Posted on 04/18/2006 11:53:15 AM PDT by lizol
Poland marks 63rd anniversary of WWII Warsaw ghetto uprising Canadian Press
Radek Sikorski and religious leaders of Poland's Jewish community, flanked by Jewish Second World War veterans, laid flowers and prayed Tuesday to mark the 63rd anniversary of the doomed Warsaw ghetto uprising.
Several dozen officials and local residents also lit candles and said the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, at the monument to the heroes of the ghetto struggle during observances held on the eve of the anniversary.
On April 19, 1943, hundreds of young Jewish fighters took up arms in the first major act of armed civilian resistance against the Nazis, who invaded and occupied Poland in 1939.
The insurgents opted to fight the Nazis in the face of the German plan to exterminate the tens of thousands of Jews remaining in the ghetto.
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Would have been nicer if the Polish underground had tried to help out, 63 years ago.
And nicer now if there were an apology for failing to do so.
(And when the Poles in the rest of Warsaw rose up two years later, and nobody came to help them, they got just what they had dished out to others.)
Would have been even nicer if the American Jewish diaspora had tried to help out, 63 years ago.
Most of the able-bodied Poles were helping the Jews, by fighting against the Germans during the Battle of Britain, D-Day, North Africa, Monte Cassino.....
Poland never surrendered to Germany, there was NO Vichy Poland.
Bottom line:
The camps could never have been placed in France.
France had an active underground and the camps, the transportation lines to them, and their garrisons would have been under constant attack.
Poland also had an active underground. Attacks on the RR lines? Harrassment of the garrisons? Zip! Nada.
Help for the Warsaw ghetto? 50 old (and some unworkable)
pistols.
Uhh France was also a little bit closer to England than Poland was. It took flights from England to supply the French resistance.
Guys, cool down! What are you doing here? This is to remember the victims of the Ghetto uprising and not to blame those who didn´t stand up. I´m German, and I´ve asked myself what had I done during the Nazi time. The honest answer is, that I don´t know. Given I´d been educated the way I was I would not have participated in the Nazi party, but I don´t know whether I had had the strength to risk my life in the resistance.
Why do we call those who had this courage heroes? Because their actions were extra-ordinary. If it were ordinary, why should we call them heroes? I don´t blame anybody for being ordinary. The extra-ordinary behaviour needs our attention - be it in the evil sense or in the good sense.
So don´t engage in verbal fights about those who behaved ordinary. They don´t deserve to be blamed. The Nazis committed the atrocities.
These few Jews, who decided to fight in the ghetto didn't have any chances anyway. There was no sense to waste weapons for them.
While the behavior of partisans toward Jews was often shameful, no one "deserved" what happened to Warsaw at the hands of Hitler and Stalin a year later, or to the AK for years afterward.
The relatively few Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto held off the Germans longer than the entire French Army.
It's permissible for university professors to write books that appeal to the rest of the anti semites, the David Duke types.
Permissible for certain Churches to recommend divestiture from investments in Israel.
Equating palestinian terrorism with the bulldozing of the houses of terrorists.
"France had an active underground and the camps, the transportation lines to them, and their garrisons would have been under constant attack."
That is a myth. It was a year and a half after France's surrender before the FIRST German soldier was killed by the French resistance. The French munitions factories, by contrast, were going full strength building weapons for the Nazis. Sound very active to you?
The situation for Jews in America today is much better than it used to be in America, and can't hold a candle to the past in Europe. It's too good, that's why most of us are assimilating.
Yes, there are people who are strongly anti-Israel and often for some naive or stupid reasons. I wouldn't conflate that with anti-Semitism even though there is sometimes some crossover.
Have you ever heard the crazies who call CSPIN blaming the jews for everything wrong in America and the rest of the world too for that matter.
Sadly enough, a large number of blacks hate the jews too. And they don't mind saying so.
No offense, but the France-Poland comparison is not that simple.
There were concentration camps in France that held Jews before they were to be deported to the death camps. These camps were staffed by both French police and Germans. Guess what, they weren't attacked by the Resistance and their train tracks not targeted for destruction.
There were 3.4 million million Jews in Poland before World War II and only 500,000 in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, combined. Poland was north of Slovakia and Hungary, east of Germany, and linked to the rest of Europe by rail, so it made sense as the location for most murders.
The occupation of Poland was much more brutal than the occupation of France. Neither was a picnic.
Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.
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Some arms might have been nice, but all they would have accomplished was to die in Warsaw a year earlier.
I could be wrong but I think all the transit camps for the Jews were French run. The German's ran a labor camp at Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace, but I don't think it was used for collecting Jews.
Every occupied country had transit camps. This is where the Jews were assembled, before going on the trains headed eastward.
Sure, there are people like that. They are completely marginalized in politics (this is a recent development) and their opinions are not acceptable in most parts of society.
Sure there is discrimination and lots of people who don't like Jews, but it hardly rises to a violent hatred, and in this sense Jews aren't much different from other ethnic groups or racial groups that are also stereotyped and resented in America.
I just looked this up--Drancy (and presumably the other French transit camps) were set up by the Vichy government and run by the French until July 1943, long after deportations to the East had started.
Small handguns would have enabled more Jews to flee to the forests and defend themselves, both by stretching out the battle for the Warsaw Ghetto and giving Jews a means of self-defense.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was doomed, but so was the Polish defense of their nation in 1939 and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, yet no one considers those a waste of ammunition.
On April 19, 1943, hundreds of young Jewish fighters took up arms in the first major act of armed civilian resistance against the Nazis, who invaded and occupied Poland in 1939.
And lets not forget, that uprising was brought to you by Guns, fighting tyranny for over 200 years.
At that moment nothing. Before 1939, France, UK and Poland maybe with help of the US troops might theoretically make a prevent attack. But nobody was so far minded at that time except Pilsudski but he was not popular in the west.
Following the armed resistance in January 1943, all social institutions and the Judenrat ceased to function and even walking on the streets became illegal. Mordechai Anielewicz, at the age of 24, became the leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). He recruited more than 750 fighters, but amassed only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and a couple of grenades. A developed network of bunkers and fortifications were formed. The Jewish fighters also received support from the Polish Underground.
On April 19th, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began when German troops penetrated the ghetto to begin a third round of mass deportations. The ZOB faced a formidable force of 2,000 armed German SS soldiers, yet the Nazi SS were unable to defeat the Jews in open street combat. After several days, the Germans switched tactics and began burning down houses. The ZOB headquarters on 18 Mila Street fell on May 8th, 1943; at this time Mordechai Anielewicz died in battle.
In terms of today's Islamic Nazis (Iran, Hamas, Syria, Hizballah, al-Qaida, etc., - Never Again!
Yes they would.
I was referring to the French transit camps, which to my knowledge were run by the French govt rather than the SS.
That was my impression.
Thank you for pointing out that very important historical footnote. Although there were some limited exceptions, the Polish underground was vicious to the Jews, killing them or turning them over to the nazis when they fled to the woods. The Jews begged them for just a few more guns to fight the nazis in Warsaw and got nothing.
How said it is that there are Arab rockets falling in or near the Kibbutz named in his memory (Yad Mordechai) and the present government doesn't have one hundreth of his courage to stand up to today's nazis.
The terrible thing is that there were people saying "Don't make trouble, it will only bring trouble".
Collecting money to buy weapons, putting pressure on U.S. government.
You know, things like that.
I hate to burst your bubble. My father was there. Most able-bodied Poles stayed right there in Poland and were delighted to collaborate with the Nazis. There were limited exceptions and they are honored at Yad Vashem in Israel. But the general rule (and you can ask my father and any other survivor from Poland) but it's a close argument as to who hated the Jews more: Poles or Germans.
I hate to burst your bubble. My father was there. Most able-bodied Poles stayed right there in Poland and were delighted to collaborate with the Nazis. There were limited exceptions and they are honored at Yad Vashem in Israel. But the general rule (and you can ask my father and any other survivor from Poland) but it's a close argument as to who hated the Jews more: Poles or Germans.
The general rule was that on Soviet occupied areas Jews turned in Poles for Siberian exile and generally welcomed commie ideology with open hands. Everybody there will tell you that. My father as a Siberian expat knows something about that. Of course there were limited exceptions to collaboration and outbursts of insane hatred like the ones in Koniuchy or Naliboki. It's a close argument who hated Poles more: the Jews or the Germans.
Well, as for now, I see no evidence that the Germans hate the Poles. As for others...
You have eyes so you can see. :)
Speaking of Islamic death cultists, this gathering could have been a golden opportunity to clean up Gaza, a little.
I understand where you are coming from, but do consider this.
Between the Nazis and the Soviets, the majority of the Polish intelligentsia, which were the more liberal parts of Polish society, were wiped out.
After that, many able bodied Poles were out of the country, and they were fighting the Germans in every theater.
The Poles that were left, were kept in a constant state of fear, don't forget many Gentile Poles faced the same fate of their Jewish brothers. And many of the Jews would identify themselves as Poles. Why is it that people forget that?
So the Home Army might have been representated by more anti-semites than had Poland not been ravaged by the war. The more liberal parts of Polish society were not around anymore to lessen the anti-semitic influence, thanks to Hitler and Stalin.
War brings out the best and it can bring out the worst in people. And the fact is, there was a reason that Poland had the highest Jewish population of any European state before the war. Because Poles were more tolerant than most other states, why do you think Hitler wanted Polish intelligentsia wiped out? They had been compiling names of these Poles years before Fall Weiss, so that they could quickly be rounded up, before they could be of any aid to the Jews.
Just some things to consider.
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