From: sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.polish
Subject: Re: Auschvitz and $$$ & The Ontario Press Council
Date: 11 Sep 92 13:04:36 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.jewish
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

In article <matthew.716174798@mugga>, matthew@stats.mu.oz.au (Maciek Blasikiewicz) writes:
> saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (samuel.saal) writes:
> 
> >In article <7177@bigbird.hri.com.hri.com> roman@sparc17.hri.com (Roman
> >Budzianowski) writes:
> 
> >>If you feel that Poles didn't do enough - that is your right. But don't
> >>bring example of Denmark and similar countries - it's ridicules.
> 
> >Up until this line, I wouldn't have argued; I would have respected your
> >right to a different opinion no matter how much I disagreed.  But with
> >this statement you again attempt to call Poland the real victim, a typical
> >revisionistic tactic.  Either that or you have so little respect for
> >Poland that you are saying we shouldn't expect it to measure up to
> >countries like Norway or Bulgaria for whatever litany of reasons.
> >-- 
> >Sam Saal      kingfish!saal OR saal@kingfish.att.com
> >	Vayiftach HaShem et Peah Ha`Aton
> 
> Norway's Jews were 0.1% of the population, Bulgaria's were 0.8%,
> Poland's were 10%. You are not making fair comparisons.
> 
> Do you really think that hiding 1 in 1000 people (in Norway) is as easy
> as hiding 1 in 10 (in Poland)? Don't you understand that a large
> proportion of jewish Poles were not assimilated, they were orthodox,
> often could not even speak polish, and any idiot could spot them from
> far away (because of the dress etc.).  Don't you get that jewish Poles
> often lived in groups, separate from non-jewish Poles, and so there was
> no way for them to hide among non-jewish Poles (as the Germans did not
> allow free travel)? Don't you get that Poland's geographical location
> made it difficult to smuggle out jewish Poles (even on fishing boats or
> whatever)?  Don't you see that only so many people can be hidden per
> head of population (the number of jewish people that realistically can
> be hidden is not a linear function of the proportion of jewish people in
> a country, and saturation is reached at some stage)? If the percentage
> of jewish ethnics is less than the saturation level, then most of them
> will be hidden with success, but if this percentage exceeds the
> saturation level, then the excess will not be able to be hidden.
> 

I've been watching this thread for a while.  Last night I saw
"The Righteous Enemy" on A&E, a documentary about Italian
military and diplomatic efforts to save Jews in Southern
France and the Balkans.  Its' pretty clear from the movie
that because they were allies of the Nazis, but not fanatic
anti-semites themselves, they were in a much better position
to do something than the Poles were.  I believe the Polish
partisans and collaborators are guilty of some pretty heinous
behaviour, but its unfair to use survival rates of small
communities, particularly in Axis countries (after all
a larger percentage of German Jews survived than Polish Jews,
and who was more anti-semitic Germans or Poles?) to judge
Polish anti-semitism by.  This applies to Bulgaria, Italy,
Romania (50% survival isn't bad when compared to 15%).

BTW, what they didn't say on the documentary, that I have heard
on an interview of an Italian General (I forget his name) was
that he kept identifying Jews with Italian nationalism, since
Verdi had chosen Nabucco (the story of the Hebrews in slavery
under Nebuchadnezar) as his centerpiece for Italian nationalism.
This created a natural empathy for Jews in post Garibaldi Italy.

ANother thing I didn't know was that the Greek Orthodox patriarch
ordered all Greek monasteries and Churches opened to shelter
Jewish refugees.  The Polish Church never did anything like
that I'm sure (although apparently the Italian Church did).

		Seth Rosenthal

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own not my employers'.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.polish