Newsgroups: soc.culture.polish
Distribution: world
Followup-To: 
From: stoer@hal.nta.no (Stoer Mechthild FNT)
Organization: Norwegian Telecom Research
Subject: Re: common Polish-German action (was: Nazi Cam
Keywords: 

Hi, Ian and Mariusz
and whoever is interested.
Let me answer to both letters in one.

Ian asks in <a6ca3f0a@random.se>
whether it is tabu to speak about "the hesitation of the Germans
to disowning the Nazi past openly".

No, the topic "Nazi past" is not tabu, 
and is in fact sometimes discussed in soc.culture.german.
If you have a question about "hesitation of the Germans",
go ahead and post it  to soc.culture.german under a different heading.
But this topic was misleading in a letter proposing a common action.
First, the wording "German camps" was never at issue.
Maria Swietorzecki in her letter used "Nazi camps" 
or "Nazi-German camps" instead, which I as a German can easily accept
as according to the truth.
Second, when proposing a common action, is it sensible to
ask oneself publicly whether one's partners are opposed to it?
Well, I didn't mind these jumps aside, but Mariusz obviously did.

Then you asked, Ian, 
whether the following sentence in your letter to John Reece
could be misinterpreted.
  Perhaps the Poles collectively were too stoopid to see the larger
  opportunities that a nation-wide collaboration might have brought
  with it.  After all they never understood that, had the war 
  continued, they were next in line for the gas ovens. 
I read it as this: 
  The only thing that kept the Poles from collaborating 
  and taking larger opportunities (which? wiping out the Jews?) 
  was their stupidity, which is shown by their ignorance of their danger.
That's an insult.
If you'd talk about the collaboration of most Germans you are right.
But the Poles did NOT as a whole collaborate, 
how can you invent hindrances?
Did you really mean to say this?

From one of Mariusz's later posting I gather that he
did not know about the pogrom of Kielce and such.
Probably the newspapers and schoolbooks were not allowed
to publish this.
So it's better if some facts are posted without sarcasm.
(Facts are being posted at present, but with sarcasm;
everybody seems to revel in finding faults on the other side.)

Mariusz asked me in <1992Sep2.073428.2877@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
where the poison lies in his statements:
  >From seeing the hatred to Poles expressed by many Jewish authors
  >writing here, I am slowly getting the picture why there were so many
  >antysemitic reactions in polish society
and
  >If I would not believe that there
  >are also Jews with more human face and much better brain then yours
  >I would be inclined to say that those Poles were really naive by risking
  >their lives for ... sorry I will not say, it would offend those thinking
  >Jews.

1. Are you trying to excuse the antisemitism
and its evil consequences by the behaviour of some Jews?
If you just wanted to say that one bad word calls for other bad words,
the above was the wrong form to say it,
because antisemitism sometimes results in more than bad words.

2. To hint that certain Jews should not have been saved,
is the same as saying that some were worth the holocaust.
That I wouldn't even tell my worst enemy.
Let alone that this argument falls back on you and your people.
Didn't you see this?

Can't you both have a little more respect for the other's history
and hurt feelings?

Summary:
   it feels like yet another small
   victory for the by now long-gone Nazi Reich regime. 
   Clearly, this is NOT a laughing matter.
   (Ian Feldman with respect to the wording "Polish camps")

Mechthild Stoer
Mechthild.Stoer@nta.no   or stoer@sc.zib-berlin.de