Poland to list all WW2 victimes on the internet

[Valmy]

Of course I am not seriously suggesting it. That doesn't make it a troll though - just an observation about how stupid the idea of listing victims is from a nation that mostly went along with one of the most brutal genocides in human history.

That strikes me as a bit unfair.  Poland was not exactly a nation of collaborators.

[Martinus]

I would say there were four groups of people:

- people like Irena Sendler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler (who died recently, with The Economist running a great obituary on her) - really a role model - who saved thousands of Jewish children,

- people who fought with the nazis, but did not care that much about helping Jews,

- people who neither fought with the nazis, nor cared that much about helping Jews,

- collaborators who helped in the Holocaust, either for ideological reasons or because of opportunism.

The third group would be the most numerous by far. I would say group one and two (combined) would be as numerous as group four.

[Berkut]

I would say there were four groups of people:

- people like Irena Sendler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler (who died recently, with The Economist running a great obituary on her) - really a role model - who saved thousands of Jewish children,

- people who fought with the nazis, but did not care that much about helping Jews,

- people who neither fought with the nazis, nor cared that much about helping Jews,

- collaborators who helped in the Holocaust, either for ideological reasons or because of opportunism.

The third group would be the most numerous by far. I would say group one and two (combined) would be as numerous as group four.

I bet only a minority of Germans "helped in the Holocaust" as well.

[Berkut]

Of course I am not seriously suggesting it. That doesn't make it a troll though - just an observation about how stupid the idea of listing victims is from a nation that mostly went along with one of the most brutal genocides in human history.

That strikes me as a bit unfair.  Poland was not exactly a nation of collaborators.

When it came to the Holocaust, many of them did in fact collaborate.

Sure, they probably were not very happy about being conquered by the Germans, but plenty seemed to be pretty pleased with the silver lining of getting to kill lots of Jews.

[Martinus]

I would say there were four groups of people:

- people like Irena Sendler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler (who died recently, with The Economist running a great obituary on her) - really a role model - who saved thousands of Jewish children,

- people who fought with the nazis, but did not care that much about helping Jews,

- people who neither fought with the nazis, nor cared that much about helping Jews,

- collaborators who helped in the Holocaust, either for ideological reasons or because of opportunism.

The third group would be the most numerous by far. I would say group one and two (combined) would be as numerous as group four.

I bet only a minority of Germans "helped in the Holocaust" as well.

Surely you are not equating the antisemitic Polish collaborators with the German state apparatus engineering and implementing the Holocaust, right?

[Valmy]

When it came to the Holocaust, many of them did in fact collaborate.

Sure, they probably were not very happy about being conquered by the Germans, but plenty seemed to be pretty pleased with the silver lining of getting to kill lots of Jews.

I don't know the details of that.  I do know that there was no volunteer Polish SS unit, no Polish German puppet, and the largest non-Communist resistance movement in World War II.

It seems rather unfair to say that they were a 'nation that mostly went along with one of the most brutal genocides in human history'.  They certainly were no friends of the Germans.  If they were so anxious to form units of Jew killers why weren't there any Polish SS volunteers like the other East European nations?

I mean individuals collaborating to some extent is one thing, large scale collaborating like the Flemish or even systemic collaboration like with Quisling and Vichy and company are something else.

[Berkut]

I would say there were four groups of people:

- people like Irena Sendler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler (who died recently, with The Economist running a great obituary on her) - really a role model - who saved thousands of Jewish children,

- people who fought with the nazis, but did not care that much about helping Jews,

- people who neither fought with the nazis, nor cared that much about helping Jews,

- collaborators who helped in the Holocaust, either for ideological reasons or because of opportunism.

The third group would be the most numerous by far. I would say group one and two (combined) would be as numerous as group four.

I bet only a minority of Germans "helped in the Holocaust" as well.

Surely you are not equating the antisemitic Polish collaborators with the German state apparatus engineering and implementing the Holocaust, right?

Of course not, there wasn't any Polish apparatus at all.

The moral guilt of having been involved is a matter of scale though - not of kind.

[Martinus]

Well, before WW2, there wasn't even an attempt of the Polish government to make anything like the Holocaust, or even ethnic cleansing (in the sense of deportations). In fact, Pilsudski (who orchestrated the 1926 coup and was later the "founding father" of the authoritarian regime that ruled until 1939) was accused by the right wingers of being a philosemite (I believe his wife was Jewish). So the simple answer is that - if the nazis haven't invaded and began Holocaust in Poland, it wouldn't have happened in Poland.

This doesn't exonerate the significant portion of the populace who benefited, secretly cheered or simply looked away when the Holocaust was happening (including a significant part of the Catholic Church hierarchy, who were viciously antisemitic pre war - and also viciously opposed to Pilsudski, whom they viewed as a socialist and an anti-catholic) but I think your brush is too broad.

[Berkut]

Well, Poland did not have a Hitler take the country over, so they never had a Holocaust, but I don't see any reason to think that if they had they all would have reacted any differently than the Germans. Certainly their actions when the Germans took over were largely contemptible, with some exceptions, of course.

[Razgovory]

How do you know?  You were to busy to read his book.  I simply followed your links.  I know it's easy to push polish guilt onto someone else but face it.  You guys deserved the soviet occupation.

You might want to learn how to read and synthesize information.  The only people in those links who went on and on about the Soviets were bit coincidentally people who rate the book with one star on amazon and then blamed the author for vilifying polish people.

You might want to learn to shut the fuck up.

[garbon]

You might want to learn to shut the fuck up.

I use deference and silence where appropriate.  I guess that is one difference between my online persona and myself, in my everyday life, I don't speak to the clinically insane.

[Sheilbh]

Surely you are not equating the antisemitic Polish collaborators with the German state apparatus engineering and implementing the Holocaust, right?

I remember watching Shoah.  My impression was that the Poles were much more human.  Their anti-semitism was far less cynical and cold than that the German officers described.  And sometimes your own expectations would be confounded.  I remember a a group of Polish women being interviewed and they were describing the life in the village before the Holocaust.  They said 'the Jews all smelled'.  The interviewer then presses them to explain that and they say 'the Jews were tanners'.  It's a very poignant moment of film I find.

[dps]

Newsflash: Poiish rightwingers are fucked up. I wish I told you guys before.

Yeah, commemorating Holocaust victims--you can't get much more fucked up than that.     

[Viking]

with regards to the Russian history thread, the need to add "The Truth" to the list of the dead... 

[Martinus]

Newsflash: Poiish rightwingers are fucked up. I wish I told you guys before.

Yeah, commemorating Holocaust victims--you can't get much more fucked up than that.     

This is not commemorating Holocaust victims - this is commemorating Polish citizens killed by Germans - many may have been killed as a part of Holocaust, but the focus is different.