Polish leaders outraged over FBI head Holocaust remarks

[Martinus]

My knowledge is shallow at best, but I was under the understanding that the Poles were pretty anti-Semitic themselves, pre-war, and there were examples aplenty of willing or even enthusiastic cooperation with the Nazi's when it came to rounding up the Jews and shoving them into the ghettos, for example. Kind of a "Well, it sucks to be occupied by the Nazi's, but at least they are taking care of these damn Jews..." sort of thing.

I am very willing to be shown wrong on this however...

The germans took such a uniquely hostile approach in Poland that I think very few actively collaborated in any way.  In other places the Germans would show up and annex the place, making everyone German citizens, or they would install a puppet government that people could still attach some loyalty to.  But no, the Germans felt they were erasing the very existence of the Polish nation.  The General Government was a pure colony, with the intention of making it purely German after the war.

No matter how much you dislike Jews, it's pretty hard for a Pole to go along with that program.

There also wasn't the "at least they're not the Soviets" philosophy that worked in Ukraine.

Yeah, it is really difficult to compare the situation in Poland with really any other occupied nation. Of course there were a lot of shitty Poles and they were not just bad apples (generally, Poland was very catholic, illiterate, backward and antisemitic at the time - all things being equal, it was a lot like modern day Poland in my mind - only now people are more homophobic than antisemitic) but also there were a lot of pretty decent, upstanding Poles. I think the urban vs. rural split grumbler mentions is a pretty decent rule of the thumb on this, with the rural areas' folk being very backward, obscurantist and antisemitic.

I think this is a pretty good point, and in respects to the OP, while even if what I said is nominally accurate, the unique violence of the German occupation makes comments that are very generic like this guys perhaps technically accurate, but lacking in the nuance needed to make it not be needlessly inflammatory. It draws a very general parallel between Germans and Poles circa WW2 that might be not strictly incorrect in the specifics of what is being said, but leads to a clearly false conclusion among anyone who does not have a nuanced understanding of the situation.

I think you hit the nail on its head.

[grumbler]

I think this is a pretty good point, and in respects to the OP, while even if what I said is nominally accurate, the unique violence of the German occupation makes comments that are very generic like this guys perhaps technically accurate, but lacking in the nuance needed to make it not be needlessly inflammatory. It draws a very general parallel between Germans and Poles circa WW2 that might be not strictly incorrect in the specifics of what is being said, but leads to a clearly false conclusion among anyone who does not have a nuanced understanding of the situation.

I think you hit the nail on its head.

I the sense that he completely misses Comey's point, yes.  I think he misses the nail, though, in that he isn't deliberately misconstruing Comey's argument in order to justify his feelings of outrage.  I just think he hasn't read the statement very carefully (it's not just "not strictly incorrect," it is a statement of opinion that has considerable academic support) and so incorrectly thinks it was a statement about Germans and Poles rather than murders and accomplices.

[Berkut]

I think this is a pretty good point, and in respects to the OP, while even if what I said is nominally accurate, the unique violence of the German occupation makes comments that are very generic like this guys perhaps technically accurate, but lacking in the nuance needed to make it not be needlessly inflammatory. It draws a very general parallel between Germans and Poles circa WW2 that might be not strictly incorrect in the specifics of what is being said, but leads to a clearly false conclusion among anyone who does not have a nuanced understanding of the situation.

I think you hit the nail on its head.

I the sense that he completely misses Comey's point, yes.  I think he misses the nail, though, in that he isn't deliberately misconstruing Comey's argument in order to justify his feelings of outrage.  I just think he hasn't read the statement very carefully (it's not just "not strictly incorrect," it is a statement of opinion that has considerable academic support) and so incorrectly thinks it was a statement about Germans and Poles rather than murders and accomplices.

I don't miss his point at all, I just  think his statement is not going too be narrowly interpreted in the manner you suggest.

It is very easy to say things that are strictly factually true but suggest things that can and will be taken by people that are very much NOT true.

For example, one could say "The Nazi's and Pole's who worked together to exterminate the Jews were terrible people". That is absolutely true, and yet suggests something that is very much NOT true - that the Poles had some kind of equivalent role to the Nazi's, and someone who knows little about the Holocaust could very well see a statement like that and draw very incorrect conclusions from it. You can argue, of course, that that is a failure on their part, but it is also a failure on the part of the person making the *public* statement as well.

There are plenty of cases where people make comments in that vein where it is in fact intentional to say one very narrow thing while misleading about the more general conclusion. I don't think that is the case here, but the remarks were not well considered. But I find it a poor rhetorical trick when done intentionally, and unfortunate when done unintentionally.

I am not outraged, as I am neither a Pole or a German or a Jew, but I can certainly understand why they would be upset at the implication that some will take from those kinds of comments.

[grumbler]

I don't miss his point at all, I just  think his statement is not going too be narrowly interpreted in the manner you suggest.

I think that people who want to be offended will misinterpret his statement (or, if you prefer, "interpret so loosely as to miss his point"), and people who are just looking at his statement itself will interpret is correctly (what you insist is "narrowly").  If you want to misinterpret his statement for the thrill of being outraged, you will.  if you want to interpret his statement correctly/narrowly for information, you will.  You choose.

It is very easy to say things that are strictly factually true but suggest things that can and will be taken by people that are very much NOT true.

For example, one could say "The Nazi's and Pole's who worked together to exterminate the Jews were terrible people". That is absolutely true, and yet suggests something that is very much NOT true - that the Poles had some kind of equivalent role to the Nazi's, and someone who knows little about the Holocaust could very well see a statement like that and draw very incorrect conclusions from it. You can argue, of course, that that is a failure on their part, but it is also a failure on the part of the person making the *public* statement as well.

I am not sure where you are going with this.  You can make up any statement you wish, and then create a false statement that you think could be confused with an actual statement, and then... what?  Magic?  Failure to read is failure to read.  Intentional misinterpretation is intentional.  there is nothing anyone making a statement can do about either of those.

I am not outraged, as I am neither a Pole or a German or a Jew, but I can certainly understand why they would be upset at the implication that some will take from those kinds of comments.

So you are arguing that it is understandable that Polish leader's are outraged because someone else might misinterpret Comey's word's?

[Berkut]

I am arguing that is understandable that people are upset at comments that are likely to create confusing and inaccurate perceptions of history, especially when that is about history as emotive as the German occupation of Poland and the Holocaust.

[derspiess]

I think it was a pretty clumsy statement and could have been worded a lot better. 

[grumbler]

I think it was a pretty clumsy statement and could have been worded a lot better.

it was a verbal statement, not a written one, so, yeah, it is going to sound kinda clumsy when written down. 

Stripped of the adjectives and subordinate clauses, the statement was ""In their minds, the murderers and accomplices... didn't do something evil.  They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That's what people do. And that should truly frighten us."  Not very outrageous at all.  In fact, that's what Ordinary Men was all about.

[grumbler]

I am arguing that is understandable that people are upset at comments that are likely to create confusing and inaccurate perceptions of history, especially when that is about history as emotive as the German occupation of Poland and the Holocaust.

All statements are likely to (and in fact, 100% will) create confusion and inaccurate perceptions.  Some people are just unwilling or unable to comprehend.  I'm arguing that the likely reactions of stupid people should not cause self-censorship.

[Norgy]

Well this was actually kind of a messy thing. IIRC there were two political entities formed from annexed Poland. The governors were told to 'Germanize' their province. One decided to just declare everybody who lived there to be German.

I read an article a while back that said the German authorities were puzzled when people resisted this in parts of Poland and other areas like Slovenia.  I guess they asssumed that people there would be honored to have the opportunity to become German.  I mean, it should be pretty easy to get people to ditch their own language and ethnicity, right?

I thought a lot were sent to the General Government from Posen/Posznan and those areas that were annexed? I may be wrong, as it's been long since I read Mark Mazower's account.
The point is that Hitler had a personal problem with two groups apart from Jews; Poles and Czechs. He wanted both off the map. The Czechs did get off somewhat easier. Not to mention that Poland's "liberators" didn't much care for them either.

[Martinus]

Poznan, not Posznan.

[derspiess]

[Martinus]

Another scandal, this time caused by Mattel:

[Syt]

"Shouldn't we write 'Nazi occupied Poland?'"
"Nah, not enough space on the card. Besides, who'll notice?"

[Martinus]

"Shouldn't we write 'Nazi occupied Poland?'"
"Nah, not enough space on the card. Besides, who'll notice?"

Yeah. Pretty much.

[Eddie Teach]

They don't even have the excuse of lack of space:

Powerful, real-life story of
Nazi-occupied Poland