Poland Denies Being Complicit in the Holocaust

I can agree with the Polish idea of renaming Auschwitz and other death camps in Poland as Nazi Death Camps located in Poland rather than Polish Death Camps. Nazi death and work camps existed in many countries besides Germany and Poland. But I sense a guilty conscience here that refuses to come clean. Why make a law prohibiting people from calling them that? This smells of Soviet era paranoia.

Much more problematic is Poland's proposed law to prohibit people from saying that Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

Poland was absolutely complicit in the Holocaust. Aside from the terrible stories my own parents told me as survivors, there exists one glaring fact: Before the war Poland had 3.5 million Jews or more. After the war they had none. The elimination of that many people couldn't have happened without the help of many Poles. One can easily find videos depicting hundreds of thousands of Poles cheering on Hitler when he paraded through Poland. There is tons of proof of the vile behaviour of many Poles towards Jews before, during and most disgustingly after the war. Besides my own family who owned property in Poland prior to the war, there are tens of thousands of Jews who also lost real property like houses, hotels, businesses and factories. Their Jewish bodies weren’t even cold (from the ovens) before many Poles (often their own neighbours, business associates or employees) had repossessed them. Unlike Germany who has formally apologized numerous times for the Holocaust and continues to pay millions in reparations, Poland has done little. In Germany it is illegal to deny the Holocaust but now in Poland it may become illegal to acknowledge it. Poles have profited immensely both from the property they stole and from the tourist business that continues to pour in to places like Auschwitz (pictured above). There were a couple of countries who protect their Jews, like Denmark and Bulgaria. Poland was not one of them.

I often hear the defence that many Poles suffered at the hands of the Nazis and died in Nazi death camps. True. But what had that got to do with the Poles treatment of their Jews?

Some have told me to be quiet about this. No sense in opening old wounds and I'm not going to change the age old antisemitism in Poland. Wrong. I speak out about injustice. That's what I do. Maybe I'll plant a seed of doubt into one Polish citizen who was brainwashed to think otherwise. Most people in the world sadly know nothing or little about this. Probably my own children. I write this for them and for the memory of my parents and six million more who lost their lives in the most brutal fashion. Who does know about the horrors of the Poles? Those survivors who are still with us, their children and many older Poles are also still with us. And most disturbingly, the Polish government.

Since we have relations with her (Canada and Israel) I urge us all to write letters to the Polish government to overturn their proposal. If we can't get them to admit the historical truth on this, perhaps we can at least embarrass them to change their minds. The Polish treatment of Jews circa WWII is not prevalent in textbooks. It needs to be. Have you seen the Polish documentary (by 2 righteous Poles) called the 'Two Barns'? It happened in a small rural town in Poland at the beginning of the war. The nazis had not yet even entered their town. Jews had lived peacefully, side by side with their Polish neighbours for over 800 years. The Poles had a meeting to decide what to do with 'their' Jews. They rounded them up, put them in a barn at gun point and burnt them alive. But not before they grabbed one of the good looking young Jewish women. They raped her, chopped off her head and played soccer with it. The Nazis had nothing to do with this. And there were other similar horrific incidents in Poland.

If I was Poland I would be very quiet on any Holocaust denial. I would certainly not open up this can of worms. It's obvious that they urgently require Holocaust education and a Polish history lesson. Any Jewish survivor from Poland will always remember the fear of being pointed to by a Pole to a Gestapo agent shouting the words: Here is a Jew!

If Poland can’t see the wrong in their proposal, they are erasing any good that righteous Poles did by risking their lives and in some cases giving their lives, to save Jews during the Holocaust.

I’m not saying all Poles were Nazis but many were. Until Poland stops sweeping their guilt under the carpet, they will never heal nor can they be trusted.

So you like free speech?

So you like free speech, eh? I thought I did too but apparently my definition is different than many institution's that I have been corresponding with. For those who know me, you'd know me perhaps more from the letters I write rather than my blogs like this one. I write numerous emails per week to those who've done wrong and maybe a few who've done right. 

Sometimes I write my letters about a third party to a media outlet (ie. newspaper, etc.) in order to publicize the issue. Other times I write directly to the person or organization. Of course I don't expect to receive a reply. If I do, it's a bonus. Likewise if my letters aren't published, it's still all good. Hopefully they've read it. I usually send copies to my contacts so in any case I do get my messages out. 

I found out years ago after getting a reply from one of  my first emails that free speech can and is often abused. After chastising a university for employing a professor who was blatantly antisemitic right here in my country, Canada, I received a standard reply that went something like this: 'The administration at this university champions free speech and as such we don't necessarily agree with professor X but we stand behind his right to speak freely and allow freedom of expression. 

In that case the professor was teaching history while denying the Holocaust. I tried to tell them that I too champion free speech but what does that have to do with hiring professors who are teaching revisionist history and proudly lying about six million Jews who were brutally murdered by the nazis? That is not education. That is misinformation. Again I received the same pat reply. It was probably semi-automatically generated when they received a negative comment from me. 

Since that day I have received pretty much the same pat reply from most universities and other organizations both private and public. I can see that in some cases perhaps the situation isn't black and white. For instance there have been many cases of employees who are vocal racists or worse (they have committed race inspired crimes). 

My intention in writing to their employers, be they schools, government or private businesses is first to inform them. They might not know anything about the person. Hopefully if this is the case they will take appropriate action (ie. fire them). But instead I often receive a reply that goes something like this: 'Thanks for reaching out to us. What our employees do in their private lives is their own business. Have a nice day!' 

So if company X hires John Doe as VP of sales and John Doe posts 'I hate Jews!' on his Facebook page, that's ok. Except it's really not. There should be consequences for being a racist. One of them should be that you either keep your racism to yourself or else you might not be employed. I've certainly noticed (and I'm sure that anyone who is looking for a job lately would notice this too) is that how you behave on social media is usually scrutinized by prospective employers. If you are applying for a corporate job (ie. bank teller, IT, etc.) and their HR department finds you hanging a moon (baring your bum) on FB or calling blacks lazy in a rant on Twitter, chances are they won't be calling you back for a second interview. 

Here's a current example of my dialogue with the Provost of USC after I discovered that one of their professors taught his students that Israeli zionists were terrorists:

It has come to my attention that your professor Kang is teaching at the very least a biased, revisionist version of events and at worst a bigoted,antisemitic and anti-American ‘teaching’ class. I urge you to distance yourself from him immediately by dismissing him from USC.

Their reply to me:

Thank you for sharing your concerns with us.

Professor Kang has chosen to issue his own statement on this matter in which he said he was intending to foster a discussion about how and why groups and individuals are labeled terrorists. He said that the slide in question was written to “point out that national heroes of all types are called terrorists by their opponents.” 

As you may know, one of the core principles of any university is that of academic freedom. The views of our faculty members are not endorsed by the university; indeed, we sometimes profoundly disagree with them. Nevertheless, we protect and support their right to express those views.

So what can one determine from all of this? Far too often being a vocal antisemite or Israel hater (they are one and the same thing) is acceptable. It's a minor, overlooked blemish or perhaps its employers are even sympathetic. Jews are partly to blame for this cultural norm. Because we ignored it for far too long. Which means we accepted it. We gave the world a pass to condemn us. I can certainly understand it. We are so often physically attacked (recall the Holocaust) that mere words are much easier to swallow. There is also the 'let's not rock the boat' syndrome. And many more complex reasons. 

That's exactly why I do speak out and I'm speaking out here. I want this stopped. There are two standards. One applied to us and another applied to everyone else. I'm sick of getting the standard 'free speech' excuse when I point out what honest people would admit is plain out wrong. Yes I believe in free speech as much as anyone and I'll defend it until I die. If you want to accuse Israel of being an apartheid state and shout it out on the street, you are free to do so. As long as you don't obstruct traffic, are not violent and do it legally. But this scenario is far different from a racist teacher or boss who teaches his students or employees to hate. Those students who wish to pass the course and those employees who wish to retain their jobs are forced to listen to their BS. This is a clear form of abuse. 

I would love to see how a university president would reply if a professor at the school  would post 'Kill all university presidents' on FB. Would the professor get a free speech pass? I doubt it.

Is Trump Really Crazy?

If you arrived in the US today from some isolated place in the world like the jungles of Borneo you would probably think that the president of the most powerful country on earth is CRAZY.

After all, there are solemn parades like the one in New York, books written and commentaries by over 100 psychiatrists or pseudo-psychiatrists who all claim that he is crazy and therefore is unfit to be president. Most of those who opposed Trump during the election didn’t oppose him because they disagreed with his policies, they opposed him because…. wait for it… they thought he was NUTS.

And they haven’t let up on that. If one wanted to sincerely find out why they thought so, it was painfully difficult and uncomfortable to say the least. Why? Because those that hated him couldn’t clearly and objectively state their case. Reasons varied from: look at his crazy hair to just parroting the main stream media’s constant array of lies, attacks, exaggerations and especially taking his talking or tweeting points out of context. I’ve noticed that amongst my own (I’m a secular Jew in uber left wing Toronto) that many who opposed him projected their own insanity on him. The 24-7 attacks on Trump by the MSM are not helping. If he invented a cure for cancer, they would still find fault. The press would go something like this: 'Today president Trump invented a cure for prostate cancer. But what about cancers that affect women? Being a narcissist, misogynist and sexist He only cares about himself. '

Many who oppose him including some Republicans and never Trumpers are themselves irrational. From serious intellectuals like Daniel Pipes who at one time preferred not to vote at all rather than vote for him to some of my apolitical friends. Daniel Pipes walked it back a bit later after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Let me relate a personal story which typifies exactly who we are dealing with:

I reconnected to an old friend from high school on FB. We both had parents who were Holocaust survivors which allowed us a unique shared history and permitted us to lovingly make jokes about our 'greener' parents. Soon after our reconnection Trump got elected. We never talked about politics but I mentioned that in my retirement I became an activist for Jewish causes and Israel. One day she sent me a pic of the Trump family with all of the women with their hands near their genitalia with the headline 'No wonder they are covering their vaginas' or something like that.  It was meant to be a 'funny' jab at Trump for apparently being at the very least a misogynist, racist, sexist and at most, far worse. I replied with a similar jab at Obama who I viewed as the worst president in American history. She went nuts! How dare I. If she wanted to read trash there were many options on the internet to do so, she didn't need me to send it to her. When I mentioned politely that she didn't see a problem sending me trash about my favorite president in history and that since she opened the door on US politics why was it wrong for me to reciprocate? She then went into a messy diatribe about how when she was young she was attacked sexually by a family member and that’s why she hates Trump and so should the world.

When I wrote a piece about antisemitism being alive and well in 2017 one of my former work colleagues said she was surprised that I wrote such an article since I like Trump and he's behind the antisemitism. In that article I gave some recent examples including the demeaning case of the international judo tournament that took place in the UAE. Israeli participants who won were not allowed to have their national anthem played (like everyone else). I defended Trump as not an antisemite since among other things Muslim antisemitism existed long before Trump. Her response: I'm an angry white man! And no doubt crazy as well.

For a crazy guy he’s certainly accomplished a ton in such a short time despite the swamp's opposition to him. The US economy has and continues to benefit its people and the world is safer thanks to Trump yet many people hate him. I ask you: Who is crazy? To put a point on it, for the most part, Trump supporters seem to have their heads screwed on right whereas the left amongst having other issues are, hang on I’m trying to think of the correct medical term…. oh yea… I got it…they are batshit CRAZY!