Was the Holocaust Inevitable? ( Patrick J. Buchanan )

I have already said that the casualties of Polish Christians and Jews cannot be compared in absolute #s. Jews were nearly wiped out. Poles in Poland remain plentiful. The Nazis did not try to exterminate Poles; they wanted to enslave and eventually expel the bulk of their population to Siberia.

Like other European countries occupied by the Nazis, Poland had both collaboration and resistance.

Some Polish forces that escaped their defeat continued the fight. No one denies that.

The heroism of Zegota and other “righteous Gentiles” does not make everyone else a saint.

Many Jews who survived owed their lives to the Soviets.

While there were some Jewish officials in Soviet Poland, it is ridiculous to blame Poland’s Soviet era on Jews, which is what you do seem to imply. The Polish masses lived with Communism and provided the great bulk of its leadership for 45 years.

I don’t see how the souls of 3 million POlish Jews weigh mor than 3 million Polish Christians. Clearly, the Jewish community - in the US, Argentina, the USSR, England, etc- was never threatened with extermination. And yes, the Nazis tried to exterminate both peoples. If you want to argue that a Jewish life is worth more than a Christian life, OK.

Poles collaborated with the Nazis. And (some) Jews collaborated with the Soviets. I’m not implying it; I quoted the people who were there. Ignore them, OK.

The heroism of Zegota, the righetous, the millions killed, the millions exiled, the fourth largetst allied army, the first to fight doesn’t make everyone a saint. But it counts (except to you, apparently).

The mass of Communist leadership in 1945 - 1968 was Jewish. Read the book. But I’ve defined collaboration — when the Poles wouldn’t support the Soviets, they found people who would.

Can’t you deal with these facts, and not your urban myths?

You again.

Obviously, the Nazis could not kill Jews in countries they did not occupy. However, they did attempt to eliminate all Jews in the countries they did occupy in Europe. If they counquered the countries you named, there would be very few Jews left today. They were not trying to kill all Poles. If you were a Polish Catholic in Poland, you would have stood an excellent chance of living through the war. Polish Jews stood an excellent chance of being murdered. It is absurd to claim, as you do, that the two experiences are equivalent.

Jews who “collaborated” with the Soviets had an excellent reason to do so: the Soviets saved their lives. The Soviets liberated Poland from Nazi rule. Communism is oppressive everywhere, but someone living in safety in 2008 does not have the right to criticize Jews who survived the Holocaust in Poland and who were grateful for the arrival of the Soviets, which saved them from certain death. As we have seen, many Poles continued to murder Jews after the war was over, which is why most of the surviving Jews left anyway by 1948. There were a few prominent Polish Jewish Communist leaders like Berman and Minc, but you seem to think that this means that the Jewish community was ruling and victimizing Poland. That is ridiculous antisemitic conspiracy thought. There was barely any Jewish community. Most of those people were dead; most of the few who were not had fled. Jews were an extremely tiny fraction of the population. The Soviet Union forced Communism on Poland. If no Poles supported or tolerated the Soviets, what do you think would have happened? The Hungarians revolted in 1956; the Czechs had the Prague Spring in 1968; the Poles did not make real trouble for Moscow until Solidarity.

I do not deny that Zegota was heroic, but that is not the larger picture. We have gone over how meaningless it is that you keep saying that Poland was the first to fight, since it was not a fight that Poland started or ended. Some Poles who escaped volunteered, but after 1939 the “Polish war effort” is a historical footnote or part of other countries’ war efforts, just as with every other country that was quickly occupied by blitzkrieg. The U.S. and Russia stopped the Nazis. Poland was mowed down by the Nazis.

You are the one who can’t deal with facts because they interfere with your heroic, romanticized conception of Poland. Unfortunately, all sources indicate that Poland during the war and after was more black and gray than white.

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