Was the Polish nation or state complicit in the crimes of the Nazis?
Four times a no, unless you're a revisionist and believe in Polish death camps. Biased poll, obvious bait in OP, this doesn't even warrant a discussion. Also, BBC is on the level of huff post now, posting one sided articles with heavy bias while ignoring all evidence and facts, that's a real shame.
Comment has been collapsed.
Uh, nope, not really, those two are less credible, look at their national coverage... :P
Comment has been collapsed.
I attack the "source" when it itself is based on things that are half-truths at best, and obvious lies at worst. I've read several of BBC articles on this subject, and they're laughable with how much they attempt to shift and twist reality to fit the anti-polish agenda. This bill is only controversial to people trying to make it a controversy, people with agenda and people trying to shift blame.
“Enactment of this law adversely affects freedom of speech and academic inquiry," This made me laugh, that's like saying Poland's own law making denial of holocaust illegal is doing the same thing.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, the Olympics just started, I might be slightly anti-Polish if they beat our skaters...
Comment has been collapsed.
There certainly is, but it's quite subtle at times, like a certain popular german show about WW2 that portrays all Poles, and especially the resistance, as bad guys that pretty much killed Jews 24/7.
Comment has been collapsed.
So you mean holocaust didn't happen? That's on the same level as saying Poland was complicit in it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, dude, except Poland wasn't complicit, unless you believe in straight up bullshit. Educate yourself.
Comment has been collapsed.
May I give my fast opinion of someone who didn't read anything and, thus, didn't understand any sides of your arguments because I'm too sleepy?
If so, history tells that even some rich jews sponsored nazism, and nazis accepted their support willingly. That doesn't mean that there was not Holocaust or that most of the jews didn't suffer or, worse, it definitely doesn't mean that jews deserved it or supported it.
It just means that people are not a single mass and that some of them follow their own selfish interests, despite the consequences or ideologies.
I suppose that, if Polish State was really a complicit and supported nazis in any way, it doesn't mean that Polish people supported nazism or were their accomplices at all. We can't even say that German people themselves supported nazis, since Nazi Party was never supported for the majority of their population.
Comment has been collapsed.
I get what you're saying, but it was the German nation that voted Nazis into the power: http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm you can read more about it here if you are interested: tl;dr they weren't supported by overwhelming majority, but it was very popular across all ages and backgrounds. It's still a contentious discussion today how much german civilians were complicit in the crimes, certainly there were a lot of them that didn't have a clue, but all the same there were people that eagerly bought into Nazi propaganda, resistance against the Nazis was also limited in scope for various reasons.
It can't be compared to Poland at all, which didn't have a collaborating government, its own people were being killed in Holocaust, its government-in-exile and underground army/government were first to spread the information and awareness about Holocaust happening, and there were very few Poles that willingly aided Nazis, they were deemed traitors and were sentenced to death.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hmmm... I'll read it later, but, if I recall correctly, nazis got support from some German people (yes, a lot of people, but not that majority), so they managed to make part of the government, Weimar Republic gave them lots of freedom because of their prestige at the time, which was their chance to take the power by force, not by majority of supporting.
About Polish history, I don't know a thing, so I can't give any opinion about the topic. Though, about the part of hurting their own people, I can guarantee that hurting their own people is not an obstacle for a State to not support (and execute) absurd practices that sometimes benefit other countries more than their own. That unfortunately happened and still happens all the time through human history, especially in third world countries (I live in one of them).
But even not knowing Poland history and even before reading your comment, I believed and believe that, if there was someone in Poland who supported the nazis, it was a tiny minority. The problem is that sometimes that tiny minority which supports that kind of absurd practices is the own government. That's what happened a lot here for ages :/ (and still happens, in a minor scale).
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't even know why you linked those at all. He was saying what you were saying about WW2 Poland was untrue.
Comment has been collapsed.
Believing the shite that comes out of the BBC is a major mistake in itself.
As for Yahoo, which is the first link from the others I randomly clicked, this is the whole article
Poland's president says he plans to sign the controversial Holocaust-speech bill into law, but he didn't say when.
Comment has been collapsed.
Already did. :(
But he did say "now I'm sendint it to check if it doesn't break Polish constitution", not that I trust out current Constitutional Court to really work on it, they'll just ask Our Glorious Party should they kill it or not.
Comment has been collapsed.
Add a little piano music, or some rhyme words and you're good...
"is not committing a crime if he or she commits such an act as part of artistic or scientific activities"
Comment has been collapsed.
OK, leave this site couple hours, chill and tell it to someone you trust how you feel.
Comment has been collapsed.
Important to you doesn't mean important to everyone else...
Comment has been collapsed.
The law is stupid. The writing of history should never be let to politicians
The polish goverment in exile was one of the first to denounce the existance of the Holocaust, that too many in the allied intelligence refused to acknowledge. And there are many christian Poles that have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, risking their lives to save jews. Grouped by nationality, Polish rescuers represent the biggest number of people who saved Jews during the Holocaust
On the other hand, people are human. There was strong anti-Semitism in the country at that time, before Second World War. Yes, there were thousands and thousands of collaborators, that happily helped kill their own jewish neighbors. And helped by the nazis, there were massacres, like the Jedwabne pogrom in summer 1941 when several hundred Jews were burned alive by their neighbors.
So, we should never forget. Both, the Jedwabne pogrom, where people driven by greed and hate killed innocents, and the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, where people risked their lives in saving innocents.
Comment has been collapsed.
"The polish goverment in exile was one of the first to denounce the existance of the Holocaust"
[citation needed] Allied governments long refused to believe Holocaust was a thing, which was first reported thanks to reports from Poland that were made as early as 1940, via government in exile.
There was anti-Semitism pretty much everywhere in Europe at that time, and Poland as multi-ethnic and multi-religious country had a lot of issues because of that, it's not as black and white as it seems. There's no denying that there were collaborators (lowest % in Europe, literally a drop in the ocean and not "a lot of people" like some try to portray), and they were seen as outcasts, traitors and sentenced to death by underground government. Vast majority of Poles weren't complicit in Holocaust (of which they were themselves sufferers), most of people that "happily helped to kill their jewish neighbours", were jewish themselves, Judenrat was a thing.
General knowledge about Jedwabne is based mostly on a single heavily biased and debunked book, just FYI, entire thing is heavily muddled and should be carefully approached.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, the statement that the Polish people were complicit is such a hollow phrase, it points blame at the Polish people as a whole and is just as bad as pure denial.
If there is anything to be learned from researching Jewish history in Europe it is that most nations had a dislike or even hate of Jewish people in their past. The word ghetto is not something created in the USA to describe bad urban planning, the word goes back centuries and was Italian in origins, from the city of Venice where they forced Jewish people to live and they could only leave with permission.
If ratting out a Jewish person to the Nazis means the entire nation is complicit then every occupied country's people in Europe was complicit.
Comment has been collapsed.
I like how you edited your OP to make it less outrageous, very classy. It's still wrong however, it should read:
Very few people of Poland collaborated with the Nazis and were complicit in the Holocaust.
The Polish nation didn't collaborate with the Nazis and wasn't complicit in the Holocaust.
Third one is an opinion, no comment.
Fixed that for you. Apparently you still don't get the idea behind the bill, it's to stop the misleading and blame-shifting bullshit that is "Polish death camps" and the like once and for all. Nobody is denying there were collaborators, see this comment: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/6fceN/poland-was-complicit#0IpQ60X
Comment has been collapsed.
You know what is also a bad idea (and idiotic too)? Generalizing.
Quoting you: "The people of Poland collaborated with the Nazis and were complicit in the Holocaust.
The Polish nation collaborated with the Nazis and was complicit in the Holocaust."
You condemn a whole generation of people and a whole country for something that was supposedly done by certain individuals.
Generalizing is idiotic and takes out credibility to your arguments.
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting topic, but the manner that it has been framed leads me to believe that this is nothing more than flame bait.
Closing thread.
Comment has been collapsed.
.
Comment has been collapsed.