From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Polish complicity - Jewish complicity 
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 16:50:03 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.060031.19658@mel.dit.csiro.au> marek@mel.dit.csiro.au (Marek T. Michalewicz) writes:

>Now that the disscussion on Poilsh anti-semitism and complicity nearly 
>died out, I have some questions.

When are you going to post them?  This doesn't look like a list of questions.

>Some time ago I watched BBC documentary on Auschwitz. Polish underground 
>had passed information on the localisation and the functioning of the camp to 
>Britain. Polish diplomats and politicians in exile tried to persuade 
>Allies to bomb the camp. There was an interview with Polish member of the 
>Government in exile who personally tried to convince Eden to act. 
>Eden and the British top knew about it. 
>They did nothing. In the last days of the war Allies bombed chemical factory 
>in Auschwitz, but not the camp.

What do you mean by "last days of the war"?  Auschwitz was liberated on
Jan. 27, 1945, over 100 days before the end of the war.  

Now, as for bombing the camp, this might also have caused great loss of
life to the prisoners there at the time.  

>The other example was of the Rabbi of Buda or Pest, who was informed by 
>Home Army intelligence, via Slovakia, of the largely extended barracks, 
>new ramps and crematoriums in Aushwitz, in preparation for Jews of Hungary.

>He did nothing to inform or worn his fellow religious brothers.
>If I remember well he was tried later in Israel. 

So what's your question?  (Also, I suspect you could look these things
up.)

>Yet another example is the actions of American Jews during the WWII.

Example of what?

>Apparently there was only *ONE* demonstration (N.Y.C.?) 
>against extermination of Jews of Eastern Europe. 

Um, remind me -- whom should the American Jews have demonstrated
*against*?  The empty German consulate?  It's not as though there
was a German CNN in those days  that would have let anyone 
responsible *see* such a demonstration.  

Note also that American troops fought mainly against Germany's
Western and Southern fronts -- nowhere near the extermination camps.
There were few opportunities for the American government to do anything.

>Apparently American Jews were afraid to stick their neck out and being 
>accused of dragging US into the War.

Apparently you don't know much of the chronology of the Second World 
War.  

The extermination of Jews began in mid-1941, around the time of the 
invasion of the SU.  

The US entered the war on Dec. 8, 1941.

The first news of the death camps did not reach the US public until 1943.

Exactly which war were American Jews afraid of being accused of
trying to drag the US into?

>There were close to 3 million Jews in the US during the war.

There were close to 3 million Jews in New York City alone.

>What did they do to protect or help their brethren.

Every last thing they could, for the most part.  What *should* they
have done? 

During the war, they enlisted to fight, and did fight; they gathered
clothing and funds for refugees.  What *didn't* they do? 

>Perhaps some of them did a lot and some of them did as much as that simple 
>peasant shown in "Shoah" (*nothing*). 

Well, why don't you find out *what* they did, and find out what they
knew, and find out what it was possible to do.  Keep in mind that New
York is almost 4,000 miles from Auschwitz.

>It appears also that the special anti-Polish resentment is held by 
>American Jews, more so then Israeli Jews. Perhaps there is some sort of 
>communal guilt that not everything possible was done to save 
>the victims of Nazis.

Ah.  Now you're a psychoanalyst as well.  Could you start by telling us
to whom "it appears" this way?  I assume it's you.  Now tell us how
you came to this conclusion.  

Then tell us why it has to lead inexorably to an accusation toward
American Jews -- one that, needless to say, you can't back up with a shred 
of evidence.

>Wholesale blame on other ethnic groups is not going to help understanding 
>the problems of demoralisation caused by war.

Nor is wholesale innuendo.

Nor is nonsense.

Nor is ignorance of the facts.

Nor is a desperate attempt to pin blame for the Holocaust on its victims.

>Could you comment on those issues? 

AH, *there*'s the question.

>Perhaps someone knows the names, exact facts.

It sure ain't you.  Start over, and do a little research this time.

>I wish there was no anti-semitism, and anti-Polishness. 

You're not exactly doing much toward the eradication of either.

>Regards, 
>Marek

>Disclaimer: I AM NOT ANTI-JEWISH. I AM NOT ANTI-POLISH. 
>            Just wanted to spark discussion from the slightly different 
>            angle.

Indeed.  The facts  can be *so* boring after a while.

Look: if you don't want to come off as anti-Jewish, don't simply write
up a list of terrible sins of omission by the Jews during the war.  And
be SURE to get your facts straight at least occasionally -- the above
is downright embarrassing.  (Yes, I know, I've made factual errors
around here, too, and I *am* embarrassed.)

And if you don't want your writing to have an anti-Polish effect, 
don't insist on going after exactly one ethnic group in a posting 
like this.

Roger