Six on The Holocaust (Shoah): The apocalyptic vision behind Mike Pence’s Holocaust comments; Poland’s Senate passes Holocaust
philip panaritis
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“It is more complicated than just blaming the Poles for betraying their Jewish neighbors. On the one hand there were extraordinarily brave Poles who risked their lives to save Jews, and on the other hand there was no great love between Poles and Jews before World War II.
“During the war these relationships became even more hostile. A large segment of the Polish population was displeased with their neighbors’ help to the Jews during the war, and for many it seemed even as an unpatriotic step. Therefore, some segments of the Polish population took an active part in the hunt for the Jews, and that is what the new book deals with.”
Grabowski has found many Poles are still not ready to face the past and the fact that many of their ancestors took an active part in the extermination of the Jews.
Only last November the movie “Pokłosie” (“Aftermath”) hit the screens in Poland. Opening this week in the US, it is based on Princeton professor Jan Gross’s explosive 2001 work “Neighbors,” which examined the massacre of Jews from Jedwabne village in Nazi-occupied Poland and states it was the Poles, not the Nazis, who were to blame.
“Aftermath” is the first Polish film to deal with the responsibility of local residents for the massacres of Jews, and it has faced criticism by large groups in Poland who claim the movie s blackening their names on a global scale.
Like Grabowski, the film’s star Maciej Stuhr received death threats, and in several online forums there were comments such as “You are not a Pole anymore, you have become a Jew.”
