From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.german,soc.culture.polish
Subject: Re: common Polish-German action (was: Nazi Cam
Date: 2 Sep 92 17:40:37 GMT
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <matthew.714794316@mugga> matthew@stats.mu.oz.au (Matthew Zalbiciewski) writes:
>ted@dgbt.doc.ca (Ted Grusec) writes:

>>Prejudice against the Jews in Europe is well documented and nowhere
>>was this worse than in Poland.

>Great one Ted! Can you explain, then, why did so many Jews (a few
>million) emigrate to Poland between the two World Wars? 

WHAT?  Where did you get this idea?  There was a mass Jewish*emigration*
from Poland in the last century and the beginning of the current one;
where did the Jews who supposedly came *to* Poland come from?

>Were they just
>playing masochists, plain stupid, or what? I mean, if they didn't have
>it worse in Germany,

If more than a few hundred German Jews moved to Poland after WW I, it's
news to me.

(Of course, if you're referring to Jews who suddenly lived in Poland
because borders were redrawn, that's something else.  But it's not
emigration, either.)

> Russia, or wherever, why would they take positive
>steps to go where they would end up worse off?

First tell us that they *did.*  And give a source or two, hm? 

>>The nazis capitalized on the situation

>Good on them, smart fellows. I'm full of awe at how resourceful and
>clever they were. Really.

>>but I think responsibility for the death camps has to shared by the
>>whole of Europe

>That's it! Spread the blame! We mustn't let the Germans take all the
>blame.  No, no, no. It was the Poles, the fucking Poles, who kept the
>Jews on their soil for so many years, 

Interesting formulation.  You speak as though the Jews of Poland
weren't Poles, too.  Of course, most Polish Gentiles saw it just 
that way, and that caused a lot of problems.  It was "their" soil,
not that of the Jews, and the Jews were "kept" or allowed to stay, 
not considered compatriots.

>just to cause trouble for the
>Germans who "finally" had to do something to "solve" the problem, since
>the Poles were obviously too stupid to do anything effective. And now
>look at how ungrateful everybody is to the Germans for "cleansing"
>Europe. And there's finger pointing, and naughty things are being said
>about the Master Race, and so on. So, in a show of solidarity with the
>great "cleansers" let's share the burden together, let's apportion the
>blame equally among all of Europe. This is what it means to be in a
>community, share the problems, big and small.

Finished?  Good.  Now listen:

Anti-Semitism all over Europe made the Holocaust possible.  In hardly
any country the Germans occupied was there any administrative resistance
or popular resistance to the deportation of Jews -- and the governments
and peoples of those countries *did* resist and protest other things, even
under German rule.

Nobody is advocating equall apportionment of blame among all.  But 
complacency and approval through silence are required if something 
like the Holocaust is to succeed.  Wherever the Germans met resistance
to their plans, e.g., in Hungary and Romania, they did not succeed in
wiping out the Jewish population.  Where there was very little or no
resistance, the place was made "Judenrein."  

And generally those places where the Nazis succeeded the most were the
places where Jews were not permitted full entry into society.

>>and especially by those areas where prejudice was most
>>widespread.

>Oh no, how stupid of me to try to spread the blame equally. Geez, I
>must be a Pole, I never learn. We don't want to spoil with any
>blemishes the bright, carefully cultivated, image of a tolerant and
>enlightened Europe.  Let's apportion some more, a lot more, all (?),
>of the blame to those outside the EC, where, anyway, all these
>"regrettable incidents" took place. They're all backward, after all,
>they won't mind. And even if some do, who gives a shit?

Pipe down.  Are you telling us that the people of Poland had *nothing*
to do with any of this?  Remember that Poland had a widely popular
pogrom *after* WW II, also.

>Yes, and just how much blame must be borne by the Jews themselves?
>After all, nobody asked them to stay in Europe, and if they weren't
>there nothing would've happened to them, right?  They should've gotten
>the message when the Leader came to power, and split. After all, the
>Leader and his followers weren't exactly subtle, were they? It's like a
>pimple on your face that only has itself to blame when you squeeze it
>out:  it was it's own fault it was there in the first place, playing on
>your nerves, irritating you, daring you to get rid of it, while knowing
>your face will look bad after you do squeeze it out because of the
>sore, hoping you will never take the plunge and do it. But you did call
>its bluff (!), and now what? Nobody likes you. Oh shit! It ain't fair.

The only thing that looks bad after this outburst is *you*.

Roger