The Relief Council for Jews in Poland

[Globus]

Shirt seems to be expressing a desire to discuss this topic, but has yet to offer anything on it. So I post this short overview in the hopes he can coaxed to say something.

http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/10%20Article.htm

Article 10
Dr Andrzej Slawinski, Those who helped Polish Jews during WWII
One of the great tragedies to befall Poland during the Second World War was the systematic persecution and eventual extermination of Polish Jews by the German Occupant. Terms such as 'crime against humanity', 'genocide' and 'holocaust' only partly convey the horror of these events.
Even now, more than half a century after the end of the war, questions are still being asked: What was the Polish Nation's response to the unfolding Jewish Tragedy? Did the Poles try to help the Jews? How much help could have been actually offered in view of the rigours imposed by German Occupation? Such questions call for a considered response based on historical facts.
Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where throughout the duration of the war a secret organisation existed whose express purpose was to help the Jews and find, for at least some of them, a place of safety. Initially coordinated by several committees, this action culminated in the creation in December 1942 of the Relief Council for Jews in Poland, code name 'Zegota'.
'Zegota' (l) organised financial aid and medical care for the Jews in hiding on the 'Aryan side', and procured for them forged identity documents. 'Zegota' was successful in providing accommodation for many. This presented an extremely difficult problem as discovery of a person of Jewish origin on the premises resulted in an immediate execution of all the occupants.
E. Ringelblum (2) describes hundreds of such cases.
Some 2500 Jewish children from Warsaw were saved by 'Żegota' by placing them either with catholic Polish foster-families or in orphanages run by convents or local councils. Help in the form of money, food and medicines was organised by 'Zegota' for the Jews in several forced labour camps in Poland.
As soon as the Jewish Tragedy became apparent, the Polish Government-in-Exile, the Underground State and Polish diplomacy embarked on a massive campaign, informing the free world of the plight of the Jews. Efforts were made to obtain help for them from the Allied Governments, the Vatican and from various organisations in the Allied countries. There were countless broadcasts, articles in the press, organised meetings, approaches to Allied leaders and governments in which the Free Polish leaders, ministers, politicians and diplomats over and over again insisted a crime of genocide was being committed by the Germans against the Jews. (3). The full story of the Jewish Tragedy was brought to the Allied countries by special couriers from the Polish Resistance, one of them gaining access to the inside of the Warsaw Ghetto and of a death camp. The couriers tried to persuade the Allies and the Jewish organisations that there was a real danger and urgency to help the Jews. Unfortunately the efforts of the Poles were in vain. The Allies were too busy with the prosecution of the war to consider the plight of the Jews. The Jewish organisations in the free world could not bring themselves to believe the Polish reports - they thought it was all an exaggeration.

organisations in Poland in resistance activities. At first there was reluctance on their part to participate. However, in 1942 the Jewish resistance movement began. The Home Army helped by providing military intelligence, communication with the Allies and eventually by providing some weapons, explosives and military expertise for the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (4).
It is worth noting that Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance Authority, has recently expressed both thanks and appreciation to the special unit of the 'Zoska' Battalion of the Polish Home Army, which in August 1944 captured the Warsaw Concentration Camp, the so called 'Gesiówka', liberating 348 prisoners, Polish and European Jews.
What of the ordinary Polish people - were they prepared to offer help to the Jews? At an early stage of Poland's occupation the Jews were selected for special treatment by the Occupier. This meant a gradual isolation, degradation, starvation and eventual denial of the right to life for all Polish Jews.
The harsh reality of life for the rest of Poland's population was that everybody was preoccupied with the constant struggle for survival. To find work, to obtain enough food and other necessities of life, all these were of utmost importance to very many. Furthermore there was the constant fear of being arrested and sent to a concentration camp, to forced labour in Germany, or to be taken as a hostage for public execution by a firing squad or hanging.
Three million Poles and three million Polish Jews perished as a result of the German occupation. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where giving any kind of help to the Jews resulted in summary execution of the helper and his or her family. Under such circumstances it would require a person of a special kind of courage and love of humanity to offer help to a Jew. How many saints would one find in any community? And yet there were some Polish people who did help. It has always been difficult to establish the exact number of helpers. Some idea of the number can be gleaned from the Yad Vashem list of the 'Righteous among the Nations' (l). The list, as of 1st January 1997, gives the names of 14,706 persons from 34 nationalities who helped the Jews. 4,954 of them are Polish helpers. Among them are listed 11 catholic clergymen and 18 nuns. Only three organisations are honoured by Yad Vashem, one being, the Polish organisation 'Żegota'. It is likely that as research into the role of the Polish people in the Holocaust continues, the list of Polish names will grow.
Those listed are the helpers who survived and their heroism verified by those whom they helped. There were many who paid the ultimate price. In most cases those they were trying to help perished with them. The publication 'Those who helped' (1) lists 704 Poles who were killed because they helped the Jews. Places and dates are also given of mass executions by the Germans (the so-called pacifications of villages) of a further 143 Poles who rendered help to the Jews. To obtain and verify the names of those helpers who perished presents an even more difficult problem. Inevitably there will remain a large number of unknown heroes.
One can finally ask: - Was the help given to the Jews of some significance? Stewart Steven, who in his book 'The Poles' (5), gives an extensive account of Polish-Jewish relations, offers the following conclusion: 'Maybe Poland could have done more for its Jewish population, but then so could every country of occupied Europe. The record shows that the Poles did more than most'.
A. Slawinski, London

References:
1. Those Who Helped, Published by The Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against the Polish Nation and The Polish Society for the Righteous Among the Nations, Warsaw, 1997
2. Emanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1974
3. Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, He who saves one life, Crown Publishers Inc. New York, 1971. ( See also: Walter Laqeur, 'The Terrible Secret', Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1980 ).
4. Marek Edelman, The Ghetto Fights, Bookmark, London, 1990
5. Stewart Steven, The Poles, Collins/Harvill, London, 1982

[Kriger]

Shirt seems to be expressing a desire to discuss this topic, but has yet to offer anything on it. So I post this short overview in the hopes he can coaxed to say something.

http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/10%20Article.htm

Article 10
Dr Andrzej Slawinski, Those who helped Polish Jews during WWII
One of the great tragedies to befall Poland during the Second World War was the systematic persecution and eventual extermination of Polish Jews by the German Occupant. Terms such as 'crime against humanity', 'genocide' and 'holocaust' only partly convey the horror of these events.
Even now, more than half a century after the end of the war, questions are still being asked: What was the Polish Nation's response to the unfolding Jewish Tragedy? Did the Poles try to help the Jews? How much help could have been actually offered in view of the rigours imposed by German Occupation? Such questions call for a considered response based on historical facts.
Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where throughout the duration of the war a secret organisation existed whose express purpose was to help the Jews and find, for at least some of them, a place of safety. Initially coordinated by several committees, this action culminated in the creation in December 1942 of the Relief Council for Jews in Poland, code name 'Zegota'.
'Zegota' (l) organised financial aid and medical care for the Jews in hiding on the 'Aryan side', and procured for them forged identity documents. 'Zegota' was successful in providing accommodation for many. This presented an extremely difficult problem as discovery of a person of Jewish origin on the premises resulted in an immediate execution of all the occupants.
E. Ringelblum (2) describes hundreds of such cases.
Some 2500 Jewish children from Warsaw were saved by 'Żegota' by placing them either with catholic Polish foster-families or in orphanages run by convents or local councils. Help in the form of money, food and medicines was organised by 'Zegota' for the Jews in several forced labour camps in Poland.
As soon as the Jewish Tragedy became apparent, the Polish Government-in-Exile, the Underground State and Polish diplomacy embarked on a massive campaign, informing the free world of the plight of the Jews. Efforts were made to obtain help for them from the Allied Governments, the Vatican and from various organisations in the Allied countries. There were countless broadcasts, articles in the press, organised meetings, approaches to Allied leaders and governments in which the Free Polish leaders, ministers, politicians and diplomats over and over again insisted a crime of genocide was being committed by the Germans against the Jews. (3). The full story of the Jewish Tragedy was brought to the Allied countries by special couriers from the Polish Resistance, one of them gaining access to the inside of the Warsaw Ghetto and of a death camp. The couriers tried to persuade the Allies and the Jewish organisations that there was a real danger and urgency to help the Jews. Unfortunately the efforts of the Poles were in vain. The Allies were too busy with the prosecution of the war to consider the plight of the Jews. The Jewish organisations in the free world could not bring themselves to believe the Polish reports - they thought it was all an exaggeration.

organisations in Poland in resistance activities. At first there was reluctance on their part to participate. However, in 1942 the Jewish resistance movement began. The Home Army helped by providing military intelligence, communication with the Allies and eventually by providing some weapons, explosives and military expertise for the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (4).
It is worth noting that Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance Authority, has recently expressed both thanks and appreciation to the special unit of the 'Zoska' Battalion of the Polish Home Army, which in August 1944 captured the Warsaw Concentration Camp, the so called 'Gesiówka', liberating 348 prisoners, Polish and European Jews.
What of the ordinary Polish people - were they prepared to offer help to the Jews? At an early stage of Poland's occupation the Jews were selected for special treatment by the Occupier. This meant a gradual isolation, degradation, starvation and eventual denial of the right to life for all Polish Jews.
The harsh reality of life for the rest of Poland's population was that everybody was preoccupied with the constant struggle for survival. To find work, to obtain enough food and other necessities of life, all these were of utmost importance to very many. Furthermore there was the constant fear of being arrested and sent to a concentration camp, to forced labour in Germany, or to be taken as a hostage for public execution by a firing squad or hanging.
Three million Poles and three million Polish Jews perished as a result of the German occupation. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where giving any kind of help to the Jews resulted in summary execution of the helper and his or her family. Under such circumstances it would require a person of a special kind of courage and love of humanity to offer help to a Jew. How many saints would one find in any community? And yet there were some Polish people who did help. It has always been difficult to establish the exact number of helpers. Some idea of the number can be gleaned from the Yad Vashem list of the 'Righteous among the Nations' (l). The list, as of 1st January 1997, gives the names of 14,706 persons from 34 nationalities who helped the Jews. 4,954 of them are Polish helpers. Among them are listed 11 catholic clergymen and 18 nuns. Only three organisations are honoured by Yad Vashem, one being, the Polish organisation 'Żegota'. It is likely that as research into the role of the Polish people in the Holocaust continues, the list of Polish names will grow.
Those listed are the helpers who survived and their heroism verified by those whom they helped. There were many who paid the ultimate price. In most cases those they were trying to help perished with them. The publication 'Those who helped' (1) lists 704 Poles who were killed because they helped the Jews. Places and dates are also given of mass executions by the Germans (the so-called pacifications of villages) of a further 143 Poles who rendered help to the Jews. To obtain and verify the names of those helpers who perished presents an even more difficult problem. Inevitably there will remain a large number of unknown heroes.
One can finally ask: - Was the help given to the Jews of some significance? Stewart Steven, who in his book 'The Poles' (5), gives an extensive account of Polish-Jewish relations, offers the following conclusion: 'Maybe Poland could have done more for its Jewish population, but then so could every country of occupied Europe. The record shows that the Poles did more than most'.
A. Slawinski, London

References:
1. Those Who Helped, Published by The Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against the Polish Nation and The Polish Society for the Righteous Among the Nations, Warsaw, 1997
2. Emanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1974
3. Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, He who saves one life, Crown Publishers Inc. New York, 1971. ( See also: Walter Laqeur, 'The Terrible Secret', Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1980 ).
4. Marek Edelman, The Ghetto Fights, Bookmark, London, 1990
5. Stewart Steven, The Poles, Collins/Harvill, London, 1982

Well, even though no exact figures are provided, we can see that jews were helped out of the country. Falsified documents being a criminal offense, naturally no one would own up to exactly who or how many were assisted. Therefore, no documentation to subtract these ones from the list of "what happened to them?"
It also needs to be noted that jews from Holland ended up in Poland. The crux of the matter being: not all jews deported for whatever reason to wherever were victims of intentional genocide. An unknown number were assisted out of the area, not only in Poland but elsewhere. It is also to be noted that jews were freed from "concentration camps" to be smuggled out of the territory in the same manner. I am not sure that an actual count of these activities is available, but I do know that many were smuggled out of occupied territories successfully to take up residence elsewhere under assumed names.

[Globus]

Well, even though no exact figures are provided, we can see that jews were helped out of the country.

And all should be grateful for those saved, but they totalled a minuscule amount of the 3 million who did not make it out.

Falsified documents being a criminal offense, naturally no one would own up to exactly who or how many were assisted. Therefore, no documentation to subtract these ones from the list of "what happened to them?"

Not needed. We know that around a couple of hundred thousand Jews survived.

It also needs to be noted that jews from Holland ended up in Poland.

At camps which resulted almost exclusively in their deaths. Auschwitz was the final destination for Jews of many European countries.

The crux of the matter being: not all jews deported for whatever reason to wherever were victims of intentional genocide.

Your claim has nothing to do with this article or organization. None of the people referenced were part of those deported to death camps. That is what the discussion was about.

An unknown number were assisted out of the area, not only in Poland but elsewhere.

A pretty well known, and insignificant number got out.

It is also to be noted that jews were freed from "concentration camps" to be smuggled out of the territory in the same manner.

A relative handful. And historians do not need you to note for them what they know very well.

None of this affects what is none about the numbers deported, and the numbers who disappeared.

[Kriger]

And all should be grateful for those saved, but they totalled a minuscule amount of the 3 million who did not make it out.



Not needed. We know that around a couple of hundred thousand Jews survived.



At camps which resulted almost exclusively in their deaths. Auschwitz was the final destination for Jews of many European countries.



Your claim has nothing to do with this article or organization. None of the people referenced were part of those deported to death camps. That is what the discussion was about.



A pretty well known, and insignificant number got out.



A relative handful. And historians do not need you to note for them what they know very well.

None of this affects what is none about the numbers deported, and the numbers who disappeared.

More allegations with no proof to support said allegations.

[Globus]

More allegations with no proof to support said allegations.

All fact based and responding to your unsupported allegations.

Is this how you discuss history?

[Kriger]

All fact based and responding to your unsupported allegations.

Is this how you discuss history?

More allegations with no proof to support your allegations.

[Globus]

More allegations with no proof to support your allegations.

Yawn.

Holocaust denial, the intellectual adventure of the last century!

[Kriger]

Yawn.

Holocaust denial, the intellectual adventure of the last century!

As usual, you decline to answer my questions and instead revert to meaningless rhetoric.

[Globus]

As usual, you decline to answer my questions and instead revert to meaningless rhetoric.

You asked no questions of any value.

Why don't you do some reading and learn something?

http://www.holocaust-trc.org/poles.htm

POLES: VICTIMS OF THE NAZI ERA

During World War II Poland suffered greatly under five years of German occupation. Nazi ideology viewed "Poles"- the predominantly Roman Catholic ethnic majority- as "sub-humans" occupying lands vital to Germany. As part of the policy to destroy the Polish resistance, the Germans killed many of the nation's political, religious, and intellectual leaders. They also kidnapped children judged racially suitable for adoption by Germans and confined Poles in dozens of prisons and concentration and forced labor camps, where many perished.


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

THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF POLAND

German forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Polish troops fought valiantly in the face of vastly better equipped forces, with fierce engagements around Warsaw. Exhausted of food and water, the besieged capital surrendered on September 27, and fighting by regular Polish army units ended in early October.

Hitler's pretext for military expansion eastward was the "need" for more Lebensraum, "living space," for the German nation. On the eve of the invasion he reportedly stated in a meeting of high officials:

I have issued the command and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by firing squad-that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness—for the present only in the East— with orders to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space that we need.


German map of Poland
(Select to view)
In 1939 Germany directly annexed bordering western and northern Poland, disputed lands where many ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) resided. In contrast, the more extensive central and southern areas were formed into a separate "General Government," which was ruled by German civil administrator Hans Frank. Cracow became the capital of the General Government, as the Germans planned to turn the Polish capital of Warsaw into a backwater town. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Germany also seized eastern Poland. (This territory had been invaded and occupied by the Soviets in September 1939, in accordance with the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 1939 that divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union.)

One aspect of German policy in conquered Poland aimed to prevent its ethnically diverse population from uniting against Germany. "We need to divide [Poland's many different ethnic groups] up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible," wrote Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, in a top-secret -memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East," dated May 25, 1940. According to the 1931 census by language, 69% of the population totaling 35 million inhabitants spoke Polish as their mother tongue. (Most of them were Roman Catholics.) Fifteen per cent were Ukrainians, 8.5% Jews, 4.7% Belorussians, and 2.2% Germans. Nearly three-fourths of the population were peasants or agricultural laborers, and another fifth, industrial workers. Poland had a small middle and upper class of well-educated professionals, entrepreneurs, and landowners.


Executions
(Select to view)
In contrast to Nazi genocidal policy that targeted all of Poland's 3.3 million Jewish men, women, and children for destruction, Nazi plans for the Polish Catholic majority focused on the murder or suppression of political, religious, and intellectual leaders. This policy had two aims: first, to prevent Polish elites from organizing resistance or from ever regrouping into a governing class; second, to exploit Poland's leaderless, less educated majority of peasants and workers as unskilled laborers in agriculture and industry.

TERROR AGAINST THE INTELLIGENTSIA AND CLERGY

During the 1939 German invasion of Poland, special action squads of SS and police (the Einsatzgruppen) were deployed in the rear, arresting or killing those civilians caught resisting the Germans or considered capable of doing so as determined by their position and social status. Tens of thousands of wealthy landowners, clergymen, and members of the intelligentsia—government officials, teachers, doctors, dentists, officers, journalists, and others (both Poles and Jews)—were either murdered in mass executions or sent to prisons and concentration camps. German army units and "self-defense" forces composed of Volksdeutsche also participated in executions of civilians. In many instances, these executions were reprisal actions that held entire communities collectively responsible for the killing of Germans.

During the summer of 1940, the SS rounded up members of the intelligentsia in the General Government. In this so-called A-B Aktion (Extraordinary Pacification Operation), several thousand university professors, teachers, priests, and others were shot. The mass murders occurred outside Warsaw, in the Kampinos forest near Palmiry, and inside the city at the Pawiak prison.

As part of wider efforts to destroy Polish culture, the Germans closed or destroyed universities, schools, museums, libraries, and scientific laboratories. They demolished hundreds of monuments to national heroes. To prevent the birth of a new generation of educated Poles, German officials decreed that Polish children's schooling end after a few years of elementary education. "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. . . . I do not think that reading is desirable," Himmler wrote in his May 1940 memorandum.

In the annexed lands, the Nazis' goal was complete "Germanization" to assimilate the territories politically, culturally, socially, and economically into the German Reich. They applied this policy most rigorously in western incorporated territories—the so-called Wartheland. There, the Germans closed even elementary schools where Polish was the language of instruction. They renamed streets and cities so that Lodz became Litzmannstadt, for example. They also seized tens of thousands of Polish enterprises, from large industrial firms to small shops, without payment to the owners. Signs posted in public places warned: "Entrance is forbidden to Poles, Jews, and dogs."

The Roman Catholic Church was suppressed throughout Poland because historically it had led Polish nationalist forces fighting for Poland's independence from outside domination. The Germans treated the Church most harshly in the annexed regions, as they systematically closed churches there; most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. The Germans also closed seminaries and convents, persecuting monks and nuns. Between 1939 and 1945 an estimated 3,000 members of the Polish clergy were killed; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps, 787 of them at Dachau.


German Occupation Policy in Poland
(Select to view)








A Polish deportee recalls her ordeal
(Select to view)


EXPULSIONS AND THE KIDNAPPING OF CHILDREN

The Germanization of the annexed lands also included an ambitious program to resettle Germans from the Baltic and other regions on farms and other homes formerly occupied by Poles and Jews. Beginning in October 1939, the SS began to expel Poles and Jews from the Wartheland and the Danzig corridor and transport them to the General Government. By the end of 1940, the SS had expelled 325,000 people without warning and plundered their property and belongings. Many elderly people and children died en route or in makeshift transit camps such as those in the towns of Potulice, Smukal, and Torun. In 1941, the Germans expelled 45,000 more people, but they scaled backed the program after the invasion of the Soviet Union in late June 1941. Trains used for resettlement were more urgently needed to transport soldiers and supplies to the front.

In late 1942 and in 1943, the SS also carried out massive expulsions in the General Government, uprooting 110,000 Poles from 300 villages in the Zamosc-Lublin region. Families were torn apart as able-bodied teens and adults were taken for forced labor and elderly, young, and disabled persons were moved to other localities. Tens of thousands were also imprisoned in Auschwitz or Majdanek concentration camps.


Seizure of Polish children by the Germans
(Select to view)
During the Zamosc expulsions the Germans seized many children from their parents to be racially screened for possible adoption by German parents in the SS Lebensborn ("Fount of Life") program. As many as 4,454 children chosen for Germanization were given German names, forbidden to speak Polish, and reeducated in SS or other Nazi institutions, where many died of hunger or disease. Few ever saw their parents again. Many more children were rejected as unsuitable for Germanization after failing to measure up to racial scientists' criteria for establishing "Aryan" ancestry; they were sent to children's homes or killed, some of them at Auschwitz of phenol injections. An estimated total of 50,000 children were kidnapped in Poland, the majority taken from orphanages and foster homes in the annexed lands. Infants born to Polish women deported to Germany as farm and factory laborers were also usually taken from the mothers and subjected to Germanization. (If an examination of the father and mother suggested that a "racially valuable" child might not result from the union, abortion was compulsory.)

The Zamosc expulsions spurred intense resistance as the Poles began to fear they were to suffer the same fate as the Jews—systematic deportation to extermination camps. Attacks on ethnic German settlers by members of the Polish resistance, whose ranks were filled with terrorized peasants, in turn provoked mass executions or other forms of German terror.

Throughout the occupation, the Germans applied a ruthless retaliation policy in an attempt to destroy resistance. As the Polish resistance grew bolder in 1943 after the German defeat at Stalingrad, German reprisal efforts escalated. The Germans destroyed dozens of villages, killing men, women, and children. Public executions by hanging or shooting in Warsaw and other cities occurred daily. During the war the Germans destroyed at least 300 villages in Poland.

FORCED LABOR AND TERROR OF THE CAMPS

Between 1939 and 1945 at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were transported to the Reich for labor, most of them against their will. Many were teenaged boys and girls. Although Germany also used forced laborers from western Europe, Poles, along with other eastern Europeans viewed as inferior, were subject to especially harsh discriminatory measures. They were forced to wear identifying purple P's sewn to their clothing, subjected to a curfew, and banned from public transportation. While the actual treatment accorded factory workers or farm hands often varied depending on the individual employer, Polish laborers as a rule were compelled to work longer hours for lower wages than western Europeans, and in many cities they lived in segregated barracks behind barbed wire. Social relations with Germans outside work were forbidden, and sexual relations with them were considered "racial defilement" punishable by death. During the war hundreds of Polish men were executed for their relations with German women.

Poles were prisoners in nearly every camp in the extensive camp system in German-occupied Poland and the Reich. A major camp complex at Stutthof, east of Danzig, existed from September 2, 1939, to war's end, and
an estimated 20,000 Poles died there as a result of executions, hard labor, and harsh conditions. Auschwitz
(Oswiecim) became the main concentration camp for Poles after the arrival there on June 14, 1940, of 728 men transported from an overcrowded prison at Tarnow. By March 1941, 10,900 prisoners were registered at the camp, most of them Poles. In September 1941, 200 ill prisoners, most of them Poles, along with 650 Soviet prisoners of war, were killed in the first gassing experiments at Auschwitz. Beginning in 1942, Auschwitz's prisoner population became much more diverse, as Jews and other "enemies of the state" from all over German-occupied Europe were deported to the camp.

The Polish scholar Franciszek Piper, the chief historian of Auschwitz, estimates that 140,000 to 150,000 Poles were brought to that camp between 1940 and 1945, and that 70,000 to 75,000 died there as victims of executions, of cruel medical experiments, and of starvation and disease. Some 100,000 Poles were deported to Majdanek, and tens of thousands of them died there. An estimated 20,000 Poles died at Sachsenhausen, 20;000 at Gross-Rosen, 30,000 at Mauthausen, 17,000 at Neuengamme, 10,000 at Dachau, and 17,000 at Ravensbrueck. In addition, victims in the tens of thousands were executed or died in the thousands of other camps-including special children's camps such as Lodz and its subcamp, Dzierzazn—and in prisons and other places of detention within and outside Poland.


Daily life in wartime Poland
(Select to view)
POLISH RESISTANCE

In response to the German occupation, Poles organized one of the largest underground movements in Europe with more than 300 widely supported political and military groups and subgroups. Despite military defeat, the
Polish government itself never surrendered. In 1940 a Polish government-in-exile became based in London. Resistance groups inside Poland set up underground courts for trying collaborators and others and clandestine schools in response to the Germans' closing of many educational institutions. The universities of Warsaw, Cracow, and Lvov all operated clandestinely. Officers of the regular Polish army headed an underground armed force, the "Home Army" (Armia Krajowa—AK). After preliminary organizational activities, including the training of fighters and hoarding of weapons, the AK activated partisan units in many parts of Poland in 1943. A Communist underground, the "People's Guard" (Gwardia Ludowa), also formed in 1942, but its military strength and influence were comparatively weak.

Concentration camp song
(Select to view)
With the approach of the Soviet army imminent, the AK launched an uprising in Warsaw against the German army on August 1, 1944. After 63 days of bitter fighting, the Germans quashed the insurrection. The Soviet army provided little assistance to the Poles. Nearly 250,000 Poles, most of them civilians, lost their lives. The Germans deported hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to concentration camps. Many others were transported to the Reich for forced labor. Acting on Hitler's orders, German forces reduced the city to rubble, greatly extending the destruction begun during their suppression of the earlier armed uprising by Jewish fighters resisting deportation from the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943.

CONCLUSION

The Nazi terror was, in scholar Norman Davies's words, "much fiercer and more protracted in Poland than anywhere in Europe." Reliable statistics for the total number of Poles who died as a result of Nazi German policies do not exist. Many others were victims of the 1939-1941 Soviet occupation of eastern Poland and of deportations to Central Asia and Siberia. Records are incomplete, and the Soviet control of Poland for 50 years after the war impeded independent scholarship.

The changing borders and ethnic composition of Poland as well as vast population movements during and after the war also complicated the task of calculating losses.

In the past, many estimates of losses were based on a Polish report of 1947 requesting reparations from the Germans; this often cited document tallied population losses of 6 million for all Polish "nationals" (Poles, Jews, and other minorities). Subtracting 3 million Polish Jewish victims, the report claimed 3 million non-Jewish victims of the Nazi terror, including civilian and military casualties of war.

Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war. This approximate total includes Poles killed in executions or who died in prisons, forced labor, and concentration camps. It also includes an estimated 225,000 civilian victims of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, more than 50,000 civilians who died during the 1939 invasion and siege of Warsaw, and a relatively small but unknown number of civilians killed during the Allies' military campaign of 1944—45 to liberate Poland.

[Kriger]

You asked no questions of any value.

Why don't you do some reading and learn something?

http://www.holocaust-trc.org/poles.htm

POLES: VICTIMS OF THE NAZI ERA

During World War II Poland suffered greatly under five years of German occupation. Nazi ideology viewed "Poles"- the predominantly Roman Catholic ethnic majority- as "sub-humans" occupying lands vital to Germany. As part of the policy to destroy the Polish resistance, the Germans killed many of the nation's political, religious, and intellectual leaders. They also kidnapped children judged racially suitable for adoption by Germans and confined Poles in dozens of prisons and concentration and forced labor camps, where many perished.


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

THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF POLAND

German forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Polish troops fought valiantly in the face of vastly better equipped forces, with fierce engagements around Warsaw. Exhausted of food and water, the besieged capital surrendered on September 27, and fighting by regular Polish army units ended in early October.

Hitler's pretext for military expansion eastward was the "need" for more Lebensraum, "living space," for the German nation. On the eve of the invasion he reportedly stated in a meeting of high officials:

I have issued the command and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by firing squad-that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness—for the present only in the East— with orders to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space that we need.


German map of Poland
(Select to view)
In 1939 Germany directly annexed bordering western and northern Poland, disputed lands where many ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) resided. In contrast, the more extensive central and southern areas were formed into a separate "General Government," which was ruled by German civil administrator Hans Frank. Cracow became the capital of the General Government, as the Germans planned to turn the Polish capital of Warsaw into a backwater town. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Germany also seized eastern Poland. (This territory had been invaded and occupied by the Soviets in September 1939, in accordance with the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 1939 that divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union.)

One aspect of German policy in conquered Poland aimed to prevent its ethnically diverse population from uniting against Germany. "We need to divide [Poland's many different ethnic groups] up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible," wrote Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, in a top-secret -memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East," dated May 25, 1940. According to the 1931 census by language, 69% of the population totaling 35 million inhabitants spoke Polish as their mother tongue. (Most of them were Roman Catholics.) Fifteen per cent were Ukrainians, 8.5% Jews, 4.7% Belorussians, and 2.2% Germans. Nearly three-fourths of the population were peasants or agricultural laborers, and another fifth, industrial workers. Poland had a small middle and upper class of well-educated professionals, entrepreneurs, and landowners.


Executions
(Select to view)
In contrast to Nazi genocidal policy that targeted all of Poland's 3.3 million Jewish men, women, and children for destruction, Nazi plans for the Polish Catholic majority focused on the murder or suppression of political, religious, and intellectual leaders. This policy had two aims: first, to prevent Polish elites from organizing resistance or from ever regrouping into a governing class; second, to exploit Poland's leaderless, less educated majority of peasants and workers as unskilled laborers in agriculture and industry.

TERROR AGAINST THE INTELLIGENTSIA AND CLERGY

During the 1939 German invasion of Poland, special action squads of SS and police (the Einsatzgruppen) were deployed in the rear, arresting or killing those civilians caught resisting the Germans or considered capable of doing so as determined by their position and social status. Tens of thousands of wealthy landowners, clergymen, and members of the intelligentsia—government officials, teachers, doctors, dentists, officers, journalists, and others (both Poles and Jews)—were either murdered in mass executions or sent to prisons and concentration camps. German army units and "self-defense" forces composed of Volksdeutsche also participated in executions of civilians. In many instances, these executions were reprisal actions that held entire communities collectively responsible for the killing of Germans.

During the summer of 1940, the SS rounded up members of the intelligentsia in the General Government. In this so-called A-B Aktion (Extraordinary Pacification Operation), several thousand university professors, teachers, priests, and others were shot. The mass murders occurred outside Warsaw, in the Kampinos forest near Palmiry, and inside the city at the Pawiak prison.

As part of wider efforts to destroy Polish culture, the Germans closed or destroyed universities, schools, museums, libraries, and scientific laboratories. They demolished hundreds of monuments to national heroes. To prevent the birth of a new generation of educated Poles, German officials decreed that Polish children's schooling end after a few years of elementary education. "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. . . . I do not think that reading is desirable," Himmler wrote in his May 1940 memorandum.

In the annexed lands, the Nazis' goal was complete "Germanization" to assimilate the territories politically, culturally, socially, and economically into the German Reich. They applied this policy most rigorously in western incorporated territories—the so-called Wartheland. There, the Germans closed even elementary schools where Polish was the language of instruction. They renamed streets and cities so that Lodz became Litzmannstadt, for example. They also seized tens of thousands of Polish enterprises, from large industrial firms to small shops, without payment to the owners. Signs posted in public places warned: "Entrance is forbidden to Poles, Jews, and dogs."

The Roman Catholic Church was suppressed throughout Poland because historically it had led Polish nationalist forces fighting for Poland's independence from outside domination. The Germans treated the Church most harshly in the annexed regions, as they systematically closed churches there; most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. The Germans also closed seminaries and convents, persecuting monks and nuns. Between 1939 and 1945 an estimated 3,000 members of the Polish clergy were killed; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps, 787 of them at Dachau.


German Occupation Policy in Poland
(Select to view)








A Polish deportee recalls her ordeal
(Select to view)


EXPULSIONS AND THE KIDNAPPING OF CHILDREN

The Germanization of the annexed lands also included an ambitious program to resettle Germans from the Baltic and other regions on farms and other homes formerly occupied by Poles and Jews. Beginning in October 1939, the SS began to expel Poles and Jews from the Wartheland and the Danzig corridor and transport them to the General Government. By the end of 1940, the SS had expelled 325,000 people without warning and plundered their property and belongings. Many elderly people and children died en route or in makeshift transit camps such as those in the towns of Potulice, Smukal, and Torun. In 1941, the Germans expelled 45,000 more people, but they scaled backed the program after the invasion of the Soviet Union in late June 1941. Trains used for resettlement were more urgently needed to transport soldiers and supplies to the front.

In late 1942 and in 1943, the SS also carried out massive expulsions in the General Government, uprooting 110,000 Poles from 300 villages in the Zamosc-Lublin region. Families were torn apart as able-bodied teens and adults were taken for forced labor and elderly, young, and disabled persons were moved to other localities. Tens of thousands were also imprisoned in Auschwitz or Majdanek concentration camps.


Seizure of Polish children by the Germans
(Select to view)
During the Zamosc expulsions the Germans seized many children from their parents to be racially screened for possible adoption by German parents in the SS Lebensborn ("Fount of Life") program. As many as 4,454 children chosen for Germanization were given German names, forbidden to speak Polish, and reeducated in SS or other Nazi institutions, where many died of hunger or disease. Few ever saw their parents again. Many more children were rejected as unsuitable for Germanization after failing to measure up to racial scientists' criteria for establishing "Aryan" ancestry; they were sent to children's homes or killed, some of them at Auschwitz of phenol injections. An estimated total of 50,000 children were kidnapped in Poland, the majority taken from orphanages and foster homes in the annexed lands. Infants born to Polish women deported to Germany as farm and factory laborers were also usually taken from the mothers and subjected to Germanization. (If an examination of the father and mother suggested that a "racially valuable" child might not result from the union, abortion was compulsory.)

The Zamosc expulsions spurred intense resistance as the Poles began to fear they were to suffer the same fate as the Jews—systematic deportation to extermination camps. Attacks on ethnic German settlers by members of the Polish resistance, whose ranks were filled with terrorized peasants, in turn provoked mass executions or other forms of German terror.

Throughout the occupation, the Germans applied a ruthless retaliation policy in an attempt to destroy resistance. As the Polish resistance grew bolder in 1943 after the German defeat at Stalingrad, German reprisal efforts escalated. The Germans destroyed dozens of villages, killing men, women, and children. Public executions by hanging or shooting in Warsaw and other cities occurred daily. During the war the Germans destroyed at least 300 villages in Poland.

FORCED LABOR AND TERROR OF THE CAMPS

Between 1939 and 1945 at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were transported to the Reich for labor, most of them against their will. Many were teenaged boys and girls. Although Germany also used forced laborers from western Europe, Poles, along with other eastern Europeans viewed as inferior, were subject to especially harsh discriminatory measures. They were forced to wear identifying purple P's sewn to their clothing, subjected to a curfew, and banned from public transportation. While the actual treatment accorded factory workers or farm hands often varied depending on the individual employer, Polish laborers as a rule were compelled to work longer hours for lower wages than western Europeans, and in many cities they lived in segregated barracks behind barbed wire. Social relations with Germans outside work were forbidden, and sexual relations with them were considered "racial defilement" punishable by death. During the war hundreds of Polish men were executed for their relations with German women.

Poles were prisoners in nearly every camp in the extensive camp system in German-occupied Poland and the Reich. A major camp complex at Stutthof, east of Danzig, existed from September 2, 1939, to war's end, and
an estimated 20,000 Poles died there as a result of executions, hard labor, and harsh conditions. Auschwitz
(Oswiecim) became the main concentration camp for Poles after the arrival there on June 14, 1940, of 728 men transported from an overcrowded prison at Tarnow. By March 1941, 10,900 prisoners were registered at the camp, most of them Poles. In September 1941, 200 ill prisoners, most of them Poles, along with 650 Soviet prisoners of war, were killed in the first gassing experiments at Auschwitz. Beginning in 1942, Auschwitz's prisoner population became much more diverse, as Jews and other "enemies of the state" from all over German-occupied Europe were deported to the camp.

The Polish scholar Franciszek Piper, the chief historian of Auschwitz, estimates that 140,000 to 150,000 Poles were brought to that camp between 1940 and 1945, and that 70,000 to 75,000 died there as victims of executions, of cruel medical experiments, and of starvation and disease. Some 100,000 Poles were deported to Majdanek, and tens of thousands of them died there. An estimated 20,000 Poles died at Sachsenhausen, 20;000 at Gross-Rosen, 30,000 at Mauthausen, 17,000 at Neuengamme, 10,000 at Dachau, and 17,000 at Ravensbrueck. In addition, victims in the tens of thousands were executed or died in the thousands of other camps-including special children's camps such as Lodz and its subcamp, Dzierzazn—and in prisons and other places of detention within and outside Poland.


Daily life in wartime Poland
(Select to view)
POLISH RESISTANCE

In response to the German occupation, Poles organized one of the largest underground movements in Europe with more than 300 widely supported political and military groups and subgroups. Despite military defeat, the
Polish government itself never surrendered. In 1940 a Polish government-in-exile became based in London. Resistance groups inside Poland set up underground courts for trying collaborators and others and clandestine schools in response to the Germans' closing of many educational institutions. The universities of Warsaw, Cracow, and Lvov all operated clandestinely. Officers of the regular Polish army headed an underground armed force, the "Home Army" (Armia Krajowa—AK). After preliminary organizational activities, including the training of fighters and hoarding of weapons, the AK activated partisan units in many parts of Poland in 1943. A Communist underground, the "People's Guard" (Gwardia Ludowa), also formed in 1942, but its military strength and influence were comparatively weak.

Concentration camp song
(Select to view)
With the approach of the Soviet army imminent, the AK launched an uprising in Warsaw against the German army on August 1, 1944. After 63 days of bitter fighting, the Germans quashed the insurrection. The Soviet army provided little assistance to the Poles. Nearly 250,000 Poles, most of them civilians, lost their lives. The Germans deported hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to concentration camps. Many others were transported to the Reich for forced labor. Acting on Hitler's orders, German forces reduced the city to rubble, greatly extending the destruction begun during their suppression of the earlier armed uprising by Jewish fighters resisting deportation from the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943.

CONCLUSION

The Nazi terror was, in scholar Norman Davies's words, "much fiercer and more protracted in Poland than anywhere in Europe." Reliable statistics for the total number of Poles who died as a result of Nazi German policies do not exist. Many others were victims of the 1939-1941 Soviet occupation of eastern Poland and of deportations to Central Asia and Siberia. Records are incomplete, and the Soviet control of Poland for 50 years after the war impeded independent scholarship.

The changing borders and ethnic composition of Poland as well as vast population movements during and after the war also complicated the task of calculating losses.

In the past, many estimates of losses were based on a Polish report of 1947 requesting reparations from the Germans; this often cited document tallied population losses of 6 million for all Polish "nationals" (Poles, Jews, and other minorities). Subtracting 3 million Polish Jewish victims, the report claimed 3 million non-Jewish victims of the Nazi terror, including civilian and military casualties of war.

Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war. This approximate total includes Poles killed in executions or who died in prisons, forced labor, and concentration camps. It also includes an estimated 225,000 civilian victims of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, more than 50,000 civilians who died during the 1939 invasion and siege of Warsaw, and a relatively small but unknown number of civilians killed during the Allies' military campaign of 1944—45 to liberate Poland.

Why don't you address the facts that are contrary to your "alleged" facts? According to you, any facts that are not in line with your alleged facts are false. I maintain that these facts reveal the falsity of your alleged facts. Instead of proving me wrong, you attack me personally, as if that disproves the facts I present. The facts I present are not "my facts". The facts I present are the facts documented by others.

I am only too familiar with the facts as presented by the jews. These so-called facts are not facts, but fabrications of actual events.

[Globus]

Why don't you address the facts that are contrary to your "alleged" facts?

There aren't any!

And why do you feel it's necessary to repeat an entire long post everytime?

According to you, any facts that are not in line with your alleged facts are false.

When will you show us some?

I am only too familiar with the facts as presented by the jews.

So all historians are Jews?

Perhaps we see at last what motivates your dogged refusal to acknowledge history.

These so-called facts are not facts, but fabrications of actual events.

Not that you've been able to show, I'm afraid.

But thanks for the insight into yourself!

[MrAngry]

Why don't you address the facts that are contrary to your "alleged" facts? According to you, any facts that are not in line with your alleged facts are false. I maintain that these facts reveal the falsity of your alleged facts. Instead of proving me wrong, you attack me personally, as if that disproves the facts I present. The facts I present are not "my facts". The facts I present are the facts documented by others.

I am only too familiar with the facts as presented by the jews. These so-called facts are not facts, but fabrications of actual events.


I have tried to diseminate any facts that you have presented, and I can only find your perception at best. Give me a link to read that supports your view:)

[calvin]

The Jewish paedophile and film director, Roman Polanski, survived the German occupation with the help of the non-Jewish population.

Because of growing anti-semitism in France, the family moved back to Poland in 1937. Poland was occupied by German and Soviet troops in 1939……… Polanski himself escaped the Kraków Ghetto, and survived the war with the help of a Polish farmer, where he had to sleep in a cow stall

[Kriger]

There aren't any!

And why do you feel it's necessary to repeat an entire long post everytime?



When will you show us some?



So all historians are Jews?

Perhaps we see at last what motivates your dogged refusal to acknowledge history.



Not that you've been able to show, I'm afraid.

But thanks for the insight into yourself!

Aside from the usual sneering insinuations you like to include in your comments, which really amount to nothing once the insinuations are removed, I am merely opening an avenue of inquiry into the question of " What happened to them?"

The Relief Council for Jews in Poland is only one of many organizations that were set up to help smuggle jews from German occupied territories. Due to the fact that falsified documents were necessary to get them out of the country, it stands to reason that the true documentation left behind would indicate the doucmented presence of a person who is no longer there.

I am aware that it is difficult to determine just how many jews were smuggled to safety. I am also aware that the origina valid doucments of these persons would be included in the numbers of missing jews. I am also aware that the ones who did escape would be listed among the "survivors" list for reparation payments.

I am also aware that the jewish version of the Holocaust considers all documented "missing" jews as somehow dead victims of the "Holocaust". The preferred "cause" of death being seen as the "gas chambers".

By the way, I never even came close to indicating that "all historians are jews". I refer to the jewish version of the "Holocaust" that has come into question in the recent years as to it's validity.

Not all historians believe the jewish version.

[Globus]

Aside from the usual sneering insinuations you like to include in your comments, which really amount to nothing once the insinuations are removed, I am merely opening an avenue of inquiry into the question of " What happened to them?"

I think the comments were on target and you obviously don't feel comfortable talking about them.

The Relief Council for Jews in Poland is only one of many organizations that were set up to help smuggle jews from German occupied territories.

All known by historians and therefore representing no issue to the documented deporations to camps, which was the topic.

I am aware that it is difficult to determine just how many jews were smuggled to safety. I am also aware that the origina valid doucments of these persons would be included in the numbers of missing jews. I am also aware that the ones who did escape would be listed among the "survivors" list for reparation payments.

Only if they applied. But your barking up the wrong tree. None of this has anything to do with the deportees.

I am also aware that the jewish version of the Holocaust considers all documented "missing" jews as somehow dead victims of the "Holocaust". The preferred "cause" of death being seen as the "gas chambers".

There is no such thing as a "Jewish" version of the Holocaust. There is ony the history written by historians from all over the world for 6 decades.

By the way, I never even came close to indicating that "all historians are jews". I refer to the jewish version of the "Holocaust" that has come into question in the recent years as to it's validity.

Since there is no such "version", I think it's pretty clear what you meant!

Not all historians believe the jewish version.

Rubbish!

[Kriger]

I have tried to diseminate any facts that you have presented, and I can only find your perception at best. Give me a link to read that supports your view:)

My perceptions are based on facts I am finding while viewing scholarly material concerning organizations set up during World War II to help jews escape German occupied territories.

Globus provided merely one of many links on this subject. If you like, you can start with googling "partisans in Poland World War II" as I did. Then you can view the sources of your choice. As in all research via the internet, one link leads to others. I choose the ones from noted institutions of academia such as Rutger's, Harvard, Rice, et al.

[Globus]

My perceptions are based on facts I am finding while viewing scholarly material concerning organizations set up during World War II to help jews escape German occupied territories.

Organizations and efforts which are irrelevant to the documented transport of million of Jews to death camps.

Globus provided merely one of many links on this subject.

One which talks about a handful of Jews who were assisted in escaping and were never deported, thus are irrelevant to the question, "What happened to those deported?"

If you like, you can start with googling "partisans in Poland World War II" as I did. Then you can view the sources of your choice. As in all research via the internet, one link leads to others. I choose the ones from noted institutions of academia such as Rutger's, Harvard, Rice, et al.

And none of them provide an answer to those deported.

[eggheadbanga]

My perceptions are based on facts I am finding while viewing scholarly material concerning organizations set up during World War II to help jews escape German occupied territories.

Globus provided merely one of many links on this subject. If you like, you can start with googling "partisans in Poland World War II" as I did. Then you can view the sources of your choice. As in all research via the internet, one link leads to others. I choose the ones from noted institutions of academia such as Rutger's, Harvard, Rice, et al.

I see Shirt has progressed to using :google:

There's hope for him yet.

[Kriger]

I see Shirt has progressed to using :google:

There's hope for him yet.

Are you saying that Rutger's, Harvard, Rice, et al are not institutions of higher learning but are in reality :google: ?

To think I have been deceived all these years. :rofl:

[eggheadbanga]

Are you saying that Rutger's, Harvard, Rice, et al are not institutions of higher learning but are in reality :google: ?

No, but :google: is an excellent means of accessing such institutions.

To think I have been deceived all these years. :rofl:

No doubt before :google: came along, you used Yahoo!

:welcome:

[Kriger]

No doubt.

Why do you find it necessary to inform me of something I am already aware of?

[eggheadbanga]

No doubt.

Why do you find it necessary to inform me of something I am already aware of?

How am I to know? Maybe you had a brief interlude of using AskJeeves instead?

Lighten up...

[Kriger]

How am I to know? Maybe you had a brief interlude of using AskJeeves instead?

Lighten up...

What difference does it make which search engine I use to access information from the institutions of higher learning?

In the meantime, your three posts to this thread have been about just that. If you want to just chat, the Phora has a chat room, or at least it did the last time I knew.

[Globus]

What difference does it make which search engine I use to access information from the institutions of higher learning?

In the meantime, your three posts to this thread have been about just that. If you want to just chat, the Phora has a chat room, or at least it did the last time I knew.

He's probably waiting for you to tell us what a few organized efforts to save a few Jews has to explaining what happened to the millions known to have been deported.

When will you do that?

[eggheadbanga]

He's probably waiting for you to tell us what a few organized efforts to save a few Jews has to explaining what happened to the millions known to have been deported.

When will you do that?

That's about right. In lieu of any serious discussion or hard evidence being proffered, discussing search engines seemed more productive.

[Kriger]

He's probably waiting for you to tell us what a few organized efforts to save a few Jews has to explaining what happened to the millions known to have been deported.

When will you do that?

It was more than a few organized efforts, and it was more than a few jews.

I already explained the connection.

[eggheadbanga]

It was more than a few organized efforts, and it was more than a few jews.

I already explained the connection.

How many Jews were saved in this fashion, what routes did they take out of Poland/where were they hidden?

[Kriger]

How many Jews were saved in this fashion, what routes did they take out of Poland/where were they hidden?

I already gave my views on this.

[eggheadbanga]

I already gave my views on this.

Remind us. Specify a ballpark figure for how many. Then let's see if that is plausible.

I vote for 100,000 Polish Jews saved by rescue efforts, full stop. Raise me a million?

[Kriger]

Remind us. Specify a ballpark figure for how many. Then let's see if that is plausible.

I vote for 100,000 Polish Jews saved by rescue efforts, full stop. Raise me a million?

I already gave my views on this.

[calvin]

I put six bottles of Budvar in out fridge yesterday; I’ve got the receipt and everything but when I had a look an hour ago they were gone! Someone must have gassed them!

[Globus]

I put six bottles of Budvar in out fridge yesterday; I’ve got the receipt and everything but when I had a look an hour ago they were gone! Someone must have gassed them!

Of course you've got it all messed up!

The proper analogy would be for you to deny they're gone!

[eggheadbanga]

I already gave my views on this.

You didn't give a number. Without a number, your views are so much chaff.

[Globus]

It was more than a few organized efforts, and it was more than a few jews.

I already explained the connection.

No, you didn't. Deported Jews were not part of any of the rescue attempts, the few there were, and the few Jews they involved. So citing rescue attempts does not have anything whatsoever to do with telling us what happened to the deported Jews.

This is pretty basic.

[Kriger]

No, you didn't. Deported Jews were not part of any of the rescue attempts, the few there were, and the few Jews they involved. So citing rescue attempts does not have anything whatsoever to do with telling us what happened to the deported Jews.

This is pretty basic.

Correct. I was talking about the smuggled jews. I never said anything about the deported ones. I was also talking about the documents of the smuggled jews that got left behind them. These ones would be listed as missing, not listed as smuggled.

Continuing to refer to their numbers as a "few" is highly misleading, whether one knows the exact figures or not.

[eggheadbanga]

Correct. I was talking about the smuggled jews. I never said anything about the deported ones. I was also talking about the documents of the smuggled jews that got left behind them. These ones would be listed as missing, not listed as smuggled.

How many Jewish communities do you think there were in Poland in 1939?

Continuing to refer to their numbers as a "few" is highly misleading, whether one knows the exact figures or not.

I already stated 100,000. What's your estimate? Bigger?

[Kriger]

A more relevant question would be: How many of the jews documented as "missing" were redocumented as "smuggled"?

[calvin]

This is an affirmer distraction, the holocaust isn’t an assertion that there are six million missing Jews, it’s an assertion that six million Jews are missing because they were gassed, an assertion based mainly on the evidenced of the testimony of a few ex-Kapos gathered by the Soviets.

[Trojan]

This is an affirmer distraction, the holocaust isn’t an assertion that there are six million missing Jews, it’s an assertion that six million Jews are missing because they were gassed, an assertion based mainly on the evidenced of the testimony of a few ex-Kapos gathered by the Soviets.

Not to nit pick, but the 'assertion' is killed, with gas as one of the methods used to kill.

[eggheadbanga]

A more relevant question would be: How many of the jews documented as "missing" were redocumented as "smuggled"?

Unless significantly more than 100,000 Polish Jews were 'smuggled' in one or other directions, the answer is none.

Clarification, please: were these Jews of yours smuggled out of the country? If so, in which directions and by what routes to what destinations?

Or did they simply go into hiding inside Poland? If so where exactly? For example, if in hiding in Warsaw, did they survive the general uprising of August 1944?

[Kriger]

Unless significantly more than 100,000 Polish Jews were 'smuggled' in one or other directions, the answer is none.

Clarification, please: were these Jews of yours smuggled out of the country? If so, in which directions and by what routes to what destinations?

Or did they simply go into hiding inside Poland? If so where exactly? For example, if in hiding in Warsaw, did they survive the general uprising of August 1944?

They are not my jews.

I am speaking of all smuggled out jews in German occupied territory.

The rest I have already commented on.

[eggheadbanga]

They are not my jews.

I am speaking of all smuggled out jews in German occupied territory.

The rest I have already commented on.

Oh, now it's all smuggled Jews? How many is that then? And what makes you think this hasn't already been studied intensively and is an entirely separate issue statistically to the number who were demonstrably deported and did not end up anywhere there was a friendly Zegota rescue organisation, such as Auschwitz?

How many Jews do you think escaped Auschwitz, Shirt?

[calvin]

How many Jews do you claim were gassed by order of Adolph Hitler?

[Kriger]

Oh, now it's all smuggled Jews? How many is that then? And what makes you think this hasn't already been studied intensively and is an entirely separate issue statistically to the number who were demonstrably deported and did not end up anywhere there was a friendly Zegota rescue organisation, such as Auschwitz?

How many Jews do you think escaped Auschwitz, Shirt?

Getting a little hysterical, aren't you. I have already stated my views. Your spin on my views is not what I have been saying. I'll say it a little slower this time. How many documents that classified jews as "missing" were reclassified as "smuggled"?

I think it is a reasonable question of inquiry, and after all, you are the self-proclaimed "expert" here.

[eggheadbanga]

Getting a little hysterical, aren't you.

No, just frustrated that you aren't actually advancing any evidence towards a particular conclusion that leads anyone, anywhere, whatever side of the debate they are on.

I have already stated my views. Your spin on my views is not what I have been saying. I'll say it a little slower this time. How many documents that classified jews as "missing" were reclassified as "smuggled"?

None. You seem to be arguing, if I understand you correctly, that there was some form of substitution. This wouldn't have made any statistical difference, since the number of victims is not worked out by counting passports and census papers, but by using documents that state x1000 were deported from a to b.

I think it is a reasonable question of inquiry, and after all, you are the self-proclaimed "expert" here.

Unless you can prove that 500,000 Polish Jews were smuggled in one direction or another, or hid out - where? - in Poland, it makes no statistical difference. That's why I keep asking you for a number instead of these vague assertions. Heck, I'm not even asking you for a source - yet.

[Kriger]

No, just frustrated that you aren't actually advancing any evidence towards a particular conclusion that leads anyone, anywhere, whatever side of the debate they are on.



None. You seem to be arguing, if I understand you correctly, that there was some form of substitution. This wouldn't have made any statistical difference, since the number of victims is not worked out by counting passports and census papers, but by using documents that state x1000 were deported from a to b.



Unless you can prove that 500,000 Polish Jews were smuggled in one direction or another, or hid out - where? - in Poland, it makes no statistical difference. That's why I keep asking you for a number instead of these vague assertions. Heck, I'm not even asking you for a source - yet.

I am asking questions that remain unanswered.

[eggheadbanga]

I am asking questions that remain unanswered.

Actually, they have been, several times. But let's go back to the beginning and fisk what you wrote more thoroughly.

Well, even though no exact figures are provided, we can see that jews were helped out of the country. Falsified documents being a criminal offense, naturally no one would own up to exactly who or how many were assisted. Therefore, no documentation to subtract these ones from the list of "what happened to them?"

The entire premise of your argument is that there was some form of double-counting going on. This is not the case, nor is it the case that the numbers which can be substantiated interact in any meaningful way with the addition method which is used to calculate the number of Holocaust victims from a particular country.

It also needs to be noted that jews from Holland ended up in Poland. The crux of the matter being: not all jews deported for whatever reason to wherever were victims of intentional genocide.

If one rephrases this to say that not everyone was killed upon arrival, this is correct. Those deported to Auschwitz from Holland who were registered stood a chance of surviving. They were due to discriminatory policies towards Jews slated for eventual death, so are legitimately considered victims of genocide under the UN definition.

An unknown number were assisted out of the area, not only in Poland but elsewhere.

With reference to Auschwitz, this is essentially statistically irrelevant, since there were only some hundreds of escapes from the camp, and all of these left records in the form of police circulars and wanted lists.

It is also to be noted that jews were freed from "concentration camps" to be smuggled out of the territory in the same manner.

For sure, Jews could more easily escape forced labour camps and ghettos prior to their deportation to a concentration camp, but these numbers have to a very great extent been factored into the examination of the demography and statistics by historians. They are also irrelevant to the numbers derived from transport records showing how many Jews were deported from a particular ghetto to a particular death-camp.

For example: it is quite likely that a small number of Jews escaped the Sosnowiec ghetto in Upper East Silesia. It's also likely that many more Jews died of hunger in the ghetto. Neither of these statistics affects the third statistic, which is how many were then deported to Auschwitz in two waves in 1942 and 1943. Both of these waves are documented. That is the crucial number which becomes part of the calculation for the death toll at Auschwitz.

I am not sure that an actual count of these activities is available, but I do know that many were smuggled out of occupied territories successfully to take up residence elsewhere under assumed names.

This is where you make a claim - 'many were smuggled'. Now you have made a claim, it is up to you to back it up, with some kind of argument, evidence or sources.

I am merely opening an avenue of inquiry into the question of " What happened to them?"

That depended on where they were to begin with.

Your Googling might eventually lead you to come across a book about Jews in hiding on the 'Aryan' side of Warsaw, i.e. outside the ghetto. There were indeed thousands who successfully hid, and no doubt many who managed to smuggle themselves out of the ghetto, before deportation to Treblinka. But these numbers don't overlap with the separately recorded statistics a) for those dying inside the ghetto, which had to be produced by the council, and most importantly b) the number then deported.

The number who were deported from Warsaw and the number who arrived at Treblinka is certainly not identical. There were some who succeeded in jumping off the trains. There were even a very few who once they arrived at the camp and were temporarily spared to help clean up the mess, managed to escape.

But none of these numbers changes things very much. The simple fact is that it will be a long, long time before there is greater certainty about the numbers for Poland, and in the meantime, the estimates and calculations have a leeway of hundreds of thousands of people.

The variation isn't to do with the number deported to the death-camps, which is reasonably accurately known. It's to do with the numbers who died inside ghettos of starvation, or were shot during the ghetto clearances.

There were at least 3.3 million Jews in Poland as of August 1939. I tend to a conservative view and can corroborate more thoroughly the deaths of 2.8 million. That leaves up to half a million who survived. But most demographers don't find more than 300,000 who survived. Might 200,000 have died or might they have been smuggled out? Further research will tell us this.

But maybe now you can appreciate that there would have had to have been a lot, lot, lot, lot more smuggling and hiding going on before it would start to call into question the number of victims.

The Relief Council for Jews in Poland is only one of many organizations that were set up to help smuggle jews from German occupied territories. Due to the fact that falsified documents were necessary to get them out of the country, it stands to reason that the true documentation left behind would indicate the doucmented presence of a person who is no longer there.

This is I think the essential fallacy of the argument. The Germans did not count up passports, they counted bodies, live and dead. They counted people onto trains and had to pay the railway authorities for each passenger, at a reduced group fare. So it wasn't in their interests to accept lists from Jewish councils with 'ghost' deportees. There weren't any such 'ghost' deportees. Either you were deported, or you weren't.

I am aware that it is difficult to determine just how many jews were smuggled to safety. I am also aware that the origina valid doucments of these persons would be included in the numbers of missing jews.

They weren't.

I am also aware that the ones who did escape would be listed among the "survivors" list for reparation payments.

Yes, they would. But there is no discrepancy between the pre-war Jewish population of Europe and the number who survived that contradicts the number deemed to have perished. There are not more survivors than there should have been.

[Kriger]

What you infer is what you infer. That is your option in life.

Deportation records are deportation records.

Documentations of real persons, i.e. birth records, are documentations of birth records.

Birth records were used to document "missing" jews. Falsified records were used to smuggle Jews out of German occupied territories, leaving the "missing" jews documents behind.

Is there any record of the number of "missing" jews who were not dead, but smuggled out of German occupied territories?

This has nothing to do with deportation records. I have stated this repeatedly. It has nothing to do with your conjectures. I have stated this repeatedly.

Either address the question directly, or just state that you do not know.

[eggheadbanga]

What you infer is what you infer. That is your option in life.

Deportation records are deportation records.

Documentations of real persons, i.e. birth records, are documentations of birth records.

Birth records were used to document "missing" jews.

Except they weren't. You are confusing using vital statistics with using personal papers. Vital statistics, censuses, and other demographic sources can at best give an indication of the gap between pre-war and post-war population. In no country is this gap identical with the number of Holocaust victims. In France, for example, 25% of the pre-war population were deported. 75% survived.

Falsified records were used to smuggle Jews out of German occupied territories, leaving the "missing" jews documents behind.

For the reasons already explained, this does not affect anything. The Germans did not collect papers to calculate how many they deported, they counted live people onto the trains. Some of the people deported had probably been arrested with false papers. That doesn't change anything. They went to the camps - either they survived or they did not. Their real papers would have been useless to anyone because they were the papers of a Jew. That would have meant a guaranteed one-way ticket east.

And since no one, but no one used passports, personal papers, birth certificates and the live to calculate a death toll or 'missing persons' indicator after the war, this is all entirely moot.

Is there any record of the number of "missing" jews who were not dead, but smuggled out of German occupied territories?

There are lots of such records. It depends on where you are talking about. The Swiss kept good records of how many Jews crossed their borders, especially in the last years of the war. But which countries border Switzerland? France and Italy are the two major ones. In neither France nor Italy were more than a fraction of the Jewish populations deported.

The Turks, too, kept reasonable records of the number of refugees arriving on their shores, most of whom then passed on via Syria and Cyprus to Palestine. Refugees arriving in Turkey primarily came from Romania, and Greece. Or they had to come via these countries.

Demographers who have examined these issues have calculated figures which give a reasonable estimate of how many managed to escape from Greece, Romania and other such countries. These can be correlated with the numbers of illegal or legal immigrants to Palestine and other destination countries.

This has nothing to do with deportation records. I have stated this repeatedly. It has nothing to do with your conjectures. I have stated this repeatedly.

Either address the question directly, or just state that you do not know.

I've addressed the question directly several times now. Please actually respond to what I am saying instead of just repeating yourself.

[Globus]

Correct. I was talking about the smuggled jews. I never said anything about the deported ones.

That's disengenuous. You brought up the topic in the thread about deported Jews and directly suggested that the existence of a few rescues had some effect on the answer to the question of what happened to the deported Jews.


Continuing to refer to their numbers as a "few" is highly misleading, whether one knows the exact figures or not.

No it isn't. The numbers were miniscule when compared to the numbers of missing Jews.

[Globus]

This is an affirmer distraction, the holocaust isn’t an assertion that there are six million missing Jews, it’s an assertion that six million Jews are missing because they were gassed, an assertion based mainly on the evidenced of the testimony of a few ex-Kapos gathered by the Soviets.

Not a distraction at all. These millions of Jews disappeared. Established history knows what happened to them based on the evidence.

Deniers can't tell us what happened to them.

[Kriger]

That's disengenuous. You brought up the topic in the thread about deported Jews and directly suggested that the existence of a few rescues had some effect on the answer to the question of what happened to the deported Jews.




No it isn't. The numbers were miniscule when compared to the numbers of missing Jews.

I asked a question, which has yet to be answered. In the meantime, you only provide me with your view. Which you have a right to. As far as I am concerned, your views are illogical and untrue. I respond to your posts directed at me only because I resent you inferring other than what I am saying.

[Globus]

I asked a question, which has yet to be answered.

You've done a lot more than that, and been called on it.

In the meantime, you only provide me with your view.

Nope, not my view. What history holds.

Which you have a right to. As far as I am concerned, your views are illogical and untrue.

An opinion contradicted by historical evidence.

[Kriger]

You've done a lot more than that, and been called on it.



Nope, not my view. What history holds.



An opinion contradicted by historical evidence.

I haven't been called on anything except for what you conjure in your own mind.

History does not support your lies.

Neither do you provide valid sources to substantiate your lies.

[Globus]

I haven't been called on anything except for what you conjure in your own mind.

You've been called on a lot, based on historical facts.

[Trojan]

I haven't been called on anything except for what you conjure in your own mind.

History does not support your lies.

Neither do you provide valid sources to substantiate your lies.

What part of history supports revisionist views?

[Kriger]

What part of history supports revisionist views?

History does not support either extreme. The truth lies somewhere between the extremes.

[Globus]

History does not support either extreme. The truth lies somewhere between the extremes.

The well considered narrative of Holocaust history is hardly an extreme. Denying all evidence, masses of it, in order to deny that history is the very definition of extremism.

[Trojan]

History does not support either extreme. The truth lies somewhere between the extremes.

One would hope that you could demonstrate what history does or does not support.

[Kriger]

One would hope that you could demonstrate what history does or does not support.

Yes, I have realized that to learn anything current concerning the Holocaust, I will not learn it here.

I have transferred my inquiry into the subject matter to the Oxford Journals.

I can even ask questions that I will be given short precise answers to as opposed to rambling speculations, bold-faced lies, and disparaging personal rhetoric.

So carry on with your obsession. I have other far more reliable and credible avenues to obtain information.

[Globus]

Yes, I have realized that to learn anything current concerning the Holocaust, I will not learn it here.

I have transferred my inquiry into the subject matter to the Oxford Journals.

I can even ask questions that I will be given short precise answers to as opposed to rambling speculations, bold-faced lies, and disparaging personal rhetoric.

The information you have been given are not lies, and personal disparagement is something you engaged in from the very outset.

So carry on with your obsession. I have other far more reliable and credible avenues to obtain information.

And I'm sure we'll see lots of cogent arguments in support of your denial based on "the Oxford Journals"!

[Kriger]

The information you have been given are not lies, and personal disparagement is something you engaged in from the very outset.



And I'm sure we'll see lots of cogent arguments in support of your denial based on "the Oxford Journals"!

I could care less about your internet forum arguments.

[Globus]

I could care less about your internet forum arguments.

And for good reason!

But we await your insights from your studies.

[Trojan]

Yes, I have realized that to learn anything current concerning the Holocaust, I will not learn it here.

I have transferred my inquiry into the subject matter to the Oxford Journals.

I can even ask questions that I will be given short precise answers to as opposed to rambling speculations, bold-faced lies, and disparaging personal rhetoric.

So carry on with your obsession. I have other far more reliable and credible avenues to obtain information.

We eagerly await your return with the answers you sought.