Yes. I know many Jewish persons. Here, in Poland. And yes. I know quite a bit about the post-war history of my country. Think once more why I advise you to find out how many people in your family's social circle used to be involved in the Communist movement - before you start judging the Pope's past.

Debra - have you ever been to Poland, do you know any Pole, do you know Polish Jews? I think that you don't. It is a fact that many Jews before and during WWII were comunists (if you don't beliwe read some books about first 3 aliyas) and they helped Russians (Soviets) to attack Poland (17.o9.1939). You must also remember that many Jews who lived in Palestine fight against GB and collaborate with Nazis. And Debra, you don't want to find anything about your relatives, you want to know what is easier for you, not true. To learn something about it you must look for it, not only live in USA and think that everyone around you are antisemits. One more time - first read about sth, then write a comment. If you know nothing about Poland and Polish history please don't post anything.

I guess all we can expect from this pope is more hypocricy. He will carry on any business with Jews asd is minimally necessary but will not go out of his way. His excuses of why he was once a Nazi is also in this same hypocritical vein, so the less we expect from him the less we will be disappointed.

Dominic, No one is denying that there were good decent Poles who did help Jews, many hiding them on their farms . I had a friend who worked on a farm and was saved. And that the point. the pope never paid any attention to these kind and generous peoples. Saying that I want you to know that I was brought up in a almost all Polish section of a medium sized Ameican city. I can tell you that the hate for Jews reached even American soil. It was as if they had learned the antisemitism from their mother's milk. My father looked like a Pole, spoke Polish as well as any Pole. I remember one day a customer spit at him in Polish--I didn't know you married a Jew as if this was some kind of crime. One does not not forget this.

"I guess all we can expect from this pope is more hypocricy. He will carry on any business with Jews asd is minimally necessary but will not go out of his way. " Why, pray, should he "go out of his way"? He is, after all, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and that makes the spiritual well-being of the Catholics his main business. It'd be better if you waited what he will say in the Former German Nazi Extermination Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau tomorrow. A meeting with the Holocaust survivors and the representaives of the Polish Jewish community is scheduled for then. "His excuses of why he was once a Nazi is also in this same hypocritical vein, so the less we expect from him the less we will be disappointed." Are you sure he was a Nazi? According to what I have read about him, he was enrolled in Hitler Jugend as all the German kids of his age. All of them. That doesn't make him a Nazi, not by my reckoning.

It's a good advice. I might just follow it. The hitch is that it's raining here. And it's cold. But - to make my position clear. In these talkbacks I do not react to Jews. If I am to go out I'll do it to forget the idiots.

Hilda, fortunately we may always count on your rabbis saying that Katrina was a punishment from "G-d" for not enough support for Israel. I guess billions every year are not enough.

First of all I didn't mean any offence to modern Poland. All those griveances are in the past. Well, Soviet Union didn't do better to Jews after the War. But can you, pope deneders answer very simple question: Who do you sympathize more - Israel or "oppressed" Palestinian Arabs ? Because if your answer "Arabs" or "both the same" that only support my position.

konrad #36. some brave young german youth did not go into the hitler youth like your cowardly pope did. read about the white rose society in germany and you will find the true heroes---and this pope is not one of them. sorry.

Hilda wrote: "I can tell you that the hate for Jews reached even American soil. (..) I remember one day a customer spit at him in Polish--I didn't know you married a Jew as if this was some kind of crime. One does not forget this." -------- Dear Hilda, This sort of hate of Jews doesn’t exist in contemporary Poland anymore, nonetheless it was present within some groups of Polish migrants who survived the WWII in the Soviet Union and later migrated to the USA and other countries. Most of them were taken from their homes and sent to Siberia because they were suspected of being anti-communists. They remembered some Jews helping the Bolsheviks since the invasion of Poland by the Red Army in 1939 and collaborating with the Soviet regime during the occupation. The popular saying used by the Jews to abuse the Poles at that time was: “You wanted Poland without Jews, so you now have the Jews without Poland”. They had in their painful memories the view of the Jews leading the NKVD to their homes and carrying them on their carts to the train stations, so they perceived all the Jews as their grave enemies and the enemies of Poland. Their emotional memory survived with them. Jan Karski reported to the Polish government in France in 1940, among others, I quote: “Certainly it is so that Jewish communists adopted an enthusiastic stance toward the Bolsheviks, regardless of the social class from which they came. The Jewish proletariat, small merchants, artisans, and all those whose position has at present been improved structurally and who had formerly been exposed to oppression, indignities, excesses, etc., from the Polish element -- all of these responded positively, if not enthusiastically, to the new regime. Their attitude seems to me quite understandable. However, there are worse cases, where they [the Jews] denounce the Poles, Polish nationalist students, and Polish political figures when they direct the work of the Bolshevik police force from behind their desks or are members of the police force, when they falsely defame the relations [between Poles and Jews] in former Poland. Unfortunately it is necessary to state that such incidents are quite common, more common than incidents, which reveal loyalty toward Poles or sentiment toward Poland. (…) In principle, however, and in their mass, the Jews have created here a situation in which the Poles regard them as devoted to the Bolsheviks and -- one can safely say -- wait for the moment when they will be able simply to take revenge upon the Jews. Virtually all Poles are bitter and disappointed in relation to the Jews; the overwhelming majority [first among them of course the youth] literally look forward to an opportunity for "repayment in blood ". ---------- The memory of these Poles is like the painful memory of the Jews persecuted in the past by the Poles. You can’t simply erase it.

Kate wrote: Catholic priests in Poland openly encouraged Poles to betray Jews to the Nazis. --------- Kurt Lewin of New York, son of rabbi from Lviv, wrote in his book how he survived the war. He and 150 other Jews were saved by archbishop Szeptycki. In his recollection of the archbishop he describe him as a compassionate, loving man, who was proud to be a friend of his father rabbi Jecheskiel Lewin. Diane Armstrong of Sydney in her book “Mosaic” wrote about a meeting in 1990 with one of the Polish priests, so badly accused by Kate, (chapter 45): “The door opens, and an old man is looking intensely into my face. Then he folds his arm around me, he’s holding me tightly against him, and he’s saying over and over again, ‘Little Danusia. My little Danusia.’ Tears are pouring down my face; I’m sobbing so hard that I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Some grief I didn’t know I felt is flooding over me as I stand here, a helpless little girl held by this old man who strokes my hair and cups my wet face in his gentle hands. In a soothing voice he murmurs, “Little Danusia. Cry, my poor child, you have plenty of reason to cry. After all you’ve gone through, after all the terrible times you’ve lived through, let it all out now, my child, just cry. My little Danusia. May God keep you, may he always have you in his care.” When I look up, I see a puckish face, one eye reddened and half closed, but an alert gaze full of compassion. It feels as if he’s looking straight into my heart, and I stand in his doorway, sobbing, overwhelmed by feelings I cannot understand. Seeing him agin, feeling his compassion, hearing him use the Polish name my parents used to call me, releases emotions so deeply lodged that I didn’t even know they were there. All the anxiety, tension and sorrow that my childish mind absorbed and suffered in silence fifty years ago are spilling out at this moment. (…) Benevolence shines from Father Soszynski’s face. In a voice that’s surprisingly strong for a man of eighty-three, he says, “I was thinking about you just two days ago. I thought about your parents and wondered whether little Danusia was still alive. While I was in town today someone said that people from overseas were looking for me. I thought of you straightaway. Danusia! I thought, and flew home like a bird!”

continued... The point, I guess, I try to make here is that we, the Poles, shouldn’t ask the Jews for the evidence, we don’t need to ask them for the evidence, as we already have it, plenty of it. What we should do instead, I think, is to admit frankly that there were “bad apples in the basket” (and still are, see the Polish fascist stabbing the boy in Warsaw a week ago). We need to show that we know about the past, that we understand what happened and what lead to that, not denying in any way the role of the Church and the nationalists (eg ONR) in raising the ethnic tension in pre-war Poland, not denying the NSZ ideology during the war, as well as the willing participation of the Catholic Poles in the pogroms of Jews after the war (whether they were provoked or inspired by someone else we could argue). And only then, when we admit all the wrongdoings of the Poles in the past, we could say convincingly, BUT… BUT there was also Marshall Pilsudski and his party defending the ethnic minorities, the police shooting at the organizers of the pogroms and jailing them, and there was also a death penalty imposed by the Home Army for the “szmalcowniks” denunciating Jews to Germans, and only then we can say, BUT the Koniuchy, BUT the Jews in the Secret Police taking revenge on the Poles, etc…. It’s not hard to admit the guilt and to show we understand the problems of the past. The Catholic Church, slowly but steadily already inches this way. It’s not difficult because, look, none of our Jewish opponents and friends here raised even the issue of the Jedwabne murder!!! Jan Nowak-Jezioranski during his last visit to Israel was absolutely surprised when during his long staying there no one asked him about Jedwabne either. When at the end of the visit he asked the journalists why they don’t raise such questions, they replied to him that there is nothing to ask about: the Polish president publicly apologised, the congregation of the Polish bishops laying on the floor of the cathedral prayed to God for forgiveness of the Polish sins, the investigation by the National Remembrance Institute was conclusive, the public debate in Poland about the Jedwabne murder engaged the whole nation, so it wasn’t even worth mentioning. I also found it’s not difficult, when on a few occasions I came across the Polish Jews, who have been listening to the Polish admission of the Polish sins, and, believe me, … they couldn’t stop crying… They have been waiting so long for that…

Of course, not all the Polish priest had the courage of Father Soszynski who saved “Danusia” (Diane Armstrong – an Australian-Jewish writer) and her family. In fact the whole village at that time knew or suspected, that the new family of his friends were not ethnic Poles, so in the reality, all contributed to their survival. But if you ask for the evidence that the Polish priests were behaving badly during the war, than you have it, for the example, here: http://www.kimel.net/poland.html “A Jewish partisan Joseph Cynowiec, heard a pronouncement of a priest at a meeting of the Home Army in Ostrow Lubelski: "In my hiding-place I heard everything that was said. One of those present asked a priest, who was also taking part as a member of the Home Army. What one's attitude ought to be regarding the Nazi treatment of the Jews? The priest's answer was that as a cleric he had to say that human being were involved here and that it was wrong to exterminate them mercilessly; but on the other hand, from the political point of view, the Germans were doing a good job. (Joseph Cynowiec's report. Yad Vashem Archives, File 0-3/3009)” ------ You might find similar stories in many memoirs; here is a fragment from one of them: “We knew that the Poles’ deep, abiding hatred of the Jews originated on the teaching of the Catholic Church. Seventy-five percent of the Polish population was completely illiterate and under the sway of the priests. The economic motives of the peasants and townsfolk for getting rid of the Jews were reinforced by the virulently anti-Semitic teaching of the Church. When I stayed with the council secretary in a village near Polaniec (in 1942, disguised as a Catholic Pole), the priest, who counted as one of the intelligentsia, turned every topic of conversation around to the subject of the Jews – whom he thanked God (but of course he meant Hitler) for wiping out. “I rest my case” by Mark Verstandig, page 178. ------ One of the most reliable sources of information about that time is the book “Unequal Victims” by Y. Gutman and S. Krakowski. On page 114 you will find the following statement by a Catholic-nationalist group published in May 1943 (!) (that was in the apex of the extermination of Jews), in the underground paper: “The Jews have been parasites living off the bodies of European nations. This is why they have been universally loathed and detested. They have been fighting everybody, but always by subterfuge, never openly, with weapons in hand. Of all the wars fought by the European nations, at least three fourths are attributable to their machinations. But they have managed carefully to obliterate the traces of their powerful influence. On the surface, they have always behaved with complete innocence. Jewish cowardice has become proverbial. They have lost all human dignity.” -------- (On the same page of the book you will find quite opposite point of views expressed by another Catholic group, but you asked for the evidence against Catholic priests, so you have it) In the case of Jedwabne, there was a story that the local priest apparently tried to discourage the murderers by telling them “leave it to the Germans” and later it was found the pages from the church book, describing the events, removed. The point, I guess, I try to make here is that we, the Poles, shouldn’t ask the Jews for the evidence,

Adam, I am no youngster. I am an old lady and these memories of mine go back more than 60 and 70 years. All I can say is maybe these Jews were taking revenge on the Poles who aided and abeted the Nazis. How many Jews came back to Poland to retrieve their homes and were killed by Poles? It was no coincidence that most of the extermination camps of the Nazis were in Poland. That was because the Poles approved. There were no camps in Denmark or Bulgaria were there? There was a good reason. The Danes and the Bulgars would not have allowed it. There was a saying that the Germans who were in Denmark were corrupted by the people, that is why so few Jews were killed there. My husband and his family were probably saved because these Gernan officers chose to look the other way and not obey the orders which came from Berlin.

I'm still offended that the pope didn't stop. It kind of sends mixed signals and makes me wonder why he didn't. Of course maybe I'm not seeing something. In any case Christianity should be beyond politics and beyond circumstances. The rescuers reflected that and we are so grateful to their contributions to Christianity. Their actions show people what Christianity should be. And to drive by that and not to stop, is somehow oddly symbolic.

Dear Hilda, I’m devastated by your knowledge of the facts… I would like to ask you one question only: Are you prepared to apologise, if someone will prove you that your statements are not only offensive for the Poles (forget the Poles), but deeply, terribly, unbelievably offensive for every Nazi German???? ------------- (These American Indians must have been also stupid that they voted to open their country for the European settlements )))) They probably wanted Coca-cola and Big-mac, that’s why… ;-))) What do you think about it, Dear Hilda???? )

Dear Adam, What I react to is extreme generalizations. I know the style, I am afraid. Lawyers and historians know how often witnesses mix truth with fantasies. It's sad, but not everything witnesses say is reliable. Polish witnesses, or Jewish witnesses - no difference in that matter. It is the task of the historians to sort out historical truth from the fantasies. And it's their task to separate authentic witnesses from those who base their testimonies on materially unsupported hearsay. It's again sad, but there is no dearth of testimonies in which witnesses while on one hand accusing the Catholic Church of every possible crime, on the other freely admit that they had never been inside any church and never listened to any sermon. But – strange thing. In quite a number of testimonies there appears a recurring motif of deep mutual understanding (if not friendship) between a local rabbi and Catholic priest. Some people, it seems, knew how to talk to each other. Others preferred isolation. And it is self-imposed isolation from one's neighbors that breeds resentments and prejudices. If there is something like Polish anti-Semitism, it certainly has a counterpart in Jewish anti-Polonism. Assuming that the man quoted by you is a reliable witness (I haven't read his testimony), can anyone pronounce sweeping generalizations basing on his (or similar) statements? Without even trying to find out what was the line of the Catholic Church in Poland when confronted with the German policy and practice of terror and mass murder during the occupation? Without knowing how many Catholic priests sacrificed their lives during the occupation? Without realizing how many of them were deeply involved in underground activities - helping the escapees from the ghettoes, giving shelter to Jewish children? It appears that it is possible. In these Talkbacks – certainly, yes. Pure, unadulterated venom of hatred and contempt. How possibly could Mrs. Irena Sendlerowa and her assistants save over 2500 Jewish children without help from a network of friendly parishes and monasteries? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4314145.stm And, while doing that, they all risked their lives, on a daily basis. In occupied Poland help given to Jews was punished by death, and it wasn't an empty threat. We both know it. But do others want to know it? If we were like the Danes, they say, we would have never allowed the Germans to organize Holocaust on our territory. If we allowed it, then it must be because we as a nation are inhuman, filled with anti-Semitic hatred, worse than the Nazis. But they, the admirers of the Danish myth, never ask themselves how they themselves would have behaved in Poland under the German occupation. Nearly three million ethnic Poles lost their lives during the war – and that is somehow not taken into consideration, although it shows, how brutal the occupation was. Among them my mother and my younger sister and brother, out of malnutrition and lack of medical care. But the lady Hilda would obviously want – what? My father to send his protests to the Polish government against its policy of allowing the Germans to build extermination camps on the Polish territory? She doesn't seem to see the sheer absurdity of her angry demands and moral comparisons. Poland was the only German occupied country that did not have a collaborationist government. And she was the only occupied country that didn't supply the Third Reich with volunteer SS units. Quite to the contrary: hundreds of thousands of Poles fought on all the fronts of the Second World War against the Germans, actively helping the Allies to stop the German machinery of the Holocaust.

But the lady Hilda would obviously want – what? My father to send his protests to the Polish government against its policy of allowing the Germans to build extermination camps on the Polish territory? She doesn't seem to see the sheer absurdity of her angry demands and moral comparisons. Poland was the only German occupied country that did not have a collaborationist government. And she was the only occupied country that didn't supply the Third Reich with volunteer SS units. Literally hundreds of thousands of Poles fought on all the fronts of the Second World War against the Germans, actively helping the Allies to stop the German machinery of the Holocaust. But their sacrifice is not remembered. What is remembered by the Jewish witnesses is Polish-speaking human scum that had risen to the surface in the country deliberately deprived of its elites by both the occupiers. German and Soviet. People ready to use the anti-Jewish terror unleashed by the Germans as an instrument by which to enrich themselves. Denouncers, blackmailers, even murderers. What they did wasn't motivated by anti-Semitism. Their main motive was pure greed. Someone has written, and I think rightly, that no Jedwabne could have happened, if the town hadn't been already deprived of its elite by the Soviets. I deeply agree. We should talk openly about the history of the Polish-Jewish relations. Broader view of historical facts is necessary in order to overcome the existing stereotypes and prejudices. But they must be facts. Not myths and generalized fantasies. K.

..saved their life. Their mother ,father and little sister were murdered by Nazis.They are still alive today( though not very healthy)...We remember her every day whenever we talk.She was truly an Angel.

I don't what is bigger - your ignorance of history or your virulent hate to Polish. Shalom!

Konrad, I like the myth about “the good Danes”)) The Danes that volunteered to two panzer divisions of SS and after the war 40.000 of them were put on trial as collaborators with the Nazis or literally the Nazis, now are prized as “the saviours of the Jews”. The SS divisions were fighting with the Warsaw Uprising in which 160.000 Poles have been killed, among them thousands of the Polish Jews that survived after Ghetto Uprising in hiding between the Poles. But who cares… The way the myths are created and nurtured is amazing. The number of myths expressed in this discussion is incredible. I could only guess that the state of war and the politics created the strong demand for the mythology…

I just want to thank you for your gracious replies to this discussion. I, for one, was very moved by the recounting of the Polish people's admission and confession of sin and their desire for reconciliation and to move forward to a better relationship with the Jewish people. I think that as long as people hold on to their grievances and nurture their hates and fears, no real peace, mutual understanding, love or respect can occur. Blessed are you for your effort towards a hopful future; not and unreasoning, vengeful past.

No country or people has a monopoly on the good or the bad and i regret my praise of Adam's previous remarks in the light of his most recent mean blanket remarks about the Danish people. For all the evil countries do, there are always people within those countries that strive for right, justice and defence of the oppresssed. So it was in Denmark where Jews were accepted as Danes and when Hitler finally came for them in 1943 the German's and Danes in Denmark rushed to help the Jewish people to make a mass exodus, mostly to Sweden and an escape from Hitler and his evil devices.

I do hope that the Pope as he was passing through Warsaw in his Popemobile spared a few seconds of his time to reflect that it was not Christian Armies that Liberated Warsaw....The Armies of the Soviet Union Smashed the Nazis.. however high the cost to the Soviet people. While this German Pope prayed for the Polish Catholics and Prayed for Jews... perhaps he took a few minutes aside to reflect.... that without the army of the Godless Soviet Union... his desertion from his Hitler Youth unit ... would never have happened.

Warsaw wasn't liberated by the Soviets. When the Red Army and the Polish Army units entered it on the 17th of January, the place was completely deserted. A sea of ruins. After the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising (September 1 through October 3 1944) the Red Army rested for nearly three months just across the river and allowed the Germans to take their time to completely destroy the city. Krakow was liberated and saved by the Red Army. But Warsaw - not.

Warsaw Uprising began on the 1st of August, 1944, not the 1st of September. Sorry

The fact is that there are only a handfull of Jews left in Poland. There are a lot more Jews living in Germany then in Poland. This should give you enough evidence that Catholic,nationalistic Poles were/are antisemites! Jews should not worry about Polish antisemitism because there are hardly any Jews left in Poland.

Michael Schudrich was walking near the main synagogue when a man yelled, "Poland for Poles!" "That's a well-known pre-World War II slogan, which basically means 'Jews, get out of Poland,' and I didn't like hearing it," Schudrich said. "So I approached the gentleman to ask him why he said such things and his reaction was to punch me in the chest." Before the rabbi could hit back, the man sprayed him with a Mace-like irritant, Schudrich said.

Could you please make it clear who murdered your relatives, because the term Nazis, for some reason, has so many different meanings for various people….