Are you aware that it was the English started modern
anti-Semitism in
Europe?
Are you aware that the English having kill many,
stolen all their money and then expelled those alive that Jews?
That Jews could not legally return for over
three hundred years?
Are you aware that
during the crusades (mostly English, French and German knights) the Jews were
regular attacked?
Are you aware that the
Russian invented the pogrom and the Germans ran the holocaust?
Are you aware that when almost the whole of Europe was
killing and/or expelling their Jews, Poland was the one country to
accept them? Are you aware that it was thanks to that safe haven that over the century’s
Jewish religious and cultural development flourished on Polish soil as nowhere
else on earth?
Are you aware that half the Jews of Europe before the WWII
lived in Poland? Are you aware this would be very strange for
Jews to live somewhere they are so hated?
Are you aware the Jewish word for Poland is Polin? Are you aware in Hebrew it means "Here shalt thou lodge" or "Place
of safe refuge”? Are you aware Sigmund Rolat
(Holocaust Survivor) said "Poland
really was more than just a country where Jews took refuge, Poland was really our home."
Are you aware that a special trained volunteer force of
Christians entered the Warsaw Ghetto to fight alongside the Jews? Are you aware that on three occasions Polish
Christian attacked the Germans in an attempt to break out the Jews during the
Warsaw Ghetto rising?
Are you aware Poland
was the only country in occupied Europe to
have an organization, Żegota, set-up with the sole purpose of saving Jews?
Are you aware that Poland was the only country where
the Germans found it necessary to issue the automatic dead penalty for simply
giving a Jew a glass of water? Are you
aware not only was the person helping the Jew murdered but their families as
well? Are you aware that failure to inform on a neighbor hiding Jews was
punished by deportation to a concentration camp?
Are you aware that Poland has more righteous (i.e.
those who aided Jews during the Holocaust) than any other country? Are you aware that a whole village, e.g. Markowa,
sometimes work together to save Jews? Are
you aware that a Polish woman, Irena Sendler, has been nominated for the Nobel
peace pride for saving up to 2,500 Jewish children?
Are you aware that Poland was only one three occupied
countries not to have a collaborationist government? Are you aware Poland unlike most other countries
did not have a volunteer SS division?
Are you aware that Poland
tried to publicize the deaths of Jews but the Western allies (i.e. US and UK)
suppressed it? Are you aware that even
the American Jewish congress did not believe the Polish Government about the
German mass murdering Jews? Are you
aware Poland
printed booklets and made radio broadcasts themselves trying to raise public
awareness during the war of the Holocaust?
Are you aware Poland
wanted to bomb the death camps but the western allies (i.e. UK and US) vetoed the idea? Are you aware Poland
wanted to bomb the railway lines to the camps but the western allies (i.e. UK and
US) vetoed the idea? Are you aware Poland
suggested bombing German cities in reprisal?
Are you aware Poland
suggested executing German POW in reprisal?
Are you ware Poland
suggested warning the Germans they would face war crime trials at the end of
the war to hopefully deter the Germans (again vetoed by US and UK)?
Are you aware that Israeli President Shimon Peres said when
honouring the Holocaust victims, "Millions of Jews lived here for a thousand years, and though
their lives were not always secure, they sustained us as a people. It is very
hard for me to stand here, but that is not the fault of the Polish people,
rather it is the incomparable extermination (of the Jews) carried out by the
Nazis.”?
Are you aware that over a 6 year period, the ADL only
selected 8 incident of anti-Semitism in Poland? Are you aware that 50% of all anti-Semite incidents
listed outside the US are in
four countries (France, UK, Germany
and Russia)? Are you aware the official Israel report on anti-Semitism around the world
clearly stated that France
and the UK
are the centre of current anti-Semitism?
That Poland
is hardly mentioned in the report?
Are you aware that the largest Jewish music festival is held
in Poland
and attended mostly by Polish Christians?
Are you aware that outside Israel,
more people are studying Hebrew in Poland than anywhere else?
I am not claiming there was no anti-Semitism in Poland
but it is not as clear cut as you make out.
Much is made, for example, of Poland
limiting Jews into their universities between the world wars but no-one talks
about US and UK
universities doing the same. Are you
aware that one of the founders, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, of Żegota was an
anti-Semite?
Please buy the brilliant DVD by the late Jagna Wright called
The Other Truth. As the Independent, a major
UK newspaper, said about it
“the conventional view of Poland
as a nation of anti-Semites is definitively challenged.” I think the start of the second DVD makes the
point clearly. You have a teenage
America Jew calling the Poles everything under the sun and an elderly Polish
Jew saying how life in Poland
before the war was like a Jewish paradise.
The teenager is the granddaughter of the Elderly Pole. If only she and you would listen to those who
know and where there, if only you were aware of the truth.
Regards
Jan Niechwiadowicz, Trustee Support Poland Limited and
Moderator of the Polish Media Issue Group
