The Warsaw Ghetto (1940-1943) in Poland was the largest Jewish ghetto under Hitler. Nearly a half million lived there. Some were Romani (Gypsies). Some were Roman Catholics with Jewish roots. Most were sent to Treblinka. But for four glorious weeks in 1943 they held off the Nazi war machine in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In 1939, when Germans took over the city, they made every Jew wear a white armband with a large blue Star of David.
Under German rule Jews no longer had protection of the law:
- Crime against them went unpunished.
- Germans took all the money from their bank accounts.
- They took some of their homes and businesses.
- They threw many out of work.
- German soldiers would beat up or rob them in broad daylight.
Germans blamed Jews for crime and disease.
And then it got worse:
In 1940, to help fight crime and disease, the Germans sent every Jew they could find in the city and nearby regions to the ghetto. They walled them in and posted armed guards at the exits. An open-air prison.
There were 10 to 15 to a room. There was no electricity. There was not enough heat, food or water. A third did not have warm winter clothes. Disease tore through the ghetto – especially typhus. Close to 100,000 died of hunger and disease.
On July 22nd 1942 Germans started sending people out of the ghetto. Day after day thousands were put on trains and sent to Treblinka out in the country, to what Germans called a labour camp. They sent 265,000 in two months, leaving 70,000.
And then it got even worse:
Once people were sent to Treblinka no one ever heard from them again. Like they were dead or something. They sent spies: Treblinka was not a labour camp at all. Everyone was being killed!
Mordechai Anielewicz:
You must be prepared to resist, not to give yourselves up like sheep to slaughter.
The ghetto was deeply divided – Hasidim, communists, Zionists, assimilated Poles, etc – but enough forgot their differences to fight with Anielewicz. They smuggled in guns and set up hideouts.
In January 1943 the Germans came to send more people to Treblinka. No one wanted to get on the trains. Four days of street fighting followed. It took Hitler by surprise. He thought Jews were cowards.
On April 19th, on Passover eve, the day before Hitler’s birthday, Himmler sent in the SS, the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. He thought it would take three days.
The Jews fought a hit-and-run guerrilla war. The Germans fought back by burning down the whole ghetto, block by block. The Jews held out till they ran out of bullets 28 days later.
Some escaped through the sewers. The 56,000 who remained were rounded up (pictured above and at top) and either shot dead or sent to Treblinka.
Hitler then had the ghetto levelled.
Uprisings spread to other ghettos. There was even one at Treblinka itself later that summer, ending the mass killings there.
After the war they found tin boxes and milk cans buried under the ghetto. Inside was the history of the Warsaw Ghetto written down so that one day the world would know the truth.
See also:
- Emanuel Ringelblum: “Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto” – some of what was buried in those tin boxes and milk cans!
- Mary Berg: “The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto” – she lived through it all, even the uprising, and made it out alive, making it to New York.
- Leon Uris: “Mila 18” (1961) – fictionalized account of the ghetto from 1939 onwards, particularly the uprising. Uris is thorough and faithful to the facts known at the time of writing. The huge advantage of this book is that he presents events from different points of view: Zionist, assimilated Jew, German Pole, Nazi, American journalist, etc. It also sets up “Exodus” (1958), his novel about the founding of Israel.
- “The Pianist” (2002) – a true story of the ghetto from the point of view of pianist Władysław Szpilman. He escaped but saw some of the uprising. Directed by Roman Polanski, who was sent to the Cracow Ghetto during that time. As far as I can tell, it is pretty faithful to the facts.
See also on this blog:
- The Holocaust
- Hitler
- Jews
- guerrilla warfare
- Gaza
- The Herero and Nama genocide – the genocide in Africa carried out by the Germans some 40 years before
- Japanese American internment – at the time of the Warsaw Ghetto, America was going down the same road with Japanese Americans
- Madison Grant – made anti-Semitism seem like the latest science. Hitler was a fan! Grant’s anti-immigration laws kept most Jews from coming to America after the 1920s
- If the Holocaust was black history – since White Americans are way less racist against Jews than blacks, their history is seen differently.
Abagond,
Have you ever read the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel? It gives a first hand account on what’s it’s like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany. There are moments that will stun you.
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I automatically cry when I see the footages taken by the Nazis documenting the worst kind of treatment a human being could ever endure. It impacts a part of my soul that impresses me to be kind to people every single day. God holds every person precious.
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Was this related to the Gaza post?
How some of the jews where treated and now their immediate decendents do almost the exact same thing to some other people in the name of not being a victim people again?
And over at http://diaryofanegress.com/ we get an expose of how some jews where active partisapants in the slave trade.
We black/african american have our own abuse as well and from what I’ve seen of a percentage of us – we’re just waiting for some one else to do it to.
But as the albinic/white collective is continuously highly movitated and unfied
there may never be an oportunity for decendent revenge.
Maybe we (meaning our species) will evolve to capabilities that preclude such behavior.
Then again maybe the next level species will have powers and abilities we can barely dream of – the way we are compared to most other lifeforms on this planet – and STILL need to lie assult rape and kill each ,althought that no the only thing we or they can and will do.
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@mbeti:
I think Abagonds idea here is to bring up the general theme in racism. It does not matter in the end where you are, who you are, because it is the same. The way black slaves and the whole slave trade was conducted was almost the odentical what the nazis did to the jews and others they saw as sub humans. Some, like the jews and gypsies, were to be eliminated at once, others, like the slavs (russians, poles etc) were to be used as slaves.
The Finns were also in the servant class of races, which is interesting since there are so many “swedes” who were actually “pure” natives of Finland. The swedish were of course germaic people. Their scientists, after all, were at helm of the whole race biology in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and were very adherent racists.
It was the very idea of races in the core of nazi ideology that made it tick. For them jews, like everyone else not defined as germanic, were to be wiped out. Jews were the lowest form of life, Untermenschen, sub humans. Blacks were not even human beings but animals. Naturally, they would have been hunted, used and perhaps wiped off, if the nazis would have won.
And yes, when the white USA tried to wipe out the native americans, they were thinking in the very same way. They were using the very same words, same logic why the red savages should vanish from the earth etc.
And, unfortunately, today some israelis are using the same word and same logic against the palestinians, and talk about “pure” jewish people and their right to do anything simply because their “ancestory” (read: race) gives them that right. And here Abagond shows, that this is identical what the nazis were doing to the jews only few decades ago.
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I have wanted to do a post on the Warsaw Ghetto for a long time as an example of racism drawn to its logical conclusions, but, yes, you are supposed to see the parallels with Gaza too. That is why I wrote it now.
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@ Bulanik
Good point about the Romani. I added it to the post.
Something left out of the post is the anti-Semitism of the Polish Christians. While some helped Jews, like Irena Sendler, others joined right in with the Germans – willingly. Even before the Germans showed up some Polish Christians were violently anti-Semitic, as we know from the pogroms.
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A joke from the Warsaw Ghetto about German and Polish anti-Semitism:
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@Sam
I don’t think the idea of there being separate races is what led to the holocaust of jews by Germans. I think it was their reaction to the idea of their being separate races and their way of understanding the separate races. Part of their problem was believing that nature was inherently a competetive conflict between different races for survival, this is a false way of viewing racial differeces among people.
There certainly are separate races just as their are separate types of birds. In my neighborhood bluejays live and so do sparrows. The blue jays and sparrows manage to live in separate communities amongst their own kind however the also manage to live side by side together without being at war with one another. Also they don’t rely on restrictive laws to govern their behavior.
I think that it is natural for their to be different races and it is also natural for their to be people of various racially mixed identities and I support people being proud of whatever they are racially if that is something they choose to have pride in. It is not racial pride that leads to a holocaust, it is racial pride coupled with a lack of acceptance for “the other”. People have to learn to accept the existence of the “other”.
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We black/african american have our own abuse as well and from what I’ve seen of a percentage of us – we’re just waiting for some one else to do it to.
But as the albinic/white collective is continuously highly movitated and unfied
there may never be an oportunity for decendent revenge.
”
”
”
Decendent revenge? – because more innocent lives ruined is really a solution for past lives ruined?
Where is that hatred going to take you?
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Just when I finished reading ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’.
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[…] https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/warsaw-ghetto/#comment-152406 […]
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@ Brothawolf
Thanks for the book recommendation.
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@ Bulanik,
You bring up a number of really nuanced points re: Blacks and Jews; Jews and Poles; and Whites attempting to undermine Black agency. I am just going to receive them and ponder on them. Thanks!
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Bulanik
Re: Your COMPELLING dissertation –
“….
I’m no expert on US history, but didn’t the Jews became white in America? White American. Why should there be black understanding for Jewish suffering and the slaughtering on European soil….”
THANK YOU !!!!!!! & AMEN!
{{{(>Thundering Applause<)}}}
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@ Bulanik
Excellent points about Jews as white heroes. They are not completely white even now, and way less so back then, but white enough that their violence is seen in a completely different light.
White violence = self defence;
black and brown people breathing while being a historical victim of white violence and power = a threat no matter how laughably un/armed.
Some examples from 2012:
1. Gaza: homemade rockets v F-16s;
2. Trayvon: Skittles v a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm pistol.
3. Jordan Davis: imagined shotgun (and loud music) v handgun
In the New York Times it was always Hamas = terrorists, Israel = self-defence, never Gaza = self-defence, Likud = terrorists.
Another thing that matters is who the violence is directed against. In the Warsaw Ghetto Jews were defending themselves against an enemy state of American power. Not so, say, the Black Panthers.
Or better still: Saddam Hussein. His genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s? Little to no demonization in the American press. But in the 2000s, having turned against America, he was demonized 24/7.
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@Bulanik
“What I noticed whenever in I’ve been in Poland, with the anti-Jew feeling there among some Polish people, was, why does it continue, despite what happened? ”
Are you implying that the antisemitism in contemporary Poland is about WWII-era stereotypes? It’s way more complicated than that. After the war, as it often happens, a lot of the victims turned into oppressors. Jewish people, who were less than a percent of the population, were rather eager to cooperate with the Russians and had a significant role in constructing and maintaining the communist regime in Poland, and crushing the resistance.
I think this is the most famous example of their extreme overrepresentation in Poland’s postwar government:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Security_%28Poland%29
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“Sorry for such a long comment above. Just had to get that off my chest.”
********************
Um, no apologies required … but I’m finding myself in total agreement with Kwamla and those who believe you deserve a blog of your own… because you have LOTS on your AMAZING chest – and – MANY FANS who would love to see/find your insightful/detailed/prolific ideas, thoughts, opinions and genius easily and readily accessible in one location.
It doesn’t have to be a conventional blog, if “conventional” is a concern, it should be whatever you want, however/whenever you want. I think you owe it to yourself …
and especially to your adoring fans to try … !!!!!!
: ))))))
Try a couple of GUEST POSTS (here, or elsewhere) on a topic close to your heart – and see how it goes.
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I see you deleted my post again. You a Stone Coward. And I lost all respect for you and this blog.
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@ Blackman
I have not deleted any post of yours since November 12th.
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Maybe Bulanik could team up with a few people to form a blog to help people learn about stuff they could not see or think about before, but want to learn more about.
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“black and brown people breathing while being a historical victim of white violence and power = a threat no matter how laughably un/armed.” abagond
“Blacks” have a very high rate of violence. “Browns” don’t. You’re trying to camouflage a black problem by lumping “blacks and browns” together. Stop hiding behind brown people.
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I caught that about the similarity to the gaza strip in the other entry…. The higher order takeaway is that it sets up the precedent for cia involvment in afghanistan (80’s), contra rebels etc. in that what one hand does the other knows not. I mean how could the US govt not sanction these companies that did business with the 3rd reich, other than to countenance it.
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““Blacks” have a very high rate of violence. “Browns” don’t.”
**************
Church,
Actually WHITES have the highest rates of violence, but of course YOU would never know that by merely looking at crime stats, which are largely formed/gathered/adulterated/manipulated by white people.
Interesting, isn’t it, that some of the biggest criminal actions perpetrated against *some* humans are not considered crimes at all – and definitely AREN’T COUNTED as such. Why isn’t wide scale murder (and lying about it) considered a crime???
Why do certain people never have to pay for their HUGE crimes, while *others* spend their whole existence caged for comparatively minor infractions?
The last time I looked it was and still is WHITE led WESTERN coalitions that’s invading small relatively powerless sovereign nations and raining terror/murder on their citizens under the guise of a so-call WAR on *terror* in order for elite WHITES to steal and gain immense and insatiable PROFITS/WEALTH from the blood, sweat, oppression and DEATH of others.
Michael Vick went to jail for killing some dogs.
Bush Jr. and his gang of NEO-CONS ordered the killings of Saddam Hussein, his sons, and what amounts to horrendous purposed DESTRUCTION of infrastructure and the murder, rape, torture hundreds of thousands of MEN, WOMEN, BABIES in Iraq — and elsewhere!
Not a one of those WHITE politician/crooks have been brought up on charges!
It’s a safe bet that they won’t ever see the inside of a prison, much less a jail cell.
[{{{ YOU – really should stop believing the delusional BS. }}}]
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@ Church
You do know you are saying this on a thread about the Warsaw Ghetto, right?
Treblinka killed 870,000 people in the space of about a year – that is roughly 150 times the rate at which black street crime in America kills people. And Treblinka was just one part of a much larger genocide. And that genocide was just one of many carried out by whites over the past 500 years. And on top of that are two world wars and countless colonial wars.
The only people arguably more violent than whites are the Chinese and the Mongols. Black and brown people come no where CLOSE to that scale of violence.
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You do know you are saying this on a thread about the Warsaw Ghetto, right?
That is Church’s superior white intellect at work. Their thought processes are stunningly complex as is their white washed minions who mimic their betters.
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Very sad what happened to the Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Jewish people suffered and went through a lot during WWII in Europe under Hitler outside of the Warsaw Ghetto. Hitler did everything he can to try to kill off the Jews.
By the end of WWII, Hitler killed close to twelve million people and about half of them were Jewish people.
Anne Frank, well known victim was killed in the Holocaust and I have read her diary.
Throughout history, the oppressed have always been marginalized, hated and kept down for centuries.
The Holocaust reminds me that there is truly evil and sick people out there in the world.
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@Bulanik
“Do you know WHY this Ministry for Public Security (Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego or MBP) was perceived as a Jewish institution? Are you familiar with Stalin’s attitude towards Jews and his knowledge of what can be achieved politically by anti-Semitism?”
The MBP was not perceived as a Jewish institution. It was seen as a Russian institution. Antisemitism, in Poland’s communist years, could achieve very little. The anti-Russian sentiment was much, much, stronger. Russians tried to counter this with anti-western propaganda, not antisemitism. Antisemitism was marginal and mainly a consequence of the fact that nationalism was growing more powerful in an occupied country. Nationalism ‘othered’ Jewish people. They were not considered to be truly Polish and the fact that religion was becoming a very important element of Polish national identity ‘othered’ Jewish people further. They were not seen as important or particularly malicious as in the WWII-era Nazi or nationalist propaganda, mainly because they were barely visible since there were so few of them left. The fact that, out of those who were visible, for every Marek Edelman there were five Jakub Bermans didn’t help either.
I’m not saying Jewish people deserved the image they got, but the reasons why they got it were much more complex than you make them sound to be and had more to do with Poland’s specific situation at that time than with centuries old general stereotypes about Jewish people.
“Your own argument implies a simplistic, traditionally self-serving anti-Semitic layer over complex events. Aren’t you saying, for starters, that there are proportionally more Jews in Poland’s government, than “proper Poles”? ….because as far as Poland’s Jews go, even though a few died during the second world war, ‘most’ stayed on, exercising great power, exacting cruel revenge and cunningly taking Christian names to avoid detection…that sort of stuff?”
That’s not what I said at all.
The name changing thing was happening, but I think it had more to do with wanting to fit in than with some kind of evil intent.
“Are you proposing that the numbers of high-ranking Jewish personnel in Poland’s postwar government REPRESENT Poland’s Jews and REFLECT, quintessentially Jewish characteristics in their “revenge” against the Poles, and that is a sufficiently and justifiable pretext for anti-Jew sentiment?”
No. The overrepresentation of Jews in Poland’s communist era governments had a negative impact on their image. People construct opinions about large groups of people based on relatively few representatives. I’m not saying that process is reasonable, but it’s how people think.
“Oh, please. Don’t.”
It would be nice if you actually addressed my own words instead of trying to guess what I’m thinking…
“background detail: when the Warsaw and Lodz football teams played against one another, the Warsaw fans insulted/demoralized the strongly-Jewish city of Lodz with these words”
You have no idea what you are talking about here. Polish football fans do not hate Jewish people. The vast majority are ‘just’ insensitive brutes. Google “Wisla Krakow”, “Cracovia Krakow”, “Maor Melikson”, “Dudu Biton”, etc. The supposedly anti-Jewish symbolism has little to do with actual antisemitism.
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eco, sweetie, do you have some pathological desire to embarrass yourself? Because that’s all anything you type in your comments ever accomplishes.
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@eco:
Well, there is nothing special about the polish situation and jews. There has been pogroms in Poland and eastern Europe well before nazis even showed up. Saying that jews are communists and communists are jews is just a repeat of one of Hitlers favorite lines. And lets not forget Lazar Kaganovitch, The Wolf of Kremlin, pne of Stalins closest friends and himself a jewish heritage, who harrassed and prisoned and killed many of the jews living in USSR before and after WW2.
Actually one of the first pogroms ever to take a place happened in York, England, in 1190’s when there was an more or less organised attempt to kill all the jews in that town. Also it is important to remember that many so called crusades, or attempts of it, in central Europe, specially in Germany, ended up with a massacre of the jews in the nearest town.
So trying to explain the current or previous antisemitic attitudes in Poland with communist-jewish axis is quite funny and in line with Hitlers naziparty ideology.
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@Bulanik
“Your reply is a juicy peach of backtracking. Plus, damage control…”
I’ve clarified a statement you’ve misunderstood. Nothing I’ve said in my original comment required any damage control. You don’t seem to able to notice a difference between my actual words and your insinuations about my motives and thoughts.
“after I outlined the historical complexities to YOU”
I sincerely doubt you have a tenth of my knowledge about Poland’s history, its politics or sociology. You were not outlining the historical complexities. It looked more like quotes from the “History of the Jews in Poland” wiki article.
“you then piggy-backed on what I said in your answer to tell ME that I have no idea what I am talking about”
You do seem to have a very shallow understanding of the events you are talking about. You can’t see things in the correct scale. you do not understand the context. You can’t tell which events are indicative of how the society thinks and which are not.
“The existence of Zydokumuna (the anti-Semitic myth of Poland’s Jewish Communist bogey-men) never achieved much and led to no persecution and no deaths?”
Overall, it hasn’t achieved much. At least not during Poland’s communist years. It didn’t distract people enough to make them believe that they are suffering because of the Jews and not Russians. “Zydokomuna” was a marginal, fringe idea. It existed, but it wasn’t particularly important. It did work against Jewish people, obviously, but the fact that they were actually visible as supporters of communism had a real impact on their image. Few saw it as a validation of old conspiracy theories to most it was simply treason. The conspiracy theories and examples of actual Jewish involvement were not seen as the same thing. That’s why when the communist government tried to use the symbolism of Zydokomuna to explain its past actions it didn’t work and they recognized it as ineffective too.
In modern Poland the term “Zydokomuna” largely lost its original meaning and is used extremely rarely. Usually as a slur against liberal people in general.
“I said Polish football fans hate Jewish people? Oh, where?”
Where have I said you did say that?
“Can you understand the difference, eco? Why don’t YOU do more Googling?”
I told you what you should google, because you do not understand the context of the event you were talking about. When Polish football fans (or rather hooligans) use anti-Jewish symbolism or slogans it has little to do with actual antisemitism. In this case Jews are just collateral damage, not the ones who are targeted. The symbols and slogans have largely lost their original meanings.
I’ve mentioned two clubs, because the rivalry between them is a great example of the supposed antisemitism in Polish football and the other two names belong to Israeli national team players who were signed by the ‘antisemitic’ Wisla club. I think you would have a better understanding of the situation you mentioned if you familiarized yourself with their opinions on the ‘antisemitism’ in Polish football.
@tehnoun
Unfortunately we can’t all be such valuable contributors as you are.
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@Bulanik
I see somebody “went full r-tard”…
My original objection was that the Polish stereotypes about Jews from the WWII period are largely gone and have been replaced by new ones. The modern Polish antisemitism has little in common with its pre-50s version. I still stand by that.
I tried to explain, apparently with little success, that the modern negative stereotypes about Jewish people ale largely fueled by the fact that for decades they were mainly visible as oppressors, as traitors, as people who did not want to see an independent Poland. Religion had a very significant impact too. During the communist years Catholic symbolism became a very important element of Polish national identity. It’s still very strong today. To reject Christianity or its symbols is usually seen as unpatriotic and supporting secularism as an attack on the Polish national identity. Which I consider ironic since the religion was imposed on Poland. Anyway, Catholicism has “othered” Jewish people
The Zydokomuna idea is pretty much dead and gone. Even NOP (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski) members rarely use it in its original meaning. I think its actually the communists who killed it. They tried to use Jews as scapegoats (mainly from mid 50s to late 60s), explain their own evil actions by blaming them on Jewish communists and later (80s) tried to discredit Solidarnosc (the Solidarity trade union) by linking it to Jews, but at that point nobody was listening to them.
Oh, “Yid-Commie” isn’t a good translation of “Zydokomuna”. “Zyd” means “Jew”, it’s not a pejorative name for a Jewish person. “Zydokomuna” doesn’t have a singular form, only a plural. It can be used to describe ideas or groups of people. “Jew-Communist” is the best possible translation I can think of, but “Jew-Commie” is OK too. “Zydek” – that one is much closer to “Yid”.
I’ve mentioned religion, nationalism and Jewish communists before. You didn’t seem to be particularly interested in challenging or discussing any of that. Associating a few of my comments with the Zydokomuna stereotype was pretty much the best you can do. In my opinion, it’s because you do not know much about Poland and you are aware of it. That’s why you want to stick to mentioning names and dates. That’s the stuff you can check on the internet or in a book. When I’m talking about subtleties like the meaning of symbols in the specific context of rivalries between two groups of hooligans you do not want to address that because you do not know anything about it and you wouldn’t know how to check if it’s true. Unfortunately for you, in this case, dates and names can only tell you something happened, not how significant it was or what it meant.
About the quote you mentioned. I said I haven’t claimed that you said Polish football fans hate Jewish people. That’s true. The second sentence of that quote is me beginning to explain why I think you do not understand the context of the situation you were talking about.
And, finally, I’m not saying I am an expert on Polish history. I’ve only said I know much, much more about it than you do. It’s really great that you’ve been to Poland and that some of your best friends are Polish, but none of that stuff intimidates or impresses me. I think that at this point you should be able to figure out why.
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Anyone notice the repeated pattern that eco seems to claim?
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@ Bulanik
I agree. Something is not right. Every single time he gets in a jam his running line is “you do not understand.” I don’t know whether to feel sorry for him or laugh as he gets the verbal azz whoopin’ you are giving him.
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I’m laughing, go get ’em Bulanik!
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I see eco’s doing it again.
I don’t know much about Warsaw, Poland during the Nazi regime. However, I would highly recommend, “Night” by Elie Wiesel who’s given a first hand account of what it’s like being a Jew during those times. I will tell you upfront that some of the things you will read, you won’t believe. Nazism knew no bounds to demonize and eradicate the Jewish population in Europe in their quest for supremacy. That much is true.
Eco, here’s the deal, what you’ve learned during your lifetime about the subjects you’re commenting on in this blog may NOT be accurate or correct altogether. There’s a possible that you, yes you, might be incorrect about certain things. You’re not right all the time. No one is. So, why not listen to what other people are saying, and you might learn something new particularly those who’ve experienced things FIRST HAND.
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Hey, noticed the key word “retarted”. Isn’t that familiar “argument” by certain nerdy guys when they lose the real argument? 😀 Way to go Bulanik.
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I tried to find it yesterday. I keep looking.
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@Bulanik
Ah, so you still haven’t figured it out…
I’ll give you another hint in a minute.
You are not actually challenging anything I said. You are saying that my point isn’t strong enough because I’m not mentioning dates or names. I’m talking about words and symbols changing their meaning. That’s not something I can put a date on or associate with a specific name.
If you’ll actually bother to ask me about some element of my claim I will do my best to explain where that is coming from. I’ll even try to mention names and dates, but I’ll probably also make more claims about the significance of events. Claims you can’t discuss, because you do knot know Poland well enough and you wouldn’t know how to check if what I’m saying is true or not.
I said you should ask about elements, because I’m probably not going to elaborate on the whole thing. I do not have that much time to waste. Besides, I’m sure that with your understanding of all things Polish you can easily spot the weakest parts of my claim.
Zydokomuna is a Polish version of the Yid-commie stereotype. It’s slightly different than it’s English cousin. Even the word itself stands for something a bit different.
Are your Polish friends third graders? The first one can’t spell and uses (somewhat) big words he/she doesn’t understand. “Patetycny” isn’t a word. “Patetyczny” is. “Patetyczny” doesn’t mean “pathetic”, “żałosny” does. “Patetyczny” means “pompous”
I have no idea what “biological mulisty” could mean. That would be “biologiczny mulisty” in Polish. That’s senseless and grammatically incorrect. “BiologicaLLY mulisty”, “biologiczNIE mulisty” on the other hand, that would be slang for “mulisty in nature” or “mulisty since birth” and “mulisty” is a bastardized version of another slang word. It’s a cousin of “zmulony” or “zamulony” and when you are using it do describe a person it basically means “slow”.
So, “biologically mulisty” means “slow since birth”, but “biological mulisty” doesn’t make sense on it’s own and “having contact with a biological mulisty” is an even bigger mystery. It’s interesting that your Polish friends don’t know how Polish grammar works and make the same mistakes (mistranslations) that can be found here:
http://translate.google.pl/#en/pl/pathetic
I’m sure you’ll appreciate a few links
sjp.pwn.pl/lista.php?co=patetyczny&od=&from=os
sjp.pwn.pl/szukaj/%C5%BCa%C5%82osny
sjp.pwn.pl/szukaj/mulisty
sjp.pwn.pl/szukaj/biologicznie
miejski.pl/slowo-Muł
And finally, THE mystery. It really shouldn’t be a mystery by now. When I’m dismissing the importance of your limited experiences with Poland and Polish people you are immediately assuming that’s because I do not have a lot of those or generally do not consider them as important. Actually, there is another possibility.
@brothawolf
“So, why not listen to what other people are saying, and you might learn something new particularly those who’ve experienced things FIRST HAND.”
🙂 🙂 🙂
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The grammar mistakes I make when I’m using English are a hint too…
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Ah, I forgot about this bit:
You said: “I’m heartened you back-tracked again by admitting you not an expert on Polish history”.
It would by really nice if you stopped thinking that you interpretations of my words and my actual words are the same thing.
I said:
“I sincerely doubt you have a tenth of my knowledge about Poland’s history, its politics or sociology.”
Then you constructed a gigantic strawman about my supposed claims about my knowledge and I replied with:
“I’m not saying I am an expert on Polish history. I’ve only said I know much, much more about it than you do.”
How is that backtracking?
I referenced “Tropic Thunder” (the r-tard quote) because I felt you deserved it for writing a comment that was 80% ad hominems.
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@eco:
Dude, you are really childish or then you are a child. I get it, you are polish. So? We can not discuss about the polish antisemitism, bigotry and xenophobia? C’mon, son. Grow a pair and be a man, and answer the questions, argue with arguments or say that you have none. It certainly seems that you have no argument. It is not an argument to say that you are a polish.
You think we are so dumb that we do not see that you try to discredit another commenter simply saying that because that one is not polish and I am, I must be right. It does not work that way, buddy. You have to argue. No throw tandrums.
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I’ve explained it in Polish. I’m sure you will easily understand it. You can always ask your Polish friend
http://translate.google.com/
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@sam
If you haven’t noticed I’m not the one who doesn’t want to discuss things. These:
“Challenge you? Thought about why, eco? It’s not because I can’t, but, because … I won’t.”
are not my words.
These are:
“If you’ll actually bother to ask me about some element of my claim I will do my best to explain where that is coming from.”
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I just deleted two comments because they were partly written in Polish. That is against my comment policy. This is an English-language blog.
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@ Abagond
Sorry about that. I was quoting eco and that was my mistake.
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@ eco
I am going to weigh in on what I have observed here.
1. Your biggest issue is how rude you are to people. A person could agree with you on something and still would not stand with you simply because you are rude and condescending. It is not what you say but how you say it.
2. You love to claim people don’t understand and don’t know while at the same time dancing around the questions they ask you. Usually if a person is asking a question then they are trying to understand, but you write it off. This indicates to them that you don’t know.
3. You could have simply said you are polish. Simple as that. Instead you decide you are polish after she mentions polish friends. “The fact that apparently still have not guessed, it’s quite embarrassing.”—Now tell me how she is suppose to guess what you are online? She can’t see or hear you. That was idiotic to say in itself. You are the one who should be embarrassed that you even said that.
4. I am no expert on this but I know that much of Spanish slang is not in any type of translation tools. Neither is Korean slang, so I will guess that one can not find polish slang in translations tools. It does not mean it does not have a meaning but that it is slang and slang can be regional among other things.
5. “Now you may ask Abagonda is, which country comes my IP address. That should be the end of dispel all doubts.”—People can move IP addresses if they are internet savvy enough. Just sayin
If you are polish then you are polish but you need to stop trying to make people out to be an idiot. They are not and much of what you say makes you come off as one among other things.
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@ Sam
I would be interested in knowing about the black Waffen SS soldier too.
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@abagond, legion:
That guy was not accepted into SS but he tried. I am looking for him. Forgot the net site where I read it couple years ago.
There was one black guy fighting in finnish army in Winter war 1939. Now that would be a good war movie: a black guy in completly white winter camo gear in totally white arctic forest fighting.
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@ legion
Yes I admit he has rubbed me the wrong way and the reason being is that he acts as if he is superior to everyone. Instead of exchanging thoughts and ideas with people he gives the attitude of “I am right and you are wrong.” Some of the things he says the other has already agreed on or said but he will say they are wrong and agree on it in a later post. He is constantly belittling people, especially the women who object to his ideas. In my mind once you do that to a women then i am done with you.
You and I have disagreed on things but we are here to learn and discuss and on that note i don’t hold a grudge. I am not mad at eco but he is wrong for telling her she is retarded.
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@ bulanik
I have said to eco over and over again about how he speaks to people and it seems to mean nothing cause his goal is only to win.
If he is polish then he could contribute greatly to the discussion but he will need to drop the superior attitude.
@ legion
I am sorry if I by any chance made you feel not black for your ideas.
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I’ll do this FIFO style, I will not group my replies by commenter.
@Bulanik
“Witek read it and wants to say something to you later, and Dariusz won’t have time until Saturday to do so, but both men think you sound like you might be having problems with managing your anger and frustration in life.”
Which one is which? Who can’t spell and doesn’t know “patetyczny” and “żałosny” have similar meanings only on Google’s translation site, and who doesn’t know Polish grammar, read “Cyberiada” in English and tried to translate a bit into Polish?
They thought I sound angry based on the Polish part of my comment? Interesting. I hope they’ll be able to reply to me in Polish. We can use pastebin.com or something like that.
@sharina
“It is not what you say but how you say it. ”
Besides, when you are going through my comments and Bulatnik’s I’m looking like the rude one? Really?
Compare
abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/warsaw-ghetto/#comment-153184
or this
abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/warsaw-ghetto/#comment-153253
(or any other comment addressed at Bulanik)
with
abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/warsaw-ghetto/#comment-153200
“You love to claim people don’t understand and don’t know while at the same time dancing around the questions they ask you. ”
Bulanik didn’t want to ask me questions because she assumed she knows Poland better than me. I told her she doesn’t understand some things, because in order to understand them and analyze them you need knowledge she does not possess. Like knowing the language, watching the news, knowing the political parties and movements, and (most importantly) listening to the Polish people around you.
That’s why I made fun of her when she bragged about her trips to Poland and interactions with Polish people. Stuff I call “a weekday”.
“You could have simply said you are polish. Simple as that.”
And she could have stopped for a moment to think: ‘Hey, maybe this guy does have some connection to Poland I do not have?’. Instead, she kept assuming things. If she asked me early on what makes me think I know Poland well I would have given her an honest answer.
“I am no expert on this but I know that much of Spanish slang is not in any type of translation tools.”
She wasn’t using slang. The butchered Cyberiada reference was nonsensical, grammatically incorrect. Slang was my best guess when I was trying to figure out what the hell does she mean. Oh, I mean, what the *air quotes* Polish friend meant.
“People can move IP addresses if they are internet savvy enough. Just sayin”
Can’t Abagond see the IP addresses I used before this conversation started? Like, for example, two years ago? I do not know. I never had a blog.
@Bulanik
“s/he could catch Bulanik out in a lie , by setting some kind of trap”
I didn’t intend that to happen, but it happened, didn’t it?
“As if being a Pole himself is, and of itself, a clincher. ”
In this particular discussion I’m afraid it’s impossible to have both – knowledge and objectivity. You can be a somewhat objective spectator, but you haven’t experienced what you are watching from afar and hearing about. I have, but I’ll be subjective about it.
@Legion
Thank you for being reasonable.
“of course I may regret that post of mine when I find out what Eco said in that Polish post.”
You will not regret it. Saying that the fact that Bulanik couldn’t figure out I was Polish seemed embarrassing to me, was pretty much the strongest jab.
@Sharina
“but he is wrong for telling her she is retarded.”
Seriously, am I the only one who saw “Tropic Thunder”?
“never go full r-tard”.
When I said she “went full r-tard” I wasn’t calling her a “r-tard”. It meant she chose to act completely r-tarded to achieve a goal. That’s how I felt about this comment
abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/warsaw-ghetto/#comment-153200
because I think it’s riddled with jabs and ad hominems like nothing I’ve said to her.
@Bulanik
“What eco said in his Polish language commentary was along the lines of what he/she said already in English, with more colour and anger.”
I was more polite to you in that Polish comment than in 90% of my other ones. I even used courtesy forms when I was addressing you. I guess that’s not something translate.google.com can pick up on.
“if eco wants to be straightforward, explain his/her thoughts about Poland and its history, plainly openly, without being rude to other commenters, it’d be constructive and welcome in a discussion like this.”
I already have. You didn’t want to talk about it.
What do you want to talk about now?
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@Bulanik
I haven’t said I was perfectly polite to you, but I haven’t treated you the way you treated me in this comment in particular:
abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/warsaw-ghetto/#comment-153200
I’m not making this about myself. You forced me to talk about myself by repeatedly suggesting that I do not have any first hand knowledge about Poland. Guess what? I do.
Anyway. I’ve made general statements about Poland because that’s the only type you can make when you are talking about the attitudes of millions of people. It’s impossible to be precise.
Please ask me a question about Poland and I’ll do my best to present a detailed reply.
“Tropic Thunder” is not making fun of Black people. The white guy who thinks he can act Black is the joke. Its clearly visible in another scene (“what do you mean, you people?”). It’s on youtube too.
“Your being Polish is not actually of significance.”
Interesting. Are you the same person who said this earlier:
“you don’t say you know Poland or have any (or few) Polish friends/acquaintances, or read books by or about Poland or Poles. Why’s that? This is important in the shaping of knowledge about this nation and its history. And, yes, actually, these factors ARE important to gain a mature and nuanced understanding of that nation and its people”
???????
This, Bulanik, is how backtracking looks like.
I noticed you didn’t address any of the things I mentioned about the mistakes your “Polish friends” made. I hope I’ll still get to talk to them about it.
Oh, this reminds me of one more thing.
After you had read my Polish comment you said to sharina:
“Perhaps eco thought s/he could win some points if s/he could catch Bulanik out in a lie”
‘S/he’, huh? You do know what my tone was:
“both men think you sound like you might be having problems with managing your anger and frustration in life (..) What eco said in his Polish language commentary was along the lines of what he/she said already in English, with more colour and anger”
You claim to have knowledge about something subtle, like tone, but couldn’t figure out I’m a man?
In Polish, when you are talking about yourself, phrases or individual verbs or nouns take different forms depending on your gender. In English only some nouns are like that (policeman/policewoman). A man says “jestem Polakiem”, but a woman would say “jestem Polką”. Both mean “I’m Polish”. In my comment I used the male forms. That’s something a native speaker would easily notice, but an online translator could overlook. I guess it’s just one more thing your Polish friend forgot to tell you about.
Are you going to say that I’m talking about myself and change the subject again?
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I should have made it clear. You lied about my tone too.
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Eco’s IP address comes from Poland and has been since at least March 2011. I highly doubt that it is fake.
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@ Eco
Your writing tone comes off as arrogant. I have said it to you before that I truly don’t think you realize it. Your first few response was fine. So was Bulanik’s and I found both very interesting and educational. It was when she accused you of back-tracking that your tone got vicious. I honestly believe that you just hate being told you are wrong or that you don’t know something. It sets you off. Your first response to that is always to attack their intelligence. Then you go on to belittle them and so forth.
I am torn between this belief that you don’t know you do it and that you know you do it but want to make excuses for it. I just don’t know, but I do know it ruins any real discussion after it happens.
Yes, I have seen Tropic Thunder. Not a real rememberable movie though. Even so ““went full r-tard”…” was in poor taste. It really did not come off as funny
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@ Eco
“If she asked me early on what makes me think I know Poland well I would have given her an honest answer”—In a way she did, but it was full of sarcasm.
“And she could have stopped for a moment to think: ‘Hey, maybe this guy does have some connection to Poland I do not have?”—She could have and you could have also stated your connection.
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Bulanik,
“The point I am making is that eco is making this thread about ECO.”
Linda says,
Very true and this sh’t seems to happen too regularly on this blog. There is so much information and insight that can be gained from each other but it seems Ego’s are getting in the way. (and I’m just as guilty…I’m making a concerted effort to stop)
I was enjoying this thread up until Eco and Bulanik got into it and it turned into a pissing match.
Bulanik brought up interesting information that had the ability to make non-white, non-European readers appreciate the subject at hand and possibly conceptualize their own prejudices in regards to Jews.
and Eco, you had the ability to give information to the rest of us from a non-Jewish standpoint on your country and how your Polish society thinks….that would have further opened our eyes as the “why’s” and “hows” of your history….it’s unfortunate that doing a “tit for tat” with Bulanik became your focal point.
Most people have a hard time empathizing/feeling the pain of other groups of people — that’s why I initially liked coming to Abagonds blog so that I can read other people’s views–(people who I would never interact with in my daily life)–
and the different personalities that post here makes for an interesting read!
God knows, I disagree with some things I read here from other black/brown posters and I find myself agreeing with some posters (like Tyrone) on certain issues, even though he dislikes Hispanics.
There is no right or wrong on this blog, we’re all just sharing our beliefs and giving examples of our own lives and the group we come from.
Anyway, my 2 cents…carry on
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This thread is about the Warsaw Ghetto and, by extension, Polish Jews, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, genocide, racism, etc. It is NOT about the persons Eco or Bulanik. They are off-topic here. I will delete any further comments about them and probably most of the ones upthread about them.
Anyone is allowed to comment regardless of nationality. People who live in a country SHOULD have more insight and knowledge about it, but that does not mean they are always right. If only life were that simple. For example, Sam from Finland seems to be more right about America than many American commenters. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see certain things. And some people are just way more informed than others regardless of nationality.
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This statement right here said volumes to me:
“Bulanik@
The fact of the matter is the suffering of the Jew’s is recognized as part of the moral history of the world and the Jew is recognized as a contributor so the world’s history: this is not so for the blacks, who do not have that agency.”
I could never understand black/brown people’s dislike for Jews…I always attributed it to the “crabs in a bucket” mentality but your statement Bulanik, for me, actually hit it on the head…
it does burn that the Jews ancestors suffering is acknowledge by the whites/Europeans “powers that be” and society, whose ancestors caused the pain and persecution; while the same society (white/Europeans) diminish and marginalize the history and contributions of our black/brown ancestors and the pain and persecution that they suffered.
but at the end of the day, the Jews are still dislikes by the whites/Europeans and if the Jews did not manage to financially make themselves strong, this acknowledgement by the white dominant society would have never happened.
– and FINANCIAL is the key word
The Jews have been Persecuted and Hated for thousands of years, but have managed to transcend this and have attained Power…
I respect them for this.
What the Jews in America/Europe achieved is what every black/brown country or ethnic minority living in a white-dominated society should be aspiring for on a full time scale….to me, black/brown people of the diaspora care about the wrong things in this life —
It’s like our ancestors suffered for nothing because black/brown people of today are running after selfish dreams that doesn’t uplift our black/brown societies as a whole.
Look at all the black American companies that sold out and were bought out by white American corporations…
Look at the Jamaica and the other Caribbean islands –our governments and corporations are selling us out to foreign corporations that contribute almost nothing back to our societies…
Look who is controlling the minerals and oil in Africa (there’s even a TV show about white Americans trying to become rich by mining for gold in Ghana) …enough already.
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Is there any record on how many escaped through the sewers?
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@ Linda
“I could never understand black/brown people’s dislike for Jews…I always attributed it to the “crabs in a bucket”—I could never understand that either. I think some may see them as white people and treat them as such.
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@ Eco
If you don’t mind sharing I would personally love to know what Poland is like after this tragedy. Is the area of the warsaw ghetto a historical landmark or has something been built on top of the land etc?
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@Sharina
“Is there any record on how many escaped through the sewers?”
Not really. Only very inaccurate estimates. People were escaping in different ways and Polish resistance was helping from the outside. The sewers and tunnels were just one option. You could get forged documents, find a good hideout and wait for the fights to end or escape from (or on your way to) the Umschlagplatz railway station where the trains took people to concentration camps, mainly Treblinka. There were also people… hmm… “people” is a bit of a big word in this context… let me rephrase: there were vultures who could get you to safety if you paid them.
I remember seeing the number 8000 in the context of the amount of people who escaped in July 1942 and later, in the period when over 250 000 people were sent to the camps. Whatever estimate you can find it’s likely to be very inaccurate. People can’t even agree how many were fighting the Germans during the uprising. 1000? 1500? 3000 is the number that usually represents the German forces according to most Polish history books and encyclopedias.
Abagond mentioned the sewers in the context of the final days of the uprising. about 40 last resistance fighters tried to escape on the 10th of May 43. Some didn’t make it. Amongst those who did was Marek Edelman.
*digression mode on*
I’m not sure why Abagond hasn’t mentioned him. He was a true hero and had fought for freedom and equality for most of his life.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek_Edelman
“Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem” (published in English as “Shielding the Flame” and later as “To Outwit God”)
is a mandatory read in Polish high schools. It’s Hanna Krall’s lengthy interview with Edelman, mainly about the ghetto. It’s usually juxtaposed with “Rozmowy z katem” (“Conversations with an Executioner”) by Kazimierz Moraczewski, an officer of the Polish army who the communist government put in one jail cell with
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Stroop#The_Warsaw_Ghetto.2C_transfer_to_Greece_and_return_to_Germany
*digression mode off*
Anyway, this is how Edelman described the escape (my translation, sorry for the quality):
“Getting through the canals took a whole night. We kept stumbling on barb wire the foreseeing Germans had prepared for us. The hatches leading out the canals were covered in rubble. The pathways were booby-trapped with grenades that exploded on touch. Every once in a while Germans released poisonous gas into the canals. In these conditions, in a canal that’s 70 cm tall, where you can’t straighten up and the water is reaching your mouth, we waited 48 hours to exit. Some were passing out. The thirst was unbearable. Some were drinking the thick, mud-like water from the canal. Seconds felt like months. On the 10th of May, at 10 in the morning, two trucks stopped by the canal exit near the point where Prosta and Twarda streets cross. In broad daylight, almost without any armed support (…) the hatch opened and the perplexed pedestrians who witnessed the situation saw armed Jews walking out of a dark abyss. (…) Not all managed to get out fast enough.”
The quote is from “Getto walczy. Udział Bundu w obronie getta warszawskiego”
(“The Ghetto is fighting. The Bund’s participation in the defence of Warsaw’s ghetto.” – again, my translation)
by Marek Edelman, published by CK Bund in 1945.
@Sharina
“If you don’t mind sharing I would personally love to know what Poland is like after this tragedy. Is the area of the warsaw ghetto a historical landmark or has something been built on top of the land etc?”
The city had been rebuilt after the war. The area where the ghetto used to be is pretty much in the central part of Warszawa. There are a lot of monuments marking the places where the walls of the ghetto used to be
warszawa.wikia.com/wiki/Pomniki_granic_getta (Locations+pictures)
There is a mound and a monument where Anielewicz’s bunker was.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi%C5%82a_18
a monument near the location of the canal exit Edelman used
warszawa.wikia.com/wiki/Pomnik_Ucieczki_z_Getta
Generally the city looks normal, but it’s impossible to miss the signs and monuments reminding people where they are.
If you are wondering why people felt it’s OK to rebuild, it’s because, in total, 65% of the city was destroyed during the war. Reconstructing the capital was seen as a priority, a sign of the country’s rebirth.
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That’s not how the links looked when I was writing the comment.
The ghetto walls monuments:
http://warszawa.wikia.com/wiki/Pomniki_granic_getta
“locations+pictures” is just my side note that was supposed to appear further to the right.
The “Conversations with an Executioner”/Stroop link got cut off. It was supposed to lead to “The Warsaw Ghetto” section of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Stroop
Sorry about that.
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There are always people who wonder, when the subject is the Holocaust, why some other group of people are not as noticed. All the suffering of blacks in America, all the millions killed in communist Soviet Union, and some would say the modern Palestinians fighting Israel. All I can say is that there is something especially monstrous about the Holocaust, or at least it seems that way. It has entered the collective consciousness like no other tragedy. Perhaps in part because it has been translated into Art, and Art is what lives on forever. The European Jews prized education and literacy and of the few that survived the destruction of the European Jewry quite a few turned it into Art. Many have mentioned the short book Night by Eile Wiesel with good reason. I read it and the story is burned into my brain. Read it and it will be burned into yours too. The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most read books in the world, after the Bible. A Jewish girl in hiding baring her soul and even opining that she believes people are still good, deep down before being dragged off to die of typhus in a concentration camp. This stays with you in a way statistics and facts do not even if the human suffering behind them is just as real. Maybe that is wrong, but I think it is human nature. Even the photographs and films of the Holocaust, which the Germans were crazy about taking, burn a hole in you. The picture above of the soldier’s riding crop shoved under an ancient woman’s chin like she is a misbehaving dog, it stays with you. Most perpetrators want to hide it, but for some reason the Germans were camera happy.
For the gentleman on the slave trade who wants to share with us how the Jews were in on that, the big movers of black human traffic out of Africa were the Muslim Arabs, , and warring black Africans who sold off their prisoners of war for profit. Later the Europeans (christians, at least in name) got in on the good thing. Keep in mind everybody had slaves then, black Africans included.
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I should add that I am not blaming or demonizing the Africans for this. I just like to set the record straight and to me, the more I study it, the real tragedy of slaves brought to North America is not slavery itself, since that existed everywhere and had always existed, but that there was no way out in this society for them. Traditionally slavery was more fluid, you could work your way to freedom, or your children could be born free, or your master could set you free for a job well done, all sorts of scenarios. The plight of the African in North America was that, after the 18th century when blacks, and Indian slaves, and indentured whites found common cause and started to join forces and even caused some riots, the South worked to turn them against each other and make Black people permanently the Other, the lowest of the low, with no way out. This is what was so particularly deadly about their situation. It is ironic that it was the White slaveowners who feared black white and Native American joining forces to fight the Man, so to speak. Something to think about….
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” Keep in mind everybody had slaves then, black Africans included.”
***********
This. … BROKEN RECORD tired argument. The “THEY” Did It Too argument.
It’s gross ignorance!
Actually, it’s beyond gross.
Being a AFRICAN SLAVE in Africa, relatively speaking, was like having died and gone to Heaven compared to the Hellish Nightmare experience that being a BLACK SLAVE in AmeriKKKa was.
You should do something (research/reading/study maybe?) about this gross ignorance.
There’s really no excuse for this level of ignorance nowadays – especially since you’re now ON the medium (internet) you’re using to post an asinine comment like – ” Keep in mind everybody had slaves then, black Africans included.”
Educate yourself.
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@ ChrisA
I think you have some understanding of the specific problems with the American Slave trade. There were worse aspects also that are worth looking into, but this seems like a good start.
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@ Bulanik
You know your stuff. I am very impressed.
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I think what makes the Holocaust so terrible is its pure racism. It was rooted on racism. It shows us how far racism can go if it is unchecked. Nazis really tried to kill the whole another race. They would have killed others too, had they won. They had a list of humans and sub humans. All those subhumans were to be eliminated later on. The slavs, romani people naturally, gays etc. They were to be killed out. The lucky non germanic people who would have been allowed to live, would have been slave races. They really had these plans.
BUT if some one tries to portray slavery in more nicer light, think again. It was economic exploitation at its worst. Think about why it began. Why bring slaves across the ocean? Well, because the first slaves, natives, were almost killed out. They died off. So lets replace them. Simple as that. But the conditions these new slaves were brought in to were the ones which had killed millions of native americans by then. You doubt? Look at the Caribbean islands and show me the local tribes, nations, natives… Yeap. There are none, They were killed in slavery. And to replace them, africans were brought over.
This sytem actually resembles a lot the soviet kulag system. At its peak, the prison camp system and prisons were actually a system of slaves in soviet economy. And just like in the new world few centuries before, millions died when the bosses reaped the benefits and built an empire. Stalin and his cronies needed millions of slaves to run the economy. The Kulag presented them. Just like cross Atlantic slave trade did. But with racism added in the mix.
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@bulanik:
This is how I view these different genocides:
The holocaust is the highest form of the racism. It is the end of the line in racism. It was based solely on racial theories. Who was to be killed was decided by racial ideology, that is racism. It did not matter what you did or said or who you were, if you were a jew, you were going to die. Every single killing was done with race deciding the death. Even when they mass murdered their very own in the beginning, those mental patients were to be killed because they were un pure and un fit. They racially defect. That is why I see holocaust as the most terrible genocide, in the same league what the belgians did in Kongo and germans in Namibia.
Stalins genocides were not based on anything else but terror. One of his closest comrades and bat men was a jew Lazar Kaganovicth, the Wolf of Kremlin, a guy who killed at least tens of thousands. Head of the KGB back then was Lavrentin Beriya, a guy from Abkhasia. Stalin was georgian himself. Moltov was russian. Hrushtshev was ukranian. This was the gang. No racial selection, just the most ruthless and stone cold guys.
Stalin was a criminal. I do not mean criminal in philosophical sense but in a real sense. He was a bank robber in Georgia, a gangster. Later it was explained that he was collecting funds for the revolution but that is later propaganda. He was a gangster.
The way he saw the whole USSR was like any mafia boss. He was the boss of bosses and ran the giant state just like the corleonesi clan did run Cosa Nostra in Sicily in 1980’s and 90’s. His terror was not based on racial ideology nor it did have very much to do with any political agenda. It was terror to keep everyone in line. He also created huge slave work force for his projects, like electrifying the country, heavy industry, canals, siberian conquest etc.
Yes, he killed millions, according Mikhail Gorbatchov Stalin killed 10 – 14 million men but no one knows the actual number. There are whole generations missing in the statistics. But none of this was done because of racism and you could survive. Horrifying and terrible it was, but the racist foundation of the nazis makes the holocaust more horrifying in my mind.
In holocaust you had no chance if you were the wrong race. Period. Nothing could save you if you were seen as un fit or wrong by race defenitions. Nothing. If the nazis had won, they would have killed hudreds of millions. They said that after the jews, the slavic people will go. And think what the germans did on Namibia? What would have happened when the nazis would have turned their attention to Africa after winning the war? Yes, they propably would have tried to kill all the blacks in Africa and make it a nice germanic continent.
This is why I think the holocaust is more horrible than what Stalin did.
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If Hitler had won he would have killed way more people, of course, but it would seem less terrible than the Holocaust does to us now. Because we would be soaked in Nazi propaganda and few would question it. Some would complain about how violent “the West” has become, but it would become the new normal, an unavoidable part of progress, of improving the species. Scientific racism would be alive and well. Jews, blacks and some bleeding hearts would complain but few would take them seriously.
Just look at the thread on children killed by Obama to see how WILLINGLY people excuse slaughter by those in power, how they are uncomfortable with calling Obama a killer. Why is that?
Hitler lost so he does not get to write the history books. The moral horror we feel at his deeds is mainly due to Allied propaganda – which we call “history” because we are made to learn it at school.
Notice how White Americans, who would never dream of excusing or playing down Hitler’s evils, do in fact try to excuse or play down slavery of Black Americans and the genocide of Native Americans. Why is that?
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@abagond:
“Notice how White Americans, who would never dream of excusing or playing down Hitler’s evils, do in fact try to excuse or play down slavery of Black Americans and the genocide of Native Americans. Why is that?”
I have noticed. Because of the very same reasons which made the holocaust possible. Whites won in America and that is why the genocide of the natives is written the way it is. That is why the slavery is told the way it is. That is why there has never been a real national dealing with the past and thus present. That is why the racism which made the native genocide possible, which made millions fight FOR the slavery, is still alive.
Racism is doing well and is alive in USA very much more than in our countries, which are not racism free either. It is institutional. It is in the institutions. Like I have said many times: why the US government classifies people by racial defenitions? Why they need to know your ethnicity? What is it that requiers an US citizen to classify themselves on racial bases? For what this information is collected and for what purpose?
I met institutional american racism first hand back in the 80’s. Having a long black hair on and being in a car with native activists in the middle of a night was not the brightest thing to do but gave me an experience that clarified many things. Staring into assault rifles of some federal police men was also a way to get few facts clear very fast.
Today I’d propably end in prison via some terrorist clause in a similar situation. Another thing I dislike in USA. But still, I love the movies, music, food, arts etc.
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@bulanik:
Yes, of course Israel uses the holocaust to justify its actions and policies and that is wrong. It is also very convinient to forget that the holocaust was not just about jews BUT all wrong people, gays included.
Perhaps the jewish part of holocaust is so high lighted in USA that they would forget the other victims. And that way forget their own genocides. I have sometimes wondered this german angle too: sometimes it has racist connotations as well. You know, “it is the germans”, “it is the german soul”, “the germans did it”…
Well, yes they did but with the help of polish, ukranian, russian, romanian, yugoslavian, kroatian, french, danish, norwegian, italian, finnish, swedish, estonian, lithuanian, latvian and swiss collaborators.
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Forgot the hungarians who were reallyh into it and who today are once again voting for openly racist nationalistic party.
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@bulanik, abagond:
“Personally, I subscribe to the thesis that great evils generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by exceptional people. They were and are, acted out by ordinary people who couldn’t do any better than follow, sometimes quite creatively. But they did let themselves “normalize” the unthinkable.”
Yes, and Christopher Brownings book Ordinary Men tells that story better than any that I have read. It tells one story of the tragedy. 101st Reservist Police Batallion was a real hodge podge and mix of the whole Third reich society. It had reservists from old cops to young recruits, from noble men to former street urchins etc. Only few, if any, were members in the nazi party. Age range was between 20-45 if I remember correctly. They came from northern Germany, not from any of the Hitler’s strong support zones.
This reservist batallion was sent to Poland to secure the lines and maintain the order. Pretty soon they were given a difficult task. The commander of the batallion told the whole group that if any man wants to stay out for what ever reason, it is ok. There will be no punishments, no disciplinary actions etc. The commander himself was in tears while telling this. If I rermember correctly only five men out of 800 decided to stay out and from those 5, only two kept their desicion trough the war.
This difficult task into which the whole batallion took part voluntarily was elimination of the jews. They shot 38 000 jews on Poland. One guy participated in only one massacre, after which he refused to do any more. He was not shot, not punished, nor had any problems with the others or his officers after making his descion.
And these men were all ordinary men. Not the SS, not fanatical party members, not special forces etc. Just ordinary reservists, just like some of those guys in Abu Ghraib. Or those guys in Bosnia or Kosovo on all sides. Or those in Rwanda. Or those in Sand Creek in 1860’s.
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by the way, the first recorded mention of the Holocaust comes from medieval England in 1190 AD. After the jewish population in York was murdered, the incident was recorded as Holocaust, from greek origin meaning something of burning etc.
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@Abagond
Aren’t you uncomfortable with calling Palestinian freedom fighters terrorists? I am. If you are, why is that?
Because when others do evil things we recognize it simply as evil, but when we (or the people we see as ‘our people’, or the people on ‘our side’ of some issue) do evil things it’s because we(they) had a good reason to do it. Isn’t this way of thinking universal?
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@ Eco
No, it is not universal. Not even among white people. Not everyone is sheep. Some people think for themselves. The government is not God.
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@ Eco
I am uncomfortable with calling Palestinian freedom fighters terrorists. Some of what they do is wrong, of course, like suicide bombings. But in practice “terrorist” is used to excuse war crimes against them. It is used to dehumanize a whole people. Well, in fact, pretty much all Muslims. Not only is that wrong in itself, it leads Israel and America into breaking their own professed moral and political principles: torture, the Patriot Act, indiscriminate killing of civilians by drones, the war of “self-defence” against Gaza, outright murder of American citizens by the president, human rights abuses against Muslim Americans and Palestinians, etc.
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@Abagond
This has very little to do with trusting a government. A government is only a possible example of a group we can see as the people who generally are on ‘our side’.
This is about not being able to be objectively moral. It’s about being inherently subjective and biased. Simplifying life to dichotomies – the bad guys and the good guys who are on ‘our side’, who represent us in some way. IMO we all think like that.
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@Abagond
That’s kinda my point. They do very evil things, they try to kill civilians, but they have a good reason! Overall they are the victims! Yeah, ‘our guys’ always have a good reason to do unspeakably bad things. But we wouldn’t be seeing this in this exact way if a Palestinian suicide bomber killed someone we love or if a Gazan rocket fell in our backyard.
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I’ve reread my recent comments and I feel I didn’t properly point out what I see as an analogy.
We (Abagond and I) both see Palestinians as the ‘good guys’ in the Gaza-Israel conflict. Overall, they are the victims and they are right. When they do evil things, in a way, we excuse it. Point out how they are still the lesser evil in the grand scheme of things. Even when they do something as objectively and inexcusably horrible as killing (or attempting to kill) civilians.
I think we are not that much different from people who see dead kids as collateral damage that was necessary to fight the terrorists and keep America safe.
I think this is ultimately about who we see as ‘our side’, as ‘the good guys’ in a particular situation. In our eyes the ‘good guys’ always have a good reason do do bad things and always are (to a degree) excused.
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“eco
I think this is ultimately about who we see as ‘our side’, as ‘the good guys’ in a particular situation. In our eyes the ‘good guys’ always have a good reason do do bad things and always are (to a degree) excused.”
Linda says,
Very true!
Blind faith, nationalism, and societal indoctrination is what causes most people to view their country, culture, religion, etc…as the “right” one, the correct path —
it takes alot for most people to attempt to “see the other side” because that means they have to question the essense of “who” they are as individuals and what they’ve been taught and believe as a member of a particular group — no one wants to think that they/their ancestors got it wrong!
It’s not easy questioning and disowning aspects of one’s own cultural philosophy.
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[…] Warsaw Ghetto (abagond.wordpress.com) […]
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[…] Warsaw Ghetto (abagond.wordpress.com) […]
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What the Nazis did to Jews, Roma, and others is enough to make any of the people they persecuted somewhat paranoid. Remeber what Harriet Beecher
Stowe said in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; “The slave is ever a tyrant if he can be one”
because violence and brutality is all he knows,.
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[…] Warsaw Ghetto […]
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[…] Warsaw Ghetto Mon 3 Dec 2012 by abagond […]
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Please replace “Krakow” with “Cracow” – the spelling used by the Oxford English Dictionary
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@ Bobby M
It can be either one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w
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I know many people from Poland, who speak Polish natively, and they all write “Cracow” in English. Wikipedia has a strange policy of avoiding anglicized names wherever possible. Also, If it’s good enough for OED, it’s good enough for me.
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Bobby M
There is also an individual on this blog that is polish and he did not have an issue with the word. As well as polish sites I have visited spelling the word as Kraków. Your polish friends may be tweaking it for you. Since your dispute is Wikipedia then I wager what your dispute is for these sites.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/poland/malopolska/krakow
Or
http://www.varia-course.com/
That is great that you have a say in what is good enough for you, but it is a bit foolish to ask someone else to change it because of what suites your Americanized taste.
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I follow the OED
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@ Bobby M
Corrected. Thanks.
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Bobby M
Again That is great, but it is a bit foolish that YOU ask someone else to change it because of what suites your Americanized taste.
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@ Sharina
I follow the Oxford dictionary, so in this case it counts as a correction.
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@abagond
Its fair if that is what you follow and your blog being an English only one, but In cases of dealing with other countries history is it not fair to perhaps have an English and polish spelling instead of fully catering to English?
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And then it got even worse:
Once people were sent to Treblinka no one ever heard from them again. Like they were dead or something. They sent spies: Treblinka was not a labour camp at all. Everyone was being killed!
————————————————————————————————
If this is true, why has the German government made it a crime to research, possess and/or display EVIDENCE to the contrary?
Seems to me the Hollowcost may be as much religion as historical fact?
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@Sharina – does that mean he should write “Alexander the Great (Alexandros ho Megas)” and “Germany (Deutschland)” and “Bang Kok (Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit)”?
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Bobby M
It does when you are dealing with other countries historical text. Not everyone on this blog is American or views things through an Americanized lens. So when you discuss things from their country they may follow better if it is something they recognize.
FYI it is Bangkok and the long name is simply it’s ceremonial name.
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Hitler left the Muslims 😦
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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