‘Aftermath:’ A Riveting Portrayal of Polish Anti-Semitism

Finally I got hold of something substantive to prove once and for all that Poland is one of the most anti-Semitic of all countries in Europe... Read on

‘Aftermath:’ A Riveting Portrayal of Polish Anti-Semitism

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/01/17/aftermath-a-riveting-portrayal-of-polish-anti-semitism/

~Abraham Foxman

After Germany itself, no country has been more scrutinized for its behavior during the Holocaust than Poland. This is understandable considering the fact that 3 million Jews lived in Poland and the fact that the largest death camps were in Poland.

Sometimes, however, this scrutiny takes awkward turns. From time to time one hears references to the “Polish” camps, and it is necessary to set the record straight: these were German camps located in occupied Poland.

At other times one hears comments such as the Poles learn their anti-Semitism from their mother’s milk or the Poles were even worse than the Germans. These are most unfortunate comments because while Polish anti-Semitism was real and virulent, there is an implication of something historic and inherent about Poland that does not square with the record.

The question that must be posed is: If Poland was always an anti-Semitic country, why were 3 million Jews living there on the eve of World War II? The answer is that for many centuries, Poland was a more welcoming place for Jews than countries in Western Europe.

Jewish communities were given a degree of autonomy and stability in Poland that did not exist elsewhere in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. Anti-Semitism existed, of course, but Jewish life could flourish. It was only later, with the dissolution of the Polish Empire and, particularly, in the 20th century with the emergence of reactionary political forces, that Polish anti-Semitism took a turn for the worse.

In sum, the history of Poland and the Jews is a lot more complicated than some would have it.

Still, the power of anti-Semitism in modern Poland is real and never has it so brilliantly been portrayed as in the Polish film “Aftermath,” which recently came to the United States.

It is a story of two Polish brothers, one now living in America who goes back home. He sees that his brother is being abused by his neighbors. He learns that it was a result of his brother’s digging up tombstones of Jews that were used to pave a local road and setting them up in the field behind his house.

Whatever his attitude toward Jews, he explained that “they were human beings. There is no one left to look after them.” People began to call him “Jew lover” and other even less pretty epithets.

This, however, is only the beginning of the tale. As it evolves the story of those dead Jews becomes more and more gruesome and relates back to events that took place during World War II.

The film is one of the most riveting Holocaust-related films I have seen for several reasons.

First, it is not in your face. The story and the revelations slowly emerge and are all the more powerful when they do.

Second, anti-Semitism is shown not to be a simple phenomenon, but one with many layers. Both of the brothers themselves make anti-Semitic references and yet each is very different from their hate-filled neighbors. For the brother living in Poland, even if he carried with him common stereotypes about Jews, using tombstones to pave a road was too disrespectful. So he took a stand.

And for the brother coming from America, concern about issues of property in the town led him to pursue with vigor and integrity the true story of what happened to the Jews of the town and the role of prominent members of the community in those events.

Third, through the telling of a story it shows the importance of recovering the truth of the past in order to repair the present and the future.

While this is a fictional account, it is based on the horrific events that took place in Jebwabne in 1941 when the Germans invaded. Jan Gross has written an important book on the subject.

Much like when Gross’s book came out, so too when “Aftermath” appeared in Polish theaters, there was much controversy. The filmmaker was accused in some circles of defaming the Polish people. Others, however, commended him for speaking truth about terrible acts committed by respectable Poles.

“Aftermath” is a must-see film. In a sophisticated way, it does a better job of communicating the power and destructiveness anti-Semitism than almost any other film.

And it is a story about heroes, about people who do the right thing even if they are less than perfect people themselves.

Poland’s history toward the Jews was, indeed, complicated. But the power of anti-Semitism in that country in the 20th century was profound. Coming to grips with it is an imperative of our times.

Abraham H. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, is National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

2 COMMENTS
Herb Glatter
January 17, 2014
1:41 pm
Polish church to display painting depicting Jewish ritual murder of Christian children

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/01/14/news-...stian-children-to-go-on-display#ixzz2qg8ARMwU

My parents, brother and sister were among the few Jews to escape Poland and find refuge here in America July 1938.

Old habits die hard, especially for this hatred that will not die.

REPLY
Eric R.
January 17, 2014
11:45 am
“Poland’s history toward the Jews was, indeed, complicated. ”

Wrong Mr. Foxman. Poland’s history toward the Jews for the last 300+ has been very simple.

They want us dead.

 

Wrong, they wanted the Jews out of Poland the way Israel wants Arabs and non Jews out of Israel.

 

After five years two thirds of the Jews in Europe were dead. It's been sixty five years now and there are still plenty of non Jews and Arabs in Israel (25 % of Israel's population is Arab) so seems that not only are you mistaken but downright out to lunch.

 

Is the ADL revving-up again against a new target...Poland?
Jews lived in Poland for over a millennium. It was the one European Country with the most Jews.
So, what happened in Poland that they turn against the Jews?
I'm baffled....unless the ADL is spreading a lie for some reason. I read they did their own survey, then back it up with a Hollywood movie. And the world swallows it hook, line and sinker.

 

This might provide a start for your research;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland#1967.E2.80.931989

 

No one has suggested Israel has implemented any final solution but there is no question that from it's conception, Israel has worked in the same way as the Nazi's did trying to expel Palestinians. You are taking it one step further than Jeanette said.

With regard Poland I do not know too much. From the little I know it seems to have been a welcoming place for Jews and to have had a rich Jewish culture. The problems seem to have come when Russia took over some of her territory....and let's not forget the holocaust was not just against Jews.

If we want to look at where it has not been properly investigated I would think Croatia would be a good place to start http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary...r-World-War-II-genocide-before-joining-the-EU or how about Romania where 400,000 Jews faced their deaths. I haven't studied the treatment of Jews in Romania but have studied that of the Roma and the camps they were sent to to die - where Jews also went. What is interesting about Romania was that what stopped more Roma being killed was the Romanian people themselves - on all levels. As half her Jews also survived it may have been the same with them. In Poland however, there was no way in which the people could make their voice heard. Hence you have many Poles risking their lives for Jews over 6,000 of whom have been recognised and I imagine that is just the surface.

 

My mother and grandmother also escaped from Poland after the Russians murdered my grandfather. Hitler would have had no compunction in murdering them either, as his proclamation clearly stated. He killed as many ethnic Poles as Jews.
"I have placed my death-head formation in readiness for the present only in the East-with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men women and children of Polish derivation and language. Only then shall we gain the living space which we need" Adolf Hitler.
Your irrational hatred of all Poles notwithstanding, Jews were not unique in being victims of murder in their millions. I will continue to point this out for just as long as you continue to vilify Poles. As you said, "old habits die hard".

 

While it is true you you took it one step further than Jeanette said, I have been feeling uncomfortable about this since I said it. Both being ethnic nationalist states wanted those not of their ethnicity gone and that has been true since the beginning with Israel, though certainly was not the desired approach of all early Zionists, just those who acquired power. This was also at the time reported by the Archives of the time in the following way

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2006/january/january1/palestine.htm

However how things worked were very different. I have just been watching this BBC video on the Jews who fought with Hitler. It is available for about 6 days. Get a hanky.

http://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/shows/nazi-collaborators/watch-online/#1924738358001

Thing is we need to be just as open to the suffering of the Palestinians past and present and the exile of such a large proportion from their homeland and their needs and rights to be justly recognised. One does not justify the other.

 

Nope. She said in her reply to HBendor's contention that historically they want Jews dead that Israel was carrying out the same policy. You have of course heard of the Holocaust and the three million Polish Jews killed right?

- - - Updated - - -

Quite true however, they were the largest ethnic group who fell victim.

 

Does the truth that Sharon was found guilty, by his own countrymen, of complicity in war crimes and the massacre of innocents hurt you a little?

 

Thanks. - Here is a quote from the link of a Jew who recently visited Poland:

Jews in Poland Today​

September 1, 2012​

http://poland-israel.blogspot.ca/2012/09/jews-in-poland-today.html
----------------------------
ADL seems to be creating their own anti-Semitism!
Shame on them!! It's all about $.$$$$$$

Automotive giant Volkswagen AG said it will donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.



http://www.jta.org/2011/11/09/news-opinion/united-states/volkswagen-ag-donating-1-million-to-adl

 

Wow what an incredibly stupid and offensive remark!

 

Why do we constantly hear of crimes committed against Jews and never hear of crimes committed by Jews??

Here's ten fun facts about Jews! Especially note #3 - the exploitation of Polish peasants.

1) Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa.

quote: Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

LINK

2) Voltaire held Jews in contempt. He said of them: "You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny."

LINK

3) European peasants were often exploited by Jewish merchants and tax-farmers.

quote: Flush with the money they provided, King Sigismund indulged his disordered passions and handed the country over to his Jewish and Demi-Jewish administrators for them to rule as they wished. As a result peasants everywhere groaned under the predations of the Jewish tax-farmers, who in turn lent money to the king at usurious rates of interest, thereby keeping him under their power as well. Rabbi Mendel Frank of Brest, according to Walsh, "was so influential that he was called the King’s Officer." As in England at the same time, the Polish nobles were torn between religious principle and economic interest. As in England, economic considerations won out and "the nobility in most cases held its protecting hand over the Jews to whom it was tied by the community of economic interests." In other words, the Polish oligarchs "were either in debt to the Jews, or employed them to squeeze taxes from them out of the peasants, naturally at a good profit for the tax-farmers, who took their toll from dairies, mills, distilleries, farms." The Jews "were indispensable to the easy-going magnate, who was wont to let his estates take care of themselves and wile away his time at the capital, at the court, in merry amusements, or at the tumultuous sessions of the national and provincial assemblies, where politics was looked upon as a form of entertainment rather than as a serious pursuit.

LINK

4) Some rabbis suck on baby boys' penises.

LINK

5) Pioneering "thrill killers" Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were Jewish.

LINK

6) Many of the best religious ideas of the Hebrews were actually stolen from the Persians.

LINK

7) James Forrestal, the first United States Secretary of Defense, may have been assassinated by Israeli terrorists.

LINK

According to the London Times, Zionist terrorists planned to kill Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary.

LINK

8 ) One of Mussolini's mistresses, Margherita Sarfatti, is considered to be the "founding mother" of fascism. What's astonishing is that she was Jewish.

LINK

9) Jewish Merchant David Sassoon controlled the vast opium trade in China. Millions were enslaved to the drug for profit.

LINK

10) Some early Zionists declared themselves fascists.

quote: Abba Ahimeir was a writer and activist in British Mandate Palestine, and a zealous lieutenant of Jabotinsky. In the pages of the magazine Doar Hayom, during the late 1920s and '30s, he wrote a celebrated column titled "From the Notebook of a Fascist." He hymned Mussolini, referred to Jabotinsky as "Our Duce," and even went so far as to say that Hitler was on the right track, except for his excessive anti-Semitism.

LINK

 

There were many truly devout people who risked their lives to save Jews in all of Eastern Europe. Had they been caught it would have been sure death for them, and the gratitude of the Jews towards them later on was immense. ..even to the point of supporting their saviours for the rest of their lives. If they knew that some of the later generation Jews were using their suffering for their own benefit and gain, they would probably turn in their graves.

This doesn't mean that there weren't some people in other countries who assisted the Nazis and handed them in without qualms, but let's take everything into perspective. I know that in pre revolutionary Russia an average of five hundred dignitaries were being killed each year by predominantly Jewish terrorists. The Bolsheviks leaders were also Jews and we know the tens of thousands of crimes they committed. Other than Russia, I know of atrocities that are too horrific to be mentioned that had been committed by Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Now I'm not saying this to condemn the Jews, especially at a time when they are fighting for their survival as a nation, but they should look at things in a much more objective way.

 

Hey, I could add another ten (10) sins to that. But I will just post one video I came upon while cruising the net. It is brand new to me and perhaps unknown to many here at the forum.

Israeli Media Reveals The Secret Behind Communism

http://jewsworldorder.blogspot.ca/2...seems a pittance compared to the Jewish sins.

 

Joos are bad. If they were not then lowlifes wouldn't spend so much energy to scour the internet to find stuff to vilify them with.

 

Finally you admit it!! One Brownie point for you...

 

Sharon was not found guilty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He was found INDIRECTLY responsible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read, digest and understand lest someone calls you disingenuous!!!!!!!!!!

On the other hand ALL YOUR STUPID POLES were criminally involved in the slaughter of Jews notwithstanding a handful that were human and behaved like human amongst IMPS.

 

Lowlifes are the ones who trivialize the deaths of 3 million human beings as "a drop in the bucket." All I did was share some facts which you seem unable to refute.

In reference to your signature, here are some other remarks by Truman: The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog.

LINK

 

Sharon was involved in the Qibya massacre.

quote: The Qibya massacre, also known as the Qibya incident, occurred in October 1953 when Israeli troops under Ariel Sharon attacked the village of Qibya in the West Bank. At least sixty-nine Palestinian Arab villagers, two-thirds of them women and children, were killed.

LINK

So you are defending a child-murderer.

A lot of hate from Jewish bigots. Is there any group these bigots don't hate?

US State Dep’t echoes David Sheen’s documentation of Israeli racism toward refugees– as infiltrators, disease-bearers

Israel Forcibly Injected African Immigrants with Birth Control, Report Claims

Israel and Anti-Gentile Traditions

 

I agree!

Facts?

1. When allies cooperate it is fine but when one of them is a Joo it is not and instead something nefarious is occurring right?
2. Voltaire?
3. 1648?
4. Some rabbis suck on baby boys' penises? ?? "Fischer uses a practice rare outside strict Orthodox groups where he uses his mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin." You mean this particular one does and so, according to the antisemitism doctrine all of them do huh?
5. Going back to 1924 to find a Jewish murderer? Kidding right?
6. A poem by Friedrich Nietzsche?
7. They also think U.S. government operatives were sent to silence him for his knowledge of UFOs so what is your point?
8. Proof that Jews are not a block political entity.
9. biblebelievers.org, the site that believes the Jews declared war on Hitler.
10. There are fascists in every group.

Thank you however, we all know Truman acknowledged the Holocaust and supported the state of Israel.

 

It is only when Arabs take phrases out of context that they upset the cart, if the Poles lost 3,000000 out of 35,000000 it is approx 1,16% of the total population of Poland. (It is still a drop in the bucket)
Now when 3,000000 Jews were slaughtered out of 3,000000 it is 100%... Who's theory is stupid and offensive now?

My friend you must have left class for a while when they were explaining percentages...

 

If I have to take literally what you concocted above I am ready to give the names of more than TEN THOUSAND Arab MURDERERS as a countermeasure. I have this listed in a book of 800 pages.

 

If he has done that then yes he would be.

What happened to 1,2 and 3?

Anyways, it is not a black and white issue. You said some and quoted a source to imply this is commonplace when it is isolated. I can state that some of any nationality are rapists and provide a link to a rapist which implies that an entire nation is rapists but in reality, it is but a few individuals.

No need, the point is proven with the above rationale that isolated incidents don't make a case for the hatred of an entire peoples.

An entire site devoted to vilifying Jews. How legit!

You forgot about all the rest of the real villains such as Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussien, Kim Jong ll, Vlad III the Impaler, Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Benito Mussolini, The entire British Empire, Franco, Napoleon etc etc.

My goodness, you'll have to excuse me, after opening some of those sites of yours I feel the need for a shower.

 

Qibya was a retaliation raid... The West Bank Judea and Samaria were then under the yoke of the Jordanians army...

On Israeli Radio that same day, he addressed the nation in the following terms:
The [Jewish] border settlers in Israel, mostly refugees, people from Arab countries and survivors from the Nazi concentration camps, have, for years, been the target of (...) murderous attacks and had shown a great restraint. Rightfully, they have demanded that their government protect their lives and the Israeli government gave them weapons and trained them to protect themselves. But the armed forces from Transjordan did not stop their criminal acts, until [the people in] some of the border settlements lost their patience and after the murder of a mother and her two children in Yahud, they attacked, last week, the village of Kibya across the border, that was one of the main centers of the murderers' gangs. Every one of us regrets and suffers when blood is shed anywhere and nobody regrets more than the Israeli government the fact that innocent people were killed in the retaliation act in Kibya. But all the responsibility rests with the government of Transjordan that for many years tolerated and thus encouraged attacks of murder and robbery by armed powers in its country against the citizens of Israel.