Jewish Scene
Rare photos show Polish Jewish life on eve of Nazi decimation
Gil Weissblei
Published: 02.08.19, 15:16
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16 Talkbacks for this article
1. Sad, so sad
douglas klein ,   ft laud   (08.02.19)
What does one say after everything has been said over and over. Never forgive never forget is about it!
2. Thank you!
David ,   Hartford USA   (08.02.19)
3. The pix are great but your knowledge of history is less so
baruch ,   paris, france   (08.02.19)
You write at the end of this excellent article: "The photo album ends on an emotional note, with farewell greetings from a Polish girl and her friends, who wished the French veterans a good journey, saying: "Long live the alliance between France and Poland!"
Six years later, France BROKE that alliance when Nazi Germany conquered Poland.
Your knowledge of history is very wobbly: France (and Britain) declared war on Germany on September 3 1939 when Germany attacked Poland.
4. Lambs being readied for the slaughter
DSM ,   USA   (08.02.19)
5. Now:THESE're Hymie -Towns, Mr. "Reverend" Jesse!!!
(08.03.19)
6. incomprehensible then, incomprehensible now
tiki ,   belgium   (08.03.19)
And still it happened!
7. Are the photos available online?
Jacques ,   Paris   (08.03.19)
Could you please let me know whether these photos are available online? I searched the web site of the Israel National Library and could not find them, but I cannot read Hebrew. Thank you in advance.
8. "The silent testimony of a world that once existed"
Melody McPherson ,   St Regis Falls, USA   (08.03.19)
I congratulate the author of this article for the choice and arrangement of such impressive photos, as well as for the masterful epitaph with which he concludes his work. All that has touched me deeply.

Europeans like to make thick books with many photos of their insurmountable architectural achievements to proudly boast before the rest of the cultures of the "incomparable superiority" of their civilization.

However, every day is becoming greater the number of people who think that the images that the Jerusalem's Yad Vashem museum treasures will remain forever as the thunderous testimony of the terrifying dark side of European civilization.

It is very comforting to say that the culprits of the Holocaust were the extinct German Nazis, because in doing so, the Europeans hide the dozens of thousands of small Holocausts and Pogroms that occurred in each and every one of the European nations for two thousand years, from Galway to Volgograd, and from Gibraltar to Tromsø, without exceptions, without forgiveness.
9. Like pictures family takes, before boarding a doomed plane..
(08.04.19)
10. NEVER FORGIVE
Chris Rettenmoser ,   Bayerisch Gmain Germ   (08.04.19)
11. Bridging the gap
Nick Helder ,   Paxton, Swansea UK   (08.05.19)
If a picture is worth a thousand words, the fluency of these photos is devastating. The difference between the European Holocaust during WWII and everyone else in the past is not just numerical. The main gap is that it is attested with photos and documents, against which crash those who want to deny it, or claim that the final figures are greatly inflated.

But it is not convenient to make too many illusions regarding the documentary evidence. For millennia, all that the sacred Jewish books say was taken for granted. Even throughout the terrible common era not a bit of credibility was taken from them.

However, 65 years after the creation of the PLO, more than half the planet not only questions them, but denies them, as proven by the fact that UNESCO has denied any relationship between the Jewish people and Jerusalem, reaching the extreme to forbid that on the Temple Mount one day were the temples of Solomon and Herod.

I say this because being majority the belief that because of the Holocaust the People returned to the Land, we should not rule out the possibility that, in order to take apart such hefty evidences, in the future the PLO dare to proclaim that all these photos and documents were fabricated in Hollywood so that the UN to take pity on the Jews.
12. 'breaking the alliance"
ludi boeken ,   tel aviv   (08.08.19)
thanks for your article and the great photos! however, your last sentence is incorrect, as France (and Britain) declared war on Nazi Germany because of its invasion of Poland. They did not break the alliance, they went to war....

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