No. 8 - Opinion of the German MEP

synopsis and translation Zbyszek Koralewsk , editing Prof. Anthony J. Bajdek 

link to the original article:

http://wiadomosci.wp.pl/kat,1329,title,Hans-Olaf-Henkel-dla-Do-Rzeczy-sankcje-dla-Polski-to-bylby-koniec-UE,wid,18125498,wiadomosc.html?ticaid=1165ff

There are two reasons for attacks on the new government in Poland: the Polish opposition did not come to terms with its defeat in the elections, and the other due to 

the fact that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, are not enthusiastic about EU centralism, and they do not want to have a second Moscow in the form of Brussels, which will tell them what to do -- says Hans-Olaf Henkel, the German MEP (Member of European Parliament) from the EK fraction, in an interview with the weekly "Into the stuff ".

Hans-Olaf Henkel PAP/EPA / DPA

Dominika Ćosić: Did the Prime Minister Beata Szydło succeed during the debate

in the European Parliament (EP) to convince the skeptics ?
Hans-Olaf Henkel: With skeptics she did not. In the EP there are people who just do not want to be convinced. You can show them the facts, clearly and lucidly, and they still will not admit them (i.e., the facts) to their consciousness and will continue to stick to their ideology. 

This presentation, however, had an impact on people who have open minds.

And there are those?

-I think so. But certainly the farther to the left and the farther to the right [one may be], it is harder to meet these types of people. It is clear that the Polish opposition can not accept that they lost the election. This is a Polish problem. I can only appeal to the current Polish opposition [to] the Polish problem not to make [it a] European [problem]. Growing tensions hurt Poland and Europe. The second axis of the division concerned ideology because there are [those] in the EP parties wanting greater centralization of the Union -- federalism -- and those for whom such a vision is not acceptable. The new Polish government, like me, belongs to the latter group. And it was [thus] 

the second division of supporters of and opponents to European centralism.

What according to you is the main reason for the attacks on the new Polish government?

-There are two reasons about the first I have already stated: the Polish opposition does not come to terms with its defeat in the election, which was visible even in the discussion. The second reason stems from the fact that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia are not enthusiastic about EP centralism and do not want to have a second Moscow in the form of Brussels, which tells them what to do.
And in all of this there is an additional German element which makes the whole situation even more dramatic and difficult. As a German, who is reading [and] watching international media, I notice clearly that the German media and German politicians are leading the criticism of the Polish government. Something like that I can hardly see in the French press, a relatively small extent in the UK, [and] in Italy the theme is almost non-existent. A little bit is written about it in Austria and the Netherlands. This strong German instructive voice has a good cause – Germans have ambition to be a global moral superpower. They want to save the world's climate, marginalize nuclear energy, save the eurozone; [they] saved Greece three times, along with Ireland, Portugal, Spain, [and] now save refugees from different countries. Finally, they believe that they have to save Polish democracy. The reason for this moral arrogance of many German politicians -- and the best example is the chairman Schulz -- is that the generation of Germans born after the war feels obliged to show its high, overblown morality.
Mr Schulz attacks Poland, speaking [either] of a coup or of democracy in the style of Putin. It is not only the greatest wickedness, I've heard, while an MEP, but also a total lack of respect for 

the letter of the law. Everyone says that we should wait for the verdict of the Venice Commission, while this man does not wait, because he had already judged Poland. I asked him in a speech to apologize to the Polish people. He did not do it. Why?

A spokesman for the Chancellor distanced himself recently from the comments of some German politicians calling for the imposition of sanctions on Poland. 

 
-Ideas such as imposing sanctions on Poland are ridiculous, completely ridiculous.
Fortunately, they will not be realized, because it would be the end of the European Union.

How should the Polish government be in responding to the attacks by Mr. Schulz and 

the German government? Do not treat Mr. Shultz as a representative of the government

in Berlin and possibly answer only to him?

-My advice is that the Polish government should be confident in responding and show it. Do not attack the German Government for the words of Mr. Schulz. 

The German government, moreover, has serious problems now, and they are on several fronts. About the effects of "policy of Willkommen" [i.e., "Welcome"] I have alredy stated, and it is also 

a question of giving up nuclear energy, which has caused a dramatic increase in energy prices. 

The price of electricity in Germany is the second highest in the world. For this reason, many foreign and German companies begin to retreat from Germany. The crisis in the eurozone has not been resolved; Greece does not carry out reforms. In short, Mrs. Merkel does not need to open another front, that being,

 the deterioration of relations with Poland. And there is also no reason to "teach" the Polish government. And the government in Warsaw should be aware of that.

No.7 - Today's Targowica

author: Prof. Vladimir J. Korab-Karpowicz

(translation Zbyszek Koralewski, editing Prof. Anthony J. Bajdek)

The original article was published January 3, 2016 by A303W POLSKA:

http://wolna-polska.pl/wiadomosci/dzisiejsza-targowica-prof-w-j-korab-karpowicz-2016-01

Today's Targowica uses the slogan "threatened democracy." Instead of appeals to Moscow, today's appeals are to Brussels. The motivations, however, are the same: the defense of their [i.e.,Nowoczesna, KOD and others] interests and lost privileges. Today there are not aristocratic privileges, but the party’s privileges.

  We all probably remember from school textbooks what Targowica had been, but it is worth recalling this story. When the party of reform led to the enactment in 1791 of the May 3rd Constitution, which cut the excessive privileges of the nobility and led to a positive reform of the state, a group of those dissatisfied appeared, who supposedly in the name of "endangered freedom", but actually defending their own interests, formed a confederation in Targowica. The aim of the Targowicans was to abolish the Constitution of May 3rd and restore the old privileges. To achieve their goal, they did not hesitate to ask Moscow for help.

Politics can be understood in two ways: as an art of governing, or as a struggle for power. If in coming to govern are people whose aim is to benefit the state [or simply stated, the public in general] politics acquires the characteristics of the art of governing, and therefore, control of the state in a way that serves the general good [of society] and reinforces its strength. Dr. Andrzej Duda’s winning the presidential election and the PiS in the parliamentary elections is an expression of the will of the majority of society. The majority concluded that the previous ruling party -- PO -- and associated with it ideologically President Bronislaw Komorowski didn't rule the state well. Society refused [to extend] further credit of its trust. That's what democracy is. In a country with a democratic system, power can be exchanged. Currently, it happened in Poland.

PO, Modern and other groups associated with the opposition, as once with the group of people opposing the Constitution of May 3rd, they [PO, Modern] can not come to terms with the loss. The political loss means curtailing the privileges associated with the exercise of power. They are supported by a considerable number of the media which proves that the media are not independent. Programs run by Lis, Kraska and many other well-known journalists are clearly biased. Also, they get support from politicians such Walesa and Cimoszewicz, whose political lives have already ended long ago. So clearly, they want to take on this opportunity, and even from the [political] grave, to remind about their existence.

The main argument of the opposition is that the PiS does not have an explicit program, and it wants to dominate the Polish political scene. Meanwhile, in January 2014 the congress of PiS was held, on which the program framework had been carefully delineated; and if it comes to the second plea, the winners always hold winning in their palm. It goes without saying that the center-right party, and this is Law and Justice, will move away from the solutions of the liberal-leftist PO, and put in place their own.

Modern democracy is based, on the one hand, on free, regular elections, and on the other, on ensuing basic civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion and assembly. Both due to the system of legislation and social practice, Poland is one of the most democratic countries in the world. For example, the way the media criticize the government now would be in many countries unthinkable. Poles have the freedom to manifest their views and association, and most importantly, have the opportunity to recall authority, in regular elections, which did not meet their expectations or abused their trust.

Freedom should be distinguished from anarchy. Anarchy is chaos, manipulation, confusing intent,
undermining of authority. The current actions of Modern, KOD and other groups directed against the democratically elected President of the Republic and the winning PiS party, are spreading anarchy in Poland and do not have much in common with democracy. Rather than being called "the Committee of Defense of Democracy", CoD should rather be called CoA (Committee of Anarchy). When, in turn, Walesa and others go so far as to defame the President of Poland and the Polish Government abroad, they reveal themselves as today's Targowica whose desire is not concerned about the common good, but its own [benefit], and in this quest do not hesitate to request assistance of foreign powers.

Poland has an old democratic tradition, dating back to the 1st Republic, but of democracy apparently, we still must learn together. It is essential to distinguish democracy from anarchy. The enormous value of democracy is the possibility of sharing power, but this exchange can not take place under the influence of pressure groups or organized by their protests, but through democratic elections. Victorious parties should be accorded the credit of trust and an appreciation of the fact that its choice expresses the will of the majority in society.

Vladimir J. Korab-Karpowicz

Vladimir Julian Korab-Karpowicz, philosopher and political thinker. He studied at the Gdansk University of Technology (electrical engineering) and Catholic University of Lublin (philosophy). He received his doctorate from Oxford University, and habilitation at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. In 1991-1992, he was vice-president of Gdańsk. He worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as First Secretary of the Polish Embassy in Oslo, and was an adviser to the European Commission. Professor/instructor of Lazarski University in Warsaw and Zayed University in Dubai. The author of the "Tractatus Politico-Philosophicus" and many other works in the field of political philosophy.

More about changes in Poland :
http://takimag.com/article/sour_grapes_over_poland_chodakiewicz_wellisz#.VqhcGThvJdE.email

No. 6 - Four Letters to European Parliament

Written by: 

Bishop of Włocławek,
PAC-Long Island,
PAC South & North California,
 PAC President

December 15, 2015
Dear Mr. Martin Schulz,  President of European Parliament  
Willy-Brandt-Ring 1    D-52477 Alsdorf
Deutschland – Niemcy

With great amazement and indignation I have read your opinion about the "coup" in Poland. I really know my country better than you. I have lived in my homeland for 70 years already. I assure you that the elections  for the President and the new government in Poland are not evidence of an absence of democracy.

The elections showed that most ordinary citizens of my country want change. The problem is that those, who hitherto had authority to govern, on this decision lost. Therefore, they do not want to surrender to the verdict of the election, and use for their interests the European Parliament. Under your leadership, Parliament is certainly busy with very important issues, including the length of a candle's flame and the amount of water in a toilet’s tank.

There are no politicians today in Brussels with class, or people looking for the common good of the societies making up the European Union. Political correctness coupled with pettiness is not conducive to wisdom.
It is a pity, as Mr. Chirac once said, that you also “lost the opportunity to keep quiet".

I know that you will not change your position and will not apologize to Poles. Greatness is required to recognize one’s own mistake. Therefore, at the "winter holidays" (as you call Christmas),
I wish you prudence, wisdom and imagination.  

+ Wiesław Mering,  Bishop of Włocławek

January 9, 2016

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Open Letter to Members of the European Parliament

Response to Attacks on Democratically Elected Polish President and Parliament

The Polish American Congress, Long Island Division is increasingly concerned with the false accusations directed at the recent, democratically elected, Polish government.

In the past foreign powers interfered in Poland’s internal affairs and its sovereignty which resulted
in Poland being partitioned by Austria, Prussia and Russia. Also, the alliance of Germany and Russia encouraged Hitler to attack Poland and begin WWII. More recently, the Yalta Agreement
between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin enslaved Central Europe, including East Germany.

The European Union did not react to the Russian-German Nord Stream II gas pipeline agreement
that violated European solidarity. Also ignored is the tragic migration crisis.
But, interference in Poland’s internal affairs is being considered.

Poland's internal reforms are OUTSIDE THE SCOPE of EU law, and fall under its observance of national interests and are within the existing constitutional framework. The internal reforms are necessitated by years of corrupt rule of the previous government and the post communist oligarchy.

Mass media allegations against Poland are orchestrated by those interested in manipulating
public opinion to sustain a neo-colonial status of Poland.  

We hope the January 13 and 19 European Commission and European Parliament meetings
openly debate “the political situation” in Poland and result in a cessation of attacks on
 the democratically elected Polish President and Parliament.

Sincerely,       
Grzegorz Worwa,  President, Polish American Congress, Long Island, New York Division

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Link to the letter written by PAC North & South California                        .January 9, 2016

http://nebula.wsimg.com/e78afe6d36a899b29973b041ce1c8fff?AccessKeyId=2A383047C534A4ABC133&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                    
                                                          Saturday, January 16, 2016    00:52:27
                 
Dear President Juncker,
In recent weeks there has been much negative publicity and conflicting messages concerning Poland, its government and decision making practices. The recent actions by the European Commission (EC) regarding Poland contributed to the discussions and debate that take place both in Poland as well as outside her borders among the members of Polish communities worldwide, including the United States,
where the Polish American diaspora is approximately ten million.

The Polish American Congress, founded in 1944, is the largest Polish American organization.
 Many of our members closely follow the situation in Poland.

 Since the announcement of the discussion on Poland by the European Commission our organization has been inundated with messages expressing great distress among members of our organization and the Polish American community in general. It’s unfortunate that the debate on Poland and associated negative publicity has escalated to this magnitude on an international level causing harm to the good image of Poland.

We understand, the European Commission is concerned about Poland because of political and administrative actions undertaken by the newly-elected Polish President and Parliament. We also understand that Poland agreed to a possibility of such action while signing the documents of accession to the European Union; however, we question if such a strong approach was necessary.

Regrettably, the unprecedented steps by the Commission regarding Poland have provoked a great degree of anxiety and worry that Poland has been singled out for this type of measures. Furthermore, it provides additional arguments for Euro-skeptics. The internal political and social agitation that currently takes place in Poland around EC's decisions fuels the agendas of those who do not have Poland's best interest at heart, including one of Poland's neighbors - Russia.

Nonetheless, and in response to the great concern among the members of the Polish American community, we urge you, Mr. President, as well as other members of the Commission, to thoroughly and objectively review the facts of the situation in Poland and take under careful consideration all of its aspects including political, legislative and those of a historical, social, and cultural nature.

We are confident that Beata Szydlo, Poland's Prime Minister, and her staff will be able to resolve
matters in question in an amicable and equitable manner.

It is in the best interest of all concerned that Poland remains a politically and economically strong
member of the European Union.

I hope this matter gets resolved in the very near future for the benefit of all: Poland,
the European community, as well as Polish communities worldwide.

Sincerely yours,

Frank J. Spula,
PAC President

 CC: Mr. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council
A.

  

No. 5. The year 2016 – A hope for Poland

1. The year 2016 – A hope for Poland

(original title: Year 2016 is a hope for liberation from occupation of  “the round table”

- author unknown, shortcuts and translation by Zbyszek Koralewski)

In 1989, once again we managed to rescue a criminal system and the people who created it. This time under the guise of "democracy" and "capitalism" a compromised system was created in which communism took over the Capital and Democracy was partitioned between selected opposition and
the communist apparatus. (former communists were never brought to justice – zk)

Effect of the reforms by comrade Balcerowicz, who since 1969 belonged to the Communist Party, and in the years 1978-1980 worked on problems of the socialist market-oriented economy - it is unusual on
a European scale: impoverishment of the majority of society, while the beneficiaries of the system have become the creators of the Third Republic.

Poland for 25 years, so-called "Freedom" has divested as part of the privatization of their own industry, their own banks, retail chains and processing establishments creating an army of unemployed, with more than 3 million people leaving Poland in search of bread and better prospects for life.

After 25 years, the Poles - like under communism earned a pittance - for the most part, not only have not received anything from this "favorable" privatization - but have become slaves in western corporations, often working in addition on "junk" agreements and therefore not entitled to pensions, vacations, and sick days.

"Handelsblatt", a leading German daily business paper does not make a secret that European expansion (mainly German) in Poland was made possible by the neo-liberal government which in fact realized building a neocolonial - theoretical state.

"The prime minister of the government, Donald Tusk, was "as if in gratitude for this" awarded the position of President of the European Council," - says the "Handelsblatt".

Merkel and German politicians will do anything not to lose Poland, as its sphere of influence, where it pulled a lot of profits. According to a recent report by Global Financial Integrity, it is estimated that in recent years companies of our western neighbor "sucked" out of our country $30 billion! It turns out that annually as much as 5 percent of Polish GDP goes abroad, i.e. approximately 90 billion zl. For comparison, an annual need, for the program 500 zł per child, is approximately 17 billion zl.
Shame that some important and well-known opposition individuals, about which – paradoxically – already warned Orwell in "Animal Farm" joined a group of Polish traitors, Gazeta Wyborcza,
agents SB, WSI, obliging journalists.

Most of the former dissidents who fought for a free Poland, however did not sell themselves –
they are people excommunicated, which had to be forgotten, as it was attempted to do with
Anna Walentynowicz. From others they attempted to make idiots and lunatics.

The year 2016 is the hope for (reforms and –zk) liberation from "progress" that is exported from
the European Union and neo-colonialism especially from Germany, in defense of the faith, heritage, tradition, culture, economy, history and truth, that was manipulated and sold.
Contratack of Beata Szydlo on Targowiczan in Polish Sejm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPOLwyo6aQ

(Professor Radosław Zenderowski:  Elites of Central and Eastern countries so far largely have been oriented to the West and were not able to represent the national interest in a way in which do the Germans, the French or the British.)

2. Criticism of new government

 synopsis by Zbyszek Koralewski from “Polish Democracy is in Fine Health”.  By Matthew Tyrmand & the Editorial Staff of Gazeta Polska Codziennie

The mainstream western press apparatus, taking its cues from the Polish mainstream press (which is 80% owned by Germans –zk) and those connected to the government freshly ejected from office, continues to criticize the recently democratically elected new government (not in charge because of
the "fascist coup" as depicted by some western officials, like e.g.: Mr. Martin Schulz, President of European Parliament - zk).

Western press suggests that the democracy is being violated in Poland today and censorship abounds under the new regime. This is an outright lie as both pro- and anti-government protests have occurred unencumbered (since the last election –zk).  However, during the past eight years during the ruling years of the Civic Platform and the Polish People's Party (PO-PSL), democratic ideals were NOT upheld and that the right to protest, express oneself freely without fear of reprisal, and other civil liberties were frequently abrogated (surprisingly there was no criticism then - zk).  Examples:

• Independent journalists were repeatedly harassed by the security agencies. The staff of,                among others, Gazeta Polska Codziennie (GPC) had their homes searched. 

• In December 2014, two journalists (Tomasz Gzela of the Polish Press Agency and Jan Pawlicki of Telewizja Republika) were arrested. They were covering the protest held at the headquarters of the National Electoral Commission after the local elections.  PSL having received well more votes than expected (by a factor of 10) in a region (Gdynia) where they have had little historical support.  They managed to gain just enough votes to enable them to remain the junior governing partner of PO. The election results were most likely falsified and this was not investigated.

• Journalists were dismissed from their posts when they pushed for a transparent investigation into the Smolensk crash. Tomasz Sakiewicz and Anita Gargas, among others,  lost their jobs in the public media. Cezary Gmyz was dismissed from the editorial staff of Rzeczpospolita (a daily paper partially owned by the state) for publishing information  indicating that there were traces of TNT found on the wreck of the plane that crashed in  Smolensk in April 2010.
  

               This information was later confirmed by the experts.

In May 2015, after the Presidential election was lost by President Bronisław Komorowski, the PO-PSL coalition violated the constitution and appointed new members of the Constitutional Tribunal before the justices' terms expired. Today, after the reforms implemented by the democratically elected Law and Justice Party, the judges elected by the Civic Platform still constitute the majority. They occupy 9 of 15 seats in the Tribunal. It was no secret that the Tribunal in its current form was largely a rubber stamp on the previous government's lawlessness. (The Tribunal was formed in communist times in 1986). 

Breaking civil liberties went unreported by a pliant media that was directly and indirectly on the previous government's or foreigners’ payroll. These encompassed every sort of corrupt behavior from accepting bribes to patronage jobs and contracts going to friends and family members, to bogus un-bid non-competitive contract procurement, to self-dealing, the awarding of bonuses and pensions, to preferential tax treatment for allies and supporters (including foreign multi-national corporations). 

(Today, a very pro-American Polish Government is in power, and has started a purge of corrupt upper level civil servants.  Too many dark interest groups, including both German and Russian geopoliticians, both of whom are opposed to American strongholds in East Central Europe, are threatened by Poland's new government.  This explains why there is a huge uproar and a continuing stream of lies and false accusations appearing in the mainstream mass media which are orchestrated mainly by Germany and are designed to discredit and disqualify opinion Poland's truly democratic government. (J M Malek)

Interesting to listen to - zk: ( in Polish) Poland under attack in European Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzT6ckfxYk8

No. 4 The Jews in Hitler's Military

A young American is documenting the stories of hundreds

of German veterans of Jewish descent.

Many lost family to the Holocaust

 while serving the Nazi regime.

LONDON — Sustained by scholarship, peanut butter and a sense of mission, American Bryan Rigg is exploring an eerie and uncharted no man's land of Holocaust history. Rigg interviews former German soldiers of Jewish heritage, some of them high-ranking officers, who fought for Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in World War II--

during the Holocaust, when the Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews.

"Thousands of men of Jewish descent and hundreds of what the Nazis called 'full Jews' served in the military with Hitler's knowledge. The Nazis allowed these men 

to serve but at the same time exterminated their families," Rigg said. 

(according to different sources 150 thousands – add. Zk)

 

On a heady journey of personal and professional discovery, the 25-year-old Texan has talked with more than 300 of these veterans, including a handful in California. Passed along from one old soldier to another, he has crisscrossed Germany over four years, often by bicycle, sometimes sleeping in railroad stations to stretch his budget.

Rigg said he has documented the Jewish ancestry of more than 1,200 of Hitler's soldiers, including two field marshals and 10 generals, "men commanding up to 100,000 troops." In about 20 cases, soldiers of Jewish heritage were awarded the Knight's Cross, Germany's highest military honor, he said.

Along the way, Rigg, who is of German extraction and was raised as a Protestant, has discovered that he too has Jewish ancestry. Like many of the families he has visited, Rigg had distant relatives who were killed for being Jewish--and others who died fighting in battle for Nazi Germany.

The old soldiers give Rigg both documents and their stories of war, peace and suffering. He says many stillstruggle with a question that is a challenge to history: 

If I fought in the German army while my mother died in a Nazi concentration camp, am I a villain or a victim? Many of the men Rigg meets cling to Nazi terminology, describing themselves as half-Jewish, half-German. Sometimes they weep as they reminisce, these Germans now in their 70s and 80s, many of whom killed on 

the battlefield for a monstrous regime while their families were being killed by it.

"In many cases, these men have not talked about it for 50 years. When I come, it is as if they have opened up a coffin they thought they buried so long ago. 

It all comes out," Rigg said.

One of his discoveries was a 1944 German army personnel document listing 77 high-ranking officers "of mixed Jewish race or married to a Jew." Two generals, eight lieutenant generals, five major generals and 23 colonels are on the list. Hitler personally signed declarations for all 77 on the 1944 list asserting that they were of German blood, thereby exercising his right of exception under 1935 Nazi legislation that barred anyone with a Jewish grandparent from becoming an officer.

Deciding exactly who was to be classified a Jew stirred great internal debate among Nazi leaders. Hitler loathed Jews, but he also needed experienced commanders and fighters."What's fascinating is how involved Hitler was in the screening process," Rigg said. "At the height of the war, he was personally deciding whether this private or that should be of German blood. A private!" He said there were at least a dozen exception lists approved by Hitler--naming ranking officials not only in the armed forces but in the civilian administration that worked with the military.  In interviews and research in Germany this month, Rigg found still more Wehrmacht officers of Jewish descent and more than 1,500 pages of documents, both from veterans and their families and from the wartime German archives 

that Rigg explores with these people's consent.

"Thousands of men of Jewish ancestry fought in the Nazi military because they were drafted. But many were career soldiers, and that forced them to apply for the German blood declaration," Rigg said. "What's sick here is that, even though Hitler gave the approvals, the officers' relatives were being exterminated 

behind their backs. . . .

Were most of these people so egotistical they didn't care who died just so they could live?" Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, says that the soldiers' individual stories are well known but that there does not seem to have been a serious scholarly attempt to piece them together 

into a larger picture.

The new research also poses vexing questions. "If there were Jews who served in the armed forces to save their own lives, that is one thing. If there were others who served knowing what was going on and made no attempt to save [lives], well then that is unacceptable and dishonorable," Hier said. In the homes he visits, Rigg often sees menorahs and books about Judaism. Many of the veterans "have learned Hebrew," he said, "and a few have converted to Judaism and gotten circumcised in their 40s and 50s."

The Nazi regime reeked of hypocrisy, Rigg's new research makes plain. He documents the case of Field Marshal Erhard Milch, deputy to Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering. Long rumored to have been Jewish, Milch in fact had a Jewish father, which, according to Nazi code, made him unacceptable to serve in the armed forces. But in 1935, Rigg's research shows, Goering, Hitler's chosen successor, falsified documents to declare Milch of Aryan descent by asserting that his mother's brother 

was really his father.

"Many of them lost relatives in the Holocaust and knew they had been sent to Auschwitz or other camps. Yet in 1944, when these men themselves got postcards ordering them to report to a certain train station for deportation, most of them went," Rigg said. "If they really knew what happened to their parents 

and grandparents, why did they go?"

At Cambridge, Steinberg--a New Yorker who has taught in England for three decades—said Rigg's findings will deepen history's view of the Holocaust. While Rigg's quest has at times proved  unsettling for him, for many of the old soldiers that he interviews, a visit from the young, earnest American scholar is cathartic--

even liberating.

"I've gotten letters and phone calls from kids and grandkids of these people, saying: 'Thank God you've come. Now our daddy or grandfather will talk to us

 about all of this,' " he said.

December 24, 1996 | WILLIAM D. MONTALBANO | TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Jews in Hitler's Military - 2015 Los Angeles Times – article collections

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-12-24/news/mn-12209_1_adolf-hitler 

synopsis by Zbyszek Koralewski

No. 3 Killers of Jews or Saviors of Jews?

http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/books/killers-jews-or-saviors-jews
synopsis of the article: Zbyszek Koralewski

New study by YU history professor sheds fresh light on Poland’s wartime anti-Nazi Resistance movement.

YU professor Joshua Zimmerman’s book on Poland’s underground fighters during World War II.
A third-generation American Jew who grew up in California, Joshua Zimmerman was raised with an atypical perspective about Poland.  Most heard mostly horror stories  about anti-Semitic Poles. Zimmerman didn’t.

His great-grandparents came from the area of Poland-Russia where most of the world’s Jews had lived for centuries, in the decades before the Shoah. And when they spoke about World War II and the Holocaust, they would concentrate instead on the German role in atrocities. “Ethnic Poles did not appear in the narrative,” said Zimmerman, 48, a professor of Eastern European Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Yeshiva University.

Then, during a college course on the Shoah, a Jewish student whose grandparents were from Poland declared that the Poles were as bad “as the Germans.”

 During a later trip to Poland, Zimmerman met citizens who had lived through the war and told him about the heroic Resistance movement there and its Armia Krajowa (Home Army). And then he read a New York Times obituary of the wife of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, which described how she survived in Nazi-occupied Poland “with the help of the Polish underground.”

“A book was born that day,” said Zimmerman, sitting in his Yeshiva University office, surrounded by books about the Jewish experience in Poland. He would, he says, investigate the truth about the relationship between the country’s Resistance movement and the country’s Jews during World War II. Were the members of Armia Krajowa — AK, as it is popularly known in Poland — saints or sinners?

The result is the recently published “The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945” (Cambridge University Press), a study that raises fresh questions on the eve of the commemoration
of Kristallnacht. “ I have to see it from both sides,” Zimmerman said.

For most Jews, this is not an arcane historical question. Poland was the pre-war home of 3.5 million Jews and the site of the greatest number of Nazi death camps. The behavior of the underground and the AK epitomizes what happened to Polish Jews under German occupation, and it has become an article of faith of most Jews outside of Poland that the Poles abetted or supported the Nazi effort to annihilate the Jewish population.

Zimmerman spent nine years researching the book, which clocks in at nearly 500 pages. Joshua Zimmerman will discuss his book on Monday, Dec. 21, 3 p.m.  at YIVO, 15 W. 16th St., Manhattan
He lived in Poland for a year, studied its language and culture, interviewed aging AK members and Jews who owe their lives to the underground, combing through archives that had become open to historians after Communism fell a quarter-century ago. He also did research in Israel and England.
Zimmerman’s book on some pages challenges and contradicts, and on other pages reinforces, the often prevailing belief about the Polish Resistance’s relationship with Polish Jewry during the war.

“Such a book plays a major role” in understanding Poles’ attitudes towards Jews under Nazi occupation,  said Holocaust expert and author Michael Berenbaum. “The more information we get,
the more we can get to a [balanced] judgment.”

Most Poles, in the view of most Jews, behaved in ways that largely ranged between cold indifference and fiery hatred. Saul Friedlander’s 2007 epic study of the Holocaust, “The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945” (Harper Perennial),” typified this Jewish perspective, that Poles were antagonistic towards Jews, that Polish patriotism and nationalism were equal to anti-Semitism.
Armia Krajowa was at first reluctant to aid Jewish partisans because holding a view that tended to dominate Polish thought, it was “suspicious of the leftist and pro-Soviet leanings of part of the ZOB,” a reference to the Jewish Combat Organization, the main underground Jewish partisan group.
He writes of Armia Krajowa units welcoming Jews into their ranks, supplying arms and money and training to Jewish partisan units, organizing an ultimately unsuccessful effort to breach the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto at the start of the 1943 Uprising, condemning Poles who blackmailed Jews and looted Jewish property, rescuing Jews at the risk of AK members’ lives, helping to found the Committee to Aid the Jews (Zegota), maintaining a sometimes-on/sometimes-off relationship with the ZOB, sending members clandestinely into ghettoes and concentration camps to ascertain the life-threatening situations, and publicizing the Jewish plight through its underground press of the government-in-exile.

 But he also writes of AK units that excluded Jews that killed Jews that refused to offer aid because isolated, small-scale attacks on the German military were regarded as a “futile” waste of limited arms. He writes of right-wing parties that continued to harbor anti-Semitic views and spread anti-Semitic calumnies. Zimmerman’s book offers a balanced perspective…

Popular support for Poland’s Jews decreased after liberation when the Soviet army seemed likely to occupy the country; there was widespread fear the Soviets would impose hated communist rule, which many Poles associated with Jews.

Poland and Russia were enemies during many years of their history as neighbors; Poland, a majority Catholic society, hated atheistic Communism; Poland’s Jews, who had initially welcomed the Red Army in 1939 as a release from anti-Semitic rule and as bulwark against the Third Reich, were viewed by many non-Jews as a disloyal fifth column.

“This study revisits the historical evidence and changes our understanding … by presenting a comprehensive treatment of different patterns of behavior toward the Jews at different times during the war and in various regions of occupied Poland,” Zimmerman writes. “I agree that because the Home Army was an umbrella organization of disparate Polish organizations numbering more than 300,000, from all regions ranging from socialists to nationalists, its attitude and behavior towards the Jews varied widely.”

“That the AK freed 398 Jews from German captivity is pretty much unknown.” Zimmerman says, as is the Jewish role as fighters in the ill-fated 1944 Warsaw Uprising — the nearby Red Army remained uninvolved while the outnumbered Poles were decimated by the Germans and the capital was flattened.

Zimmerman says his book, by presenting both sides of the wartime picture, “has the potential of contributing to the Polish-Jewish reconciliation.” He says his own young children, when they come of age, will also hear both sides. He will tell them of “the legacy of anti-Semitism” in Poland. [Will he tell them why –add. by zk] And they will learn “that there were very good people in Poland…
extraordinary Poles who risked their lives to save Jews.”

review of Zimmerman’s book by Jan Peczkis:

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2IX8JFLBC9IG6/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1107014263#R2IX8JFLBC9IG6

No. 2 Anatomy of a lie

One of the sages said that we should beware of those who want to arouse in us a sense of guilt because they desire power over us.  Communists understood the validity of this maxim perfectly well.   Julia Brystygierowa, a Jewish executioner of the Stalinist secret police, was famous for repeating that she will beat pride and honor out of Poles, even with a whip if necessary.  She knew that pride and honor of the Poles are the greatest danger for the totalitarian power.   She knew that unless she beats pride and honor out of Poles, she could not enslave them.

In 1989, the Bolshevik Polish People's Republic ceased to exist, but the spirit of Bolshevism and lust for power have united the factions of select representatives of the anti-communist opposition, which means -- erstwhile Communists disguised for Democrats, including Communists with Jewish roots. The Round Table gave Adam Michnik the media.  Gazeta Wyborcza was read by almost all Poles. Adding to that the radio stations as well as TV stations started in the nineties by the people encumbered in the cooperation with 

the Communist secret police (Polsat in 1992 and TVN in 1996), who spoke with the same voice as Adam Michnik and company, 

it must be said that the instruments for beating pride and honor out of Poles were prepared perfectly.

The first victim was the Warsaw Uprising.  It was a dangerous theme.  It was a pattern dripping with Polish pride and honor, which shaped the post-war generation of Poles.  It was dangerous also because in the eyes of the world, it destroyed the Jewish fighting ethos, built with such great difficulty.

 The world knew nothing about the Warsaw Uprising, just because its name was appropriated in 1945-1989 for Jews, who used the name for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.  In an article in Gazeta Wyborcza, titled "Poles – Jews: Black Card of the Uprising"

(29-30.01.1994), a freshly baked historian Michal Cichy, as announced by his patron Adam Michnik, revealed  the "full truth" about the Warsaw Uprising, writing that the insurgents were mostly busy murdering Jewish survivors.

 He also wrote that when it comes to the Warsaw Uprising, 

the Poles have nothing to be proud of, because their heroes were ordinary thugs.  Polish historians immediately denounced these barely disguised lies, and Leszek Zebrowski described 

the publication perfectly as "The manufacture of nonsense

about the Warsaw Uprising." Adam Michnik’s action was a big dud. In the end, Michal Cichy publicly apologized to Warsaw insurgents for his article.

Even before the echoes of unfounded accusations against the Warsaw Uprising could subside, the second stage of inducing in Poles the sense of guilt began.  The symbol of the alleged atrocities of Poles has become a town of Jedwabne.  Agnieszka Arnold began by making a documentary film, "Where's my older son Cain", then in year 2000 Jan T. Gross took on and continued the subject in the book titled "Neighbors," which was heavily advertised across Poland.

 The investigation by the IPN [Institute of National Remembrance] concerning the pogrom in Jedwabne later undermined credibility of the testimony of Shmuel Wasersztejn,  the main witness of the Jedwabne events in the film and in the book, as well as the number of victims estimated at 1500-1600 by Gross.  In order to learn what actually happened in Jedwabne,  the exhumation of victims’ bodies had to be carried out.

The issue of exhumation was consulted with the Jewish side.  

The rabbi of Warsaw and Lodz, Michael Schudrich announced that "Respect for the bones of our victims is more important to us than the knowledge of who was killed and how, and of who killed and how."  Jews agreed only to a limited exhumation, i.e., one where you cannot lift the bones.  Exhumation activities began on May 30^th, 2001, but the ban on lifting the bones was upheld.  Since this way of exhumation makes the determination of the number of carcasses and causes of death of individual victims impossible, 

the exhumation activities were discontinued on June 4^th, 2001.  Despite the protests of historians, who were disallowed to carry out a genuine investigation, the festival of accusations for alleged war crimes against the Poles continues for over a decade, especially against residents of Jedwabne.  The truth is that this Jewish chutzpah of Jedwabne was not intended to establish the historical truth, but to instill in the Poles  a sense of guilt towards the Jews, again with the intent to break the Polish pride and honor.  

It is indeed pitiful that the highest Polish authorities allowed themselves to be dragged themselves into this forgery, at least on two occasions failing to fulfill their obligation to act consistently with Polish law.  Firstly,  the Polish law is the only law governing within the limits of the Republic of Poland, and according to which 

a regular exhumation should have been carried out in Jedwabne.  Secondly, if Poland insisted to be so elegant and respect Jewish law, it should rely on information coming from truly religious Jews, from known and recognized specialists in Jewish law and Jewish tradition, instead of relying on the words of one American rabbi and succumb to pressures from Polish-American Jewish leftists.

Orthodox rabbi Joseph A. Polak, a former prisoner of the German camps at Westerbork and Bergen‑Belsen, chairman of the halachic council of the Boston rabbinical court, disagrees with the decision banning xhumation of mass graves.  "The victims of Jedwabne should have been exhumed and buried again, either in the nearby Jewish cemetery or in the State of Israel.  The fact that this is not just a halachic option, but a fundamental duty is unambiguously clear from many sources. [...] ". 

In the light of the above interpretation of the Jewish law,

the Polish State should immediately cancel decisions made several years ago, and in consultation with the community of religious Jews, carry out the exhumation, which is the prerequisite to explain what really happened in Jedwabne in 1941.  

No discussion about Jedwabne makes sense until after the exhumation.

At the same time it should be remembered that every historical event is deeply rooted in time and space, i.e., it is conditioned by political and territorial realities.  The region of Bialystok – where 

the town of Jedwabne lies – is a part of Poland which in September of 1939 was invaded and then occupied by the Soviets.  The most shameful and threatening for the Polish population in the eastern Polish lands, was the widespread cooperation of Polish Jews with 

the Soviets in drawing up lists of Poles and Polish families earmarked for deportation to Siberia. 

In other words, in the period from September 17^th, 1939 to June 22^nd, 1941, it was the Jewish neighbors who pointed to the Soviets, whom of the Poles and Polish families to send “to the polar bears", i.e., to places from which hardly anyone was coming back alive.  

The Jews promote to the world the barn in Jedwabne, in which allegedly lie the remains of the Jews murdered because of Polish anti-Semitism.  But no Jew would ever bend before the monument which stands in the central square in Jedwabne to commemorate Poles murdered by the Soviets in Siberia in 1939-1941, because their Jewish neighbors reported to the Soviet functionaries that these Poles do not love communism.  As a rule, the Jews envelop their own crimes in silence.  Such attitudes of the Jewish communists are a part of the permanent exhibition in 

the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Attitudes of Jews who pointed disloyal residents of Jedwabne to 

the Soviets, thereby sentencing them to death, cannot be extended to the entire Jewish nation.  Yet, the crowd is governed by its own rules, so Poles tended to suspect all Jews for such attitudes.  Therefore, when in 1941 the Germans began to occupy the area of ​​Bialystok, incidents of as yet undocumented deaths of Jews could have occurred in Jedwabne or other places in the region.  Yet, it was not about any anti-Semitism, but about ordinary human revenge among the Poles for their loved ones who, at exactly the same time, froze or died of hunger and exhaustion in the taigas of Siberia – through the Jewish denunciations.  These motifs would qualify possible cases of murder of Jews by Poles in the Bialystok region as a murder of passion.  Revenge is always blind, so it often victimized innocent Jews, because those who sentenced Poles to death usually managed to withdraw with Soviet troops to the east.

Tomasz Gross became famous in recent days for announcing to 

the world that Poles during World War II killed more Jews than they killed Germans.  It would be better for Tomasz Gross to finally shut up, instead of opening Pandora’s boxes.  Because if you count carefully all Polish residents of Jedwabne, residents of Galicia, Volyn, Podlasie and Bialystok exiled in 1939-1941 to die in Siberian gulags because of a denunciation by Polish Jews; if you count all 

the Polish underground soldiers of Bialystok, Lublin, Mazovia and Podkarpacie exiled by the Jewish operatives of NKVD and UB to Siberia in the second round-up in the years 1944-1945; if you count all the victims of the Jewish judges, prosecutors and functionaries of UB and KBW from the years 1944-1956, then the barn in Jedwabne – about which, by the way, no-one knows yet what it really hides – may be an even bigger flop than a failed attempt to discredit

the Warsaw Uprising. 

Author’s sources: 

1.      T. Strzembosz, „Polacy – Żydzi: Czarna karta Gazety Wyborczej”, Gazeta  

       Wyborcza, Feb. 5-6, 1994.

 2..  Żebrowski, „Fabryka bzdur o Powstaniu Warszawskim”, Gazeta Polska, July 13, 1995.  See also: L. Żebrowski,  „Paszkwil Wyborczej”, Warsaw, 1995.

 3.  Piotr Kadlcik, „O ekshumacji”, Kolbojnik – Biuletyn Gminy Wyznaniowej

      Żydowskiej w Warszawie, nr 4/2014. 

http://www.solidarni2010.pl/31935-ewa-kurek-jedwabne---anatomia-klamstwa.html

(abridged by Zbigniew Koralewski, translated by Andrzej Burghardt, edited by Dr. Mark & Ann Pienkos)

Anatomy of a Lie – Dr. Ewa Kurek  GWIAZDA POLARNA No. 21, Oct. 17, 2015