From: saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (samuel.saal)
Subject: Re: Nazi camps
Organization: liver ---> spleen
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 12:18:43 GMT

In article <36990@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> lbs@neptune.phys.ufl.edu (Lech
Borkowski) writes:

>In article <1992Sep8.131332.26088@cbnewsl.cb.att.com>
>saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (samuel.saal) writes:

>>I urge you to visit Yad Vashem in Israel, the Weisenthal Center in
>>California, or the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC (when it is
>>completed).  You will learn the answer to your question ain a way far more
>>vivid than I can provide by simply listing names.  You'll also learn about
>>the Poles who resisted the Nazis without resorting to antisemitism.

> Not everyone can buy an airplane ticket just like that and fly
>there. I would love to go to Israel, but who will sponsor my trip? 

There are organizations that sponsor and subsidize (neo)Nazis and other
misguided young people to the places I mentioned and to others.  Church
and other religious groups have trips to Israel that are affordable.
If you were really interested, you'd find a way of learning.  I
suggested what I consider the most visually evocative ways of learning.
We of the non-globe-trotting class can also look in libraries for this
information.

>But you can post names of some of the individuals of Polish 
>descent that you suggest contributed to the genocide in a significant way. 

Other posters (e.g. Adam Reed) has met this trivial request.

> Or are you talking about "spiritual" involvement in the genocide
>by applauding the action of the German Nazis? Here we have
>to distinguish between the anti-Semites who would like to "keep
>control" over the Jewish population by e.g. rationing the access
>to universities and those anti-Semites who would like to kill
>all Jews. We call the latter ones the Nazis, right?

Why should either form of antisemitism be acceptable?

> When you write that the camps were on Polish soil, surrounded
>by Polish people, you are suggesting that the Poles were conducting
>their lives as usual, as if nothing has happened and didn't care
>if anyone was dying in the Nazi camps. Now, the German occupation 
>in Poland (and former Soviet Union) was a state of terror. People
>were executed and tortured all over the country. Of course your chances
>to survive the war were greater if you just tried to avoid any 
>activity suspicious to the German occupiers and merely tried
>to live. And a lot of people did just that. Even helping the Jews
>being transported to the concentration camps was a risky
>activity - if the German guards did not like that you brought
>some water or food to the train if it was standing somewhere,
>they could shoot you in a split of a second. Knowing that,
>how many people would try to bring water or food?
>And knowing that for saving Jews at your place or for just
>being involved in this activity you were risking the life
>of your whole family?

That's true.  And why risk it for Jews when there werre plenty of Pure
Poles to save.  Or are you trying to deny the efforts of those Poles who
_did_ save/help Jews (and their number was far from inconsequential)?  You
can't have it both ways.
-- 
Sam Saal      kingfish!saal OR saal@kingfish.att.com
	Vayiftach HaShem et Peah Ha`Aton