is a direct link from http://www.yahoo.com to this crappy site....In a message dated 1/20/2003 3:19:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Sticks and stones can break my bones…
As long as you have health coverage, that should not be a problem.
