Posted on 12/07/2001 10:15:51 PM PST by madrussian
Of great importance were the events in Germany. After Hitler took power, mass persecutions of Jews started, among whom there were also some 50,000 Polish subjects living in Germany. This resulted in official protests from the Polish consulates and embassy which took various steps to help the persecuted. However, the Polish authorities were afraid that this persecution would reduce the Polish Jews living in Germany to such poverty that they would be forced to return to Poland where they would not find any means of subsistence. Many employees of the Polish consulates-as reports sent to Warsaw indicate-intervened on behalf of Jews for purely humanitarian reasons, since they wanted, at least to some degree, to alleviate the difficult situation of the persecuted Jews.The same paragraphs can be found also here. I like this version much better because it seems to be approved by the Polish Jews (those who know the facts). I'd leave the propaganda works for local neocommies, Übermenschen, Spinnmeisters and G. Will.
These interventions stopped the Third Reich from applying against the Polish Jews all repressive measures which were used against the German citizens of Jewish origin. However nothing could change radically the situation of Polish Jews in Germany. In the years 1938-39 more and more often Polish Jews, leaving behind all their property, were hurried across the border to Poland under threat of death. Particularly harsh measures were applied in the last days of October 1938 when some 13,000 were forced in this way out of Germany (according to data of the Polish consulates). For several days the victims stayed in the open air, between the two border points, before they were allowed back to Poland. Here, having no means of subsistence, they waited for many weeks in transit camps near the border.
All these events made the picture of the future really gloomy. Poland faced a direct danger. Those who were preparing for departure from Poland had one more reason for doing so. The others, the overwhelming majority, who had no such possibility nor wished to leave Poland which they considered their motherland, awaited anxiously what the future had in store for them.
In the face of threat from the Third Reich the Jewish community in Poland demonstrated great self-sacrifice in the cause of defending the Republic. They contributed to the state loan for defensive purposes and collected funds for the army. This sacrifice manifested itself also during September 1939. The outstanding scholar Emanuel Ringelblum wrote the following about the sentiments prevailing then in Warsaw: ''The Warsaw Jews were overcome with enthusiasm which recalled the year 1861, the era of fraternity., During the siege of Warsaw, Jewish organizations took an active part in civil defense and assistance to victims. The historian Bernard Mark recalls an unusual demonstration of Jews through the streets of Warsaw: ''In the first line there marched five well-known rabbis in long, silk black coats and sable hats... They were followed by students of the rabbinical college, each carrying a spade on his shoulders.'' Many Jews helped to dig earthworks even on holiday, Saturday. Others took up arms and fought the common enemy. The defeat of the Polish army in the September campaign opened a new, tragic period in the common history of Jews and Poles.
Well, where were we? (Let's hope he doesn't jump in with Gacynski© links now...)
I NEVER treat cleaning ladies with disrespect. I am insulted that you would even suggest such a thing.
Someone has obviously kidnapped CommiesOut and is typing pro-Jewish messages on his computer. I'm concerned.
The most important result of the Evian Conference was that it undermined the illusion that forced emigration could really solve the Nazis' "Jewish problem." Later in the year, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop would succinctly sum up the situation for Hitler by recalling a conversation with Georges Bonnet, Ribbentrop's French counterpart. Bonnet had insisted that France did not want to receive any more Jews from Germany, and in fact wanted to ship 10,000 Jews elsewhere. Ribbentrop told Hitler that he had replied to Bonnet "that we all wanted to get rid of our Jews but that the difficulties lay in the fact that no country wished to receive them."
Tell me now, if all of the countries did not want to receive the Jews, why should Poland do so? So that later on the same Jews could kiss the Soviet tanks invading Poland?
1) to hide their own shameful behaviour of not helping the Jews in Europe during the WWII in general.
2) to hide the fact that there were patriotic Poles of Jewish heritage to whom Poland was their country, first and foremost.
The only Jews Poland was asked to accept were those who held Polish citizenship. The Poles refused.
By the way, the 1938 law revoking the citizenship of Polish Jews living outside Poland revoked the citizenship of Georges Charpak. Of course, after Charpak won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1992, the Poles began claiming him as a "Polish" Nobel Prize winner!
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