tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post2368838122244845041..comments2024-03-13T03:13:59.610+01:00Comments on the beatroot: Fear in Polandbeatroothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-87449426342340513882022-09-05T23:34:41.716+02:002022-09-05T23:34:41.716+02:00d9f00y8o25 r8m83j8i19 c8o03h0l50 k6w52p4d85 s0... <a href="https://teslod70896.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow"><strong>d9f00y8o25</strong></a> r8m83j8i19 <a href="https://doughseigh24450.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow"><strong>c8o03h0l50</strong></a> k6w52p4d85 <a href="https://sleteigh30805.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow"><strong>s0q56i3d93</strong></a> f2q20a6c86lirethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06098986200682473426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-3327278891435186452022-05-08T11:04:37.293+02:002022-05-08T11:04:37.293+02:00replica bags prada replica bags online shopping i...<a href="https://neejo84186.blogspot.com/2022/05/i-have-watched-out-for-lugging-too.html" rel="nofollow">replica bags prada</a> <a href="https://mcdote81416.blogspot.com/2022/05/personally-i-love-version-where-zeus.html" rel="nofollow">replica bags online shopping india</a> <a href="https://sleephes56734.blogspot.com/2022/05/this-gorgeous-bag-is-so-easy-so-refined.html" rel="nofollow">replica bags review</a>shesoahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510907187578074157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-68856925149338321502008-02-15T20:13:00.000+01:002008-02-15T20:13:00.000+01:00Gunnar,Firstly congratulations on your book. A fi...Gunnar,<BR/><BR/>Firstly congratulations on your book. A fine achievement.<BR/><BR/>Not too sure how anyone who has read your book could class you as a “Polish apologist”. I tried to find the relevant reviews but couldn’t.<BR/><BR/>Nevertheless your book provides a lot of facts that can be used to argue against the more startling claims about Polish complicity in the holocaust. It also provides evidence against those who claim total innocence of the Polish nation but web sites making those sorts of claims are far less common (and the majority are probably written in Polish) than sites exaggerating Polish complicity. So your book is more likely to be referenced by those defending Poles.<BR/><BR/>Anyway on another note your final sentence “If I have time, which is doubtful” can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I trust you are well?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-90813204484839360712008-02-13T08:25:00.000+01:002008-02-13T08:25:00.000+01:00Paulsson here, the Secret City guy. First of all,...Paulsson here, the Secret City guy. First of all, this blog is the most intelligent discussion of Polish-Jewish issues I have run across, so congratulations. I'd love to have a debate with Gross, but Gross is now a celebrity and behaves like one. He has issued a list of people he's be prepared to debate with, and I'm not on it. At conferences, he avoids me. Think I may have to submit a piece to GW or Rzeczpospolita.<BR/><BR/>Criticisms of Fear: (1) he acts like he discovered all this, whereas it has all been known for a long time. His argument debunking the Zydokomuna myth recycles Krystyna Kersten's book, Polacy-Zydzi-Komunizm (1990, I think) - and he doesn't give her any credit. The part on Kielce recycles Bozena Szaynok's book (1999 I think). He gives her a nod, but that's all. Frank discussion of Polish-Jewish issues and criticisms of Polish behaviour - well, you could go back to Czeslaw Milosa's poems Campo di Fiori and Biedny Chrzescianin patrzy na ghetto, both 1944. Antisemitism in Poland is simply inherited Christian antisemitism - it was after all church dogma from ca. 590AD to 1965, so all Catholics were antisemitic. It was part of their religion. (And not a part that Orthodox Christians or most Protestants challenged, either). So antisemitism goes back as far as the Jews in Poland - and so does opposition to antisemitism. In the postwar era, dialogue became very stilted during the Communist era, but there were still some open ans strong debates. Over Lantzmann's Shoan in 1984, for example. Over Jan Blonski's article "A Poor Pole Looks at the Ghetto". Over Michal Cichy's description of the Prosta St. Massacre in 1994, in GW, Poland's biggest newspaper. Conferences have been a regular occurrence - including one at Yeshiva U in 2000, at which I presented a preliminary article for my book and Gross did likewise for Neighbors, and Israel Gutman pronounced that he now saw "no difference" between Polish and Jewish historical writing.<BR/><BR/>Gross by his own admission had never paid much attention to Jewish issues before Neighbors - and now he seems to think that he's the hero who broke the ice.<BR/><BR/>I was a strong defender of Neighbors - it was an important book, though in every sense a small one. It exposed the largest single massacre of Jews at the hands of Poles in Polish history (to my knowledge), and an event hitherto unknown. But as a history book, it is a straightforward narrative history of the events in one town over a few days, and that's it. The overall conclusions are trivial.<BR/><BR/>With Fear, Gross has gone completely overboard. Apart from stealing from colleagues without giving them due (or sometimes any) credit, he generalizes outrageously without citing much quantitative evidence. I have two basic criticisms of the book: (1) you can't draw proper conclusions about anything on the basis of only one type of evidence, and (2) although he wraps himself in the mantle of Chris Browning by describing the perpetrators in Jedwabne as "ordinary men", he actually follows in the footsteps of Goldhagen, reading them as "ordinary Poles". In other words, where Browning drew general human conclusions, Goldhagen and Gross get stuck at the national level, attributing the events they describe (in both cases outrageously selective) to national peculiarities instead of human nature. Now there is a large literature on mass violence, often involving people who know each other and have lived side by side peacefully for ages - in my book, I cite a review essay by the South African social psychologist Don Foster that gives a good overview and discusses the various theories that have been proposed. None of them involve national characteristics.<BR/><BR/>In fact, it is ridiculous to blame or defend nations, because nations - not possessing minds or wills or the capacity to make moral decisions - are not moral agents. They are more or less random collections of individuals, divided into various strata, political tendencies, etc. Now you can draw moral conclusions. on the other hand, about movements that embody some idea. They do act as moral agents: people who subscribe to them announce that they share their ideas, and thus take upon themselves responsibility for the consequences of those ideas. So in Poland, the Catholic Church, the nationalist parties, and those who disseminated and encouraged antisemitism can be blamed for Jedwabne and Kielce etc. However, similar tendencies existed everywhere; the main difference was that Poland had more Jews.<BR/><BR/>My book gets characterized as "optimistic", gets selectively quoted on right-wing Polish websites, and has had two hostile reviews accusing me of being a "Polish apologist". Baloney. If you are looking for Polish atrocities against Jews, you'll find plenty in Secret City. I estimate that 16,500 Jews died "on the Aryan side" in Warsaw - that's ten times as many as the traditional (and wrong) figure for Jedwabne that Gross took over uncritically, and 10-15 times as many as Gross claims in Fear. You will find blackmailers, denouncers, thieves, murderers, massacres, everything that Gross writes about - but placed in context and with proper statistical studies to fix the proportions. And human generalizations rather than national ones. For the sina of the Catholic Church, the right-wing parties and the antisemites, I blame the Catholic Church, the right-wing parties, and the antisemites. Not Polish society in general. But lest Poles get too chuffed about the 70-90,000 people who I estimated helped Jews in Warsaw (roughly 8% of the population), I point out that they were hardly a random cross-section of the population, but a self-selecting conspiracy consisting of people whom the Jews thought they could trust. In the Polish edition, I mention Wieslaw Kielar's book, Anus Mundi: Kielar estimates that 8% of the SS guards at Auschwitz were decent. So finding that 8% of Warsaw was involved in helping Jews is not a figure that should cause Poles any pride or Jews any surprise.<BR/><BR/>Naturally, that figure doesn't mean that only 8% of Varsovians were decent. Maybe many more were prepared to help Jews, but were shut out of the "Secret City" by the invisible walls that surround any underground movement. Naturally, there were people who lacked the means, and others who were afraid. Conversely, there were no doubt people who would gladly have killed a few Yids, but didn't know where to find any.<BR/><BR/>Much like any country, really. How many people help the homeless? You have a range from a tiny minority who run shelters, to a larger group who will give a beggar a dollar, to those who will tell them to get lost, to those who think it's fun to pour gas on them and set them on fire (a New York fad a few years ago).<BR/><BR/>Gross's central contentions in Fear - that Poles were plagued with guilt over having taken over "ex-Jewish" property and feared reprisals, and that in taking over Jewish property they were being complicit with the Nazis, I think are more baloney. Poles also came into "ex-German" property in the West after the war, and Ukrainians came into "ex-Polish" property. For that matter, Israelis came into "ex-Arab" property in 1948 (and Arabs in cities from which Jewish refugees had fled also came into "ex-Jewish" property. When the Germans had emptied a Shtetl and hauled away all the Jews, the Polish population descended on the Jewish property like vultures - perfectly true. Not nice, not pleasant. But whom were they actually robbing? Jews working in the Werterfassung in the Warsaw ghetto, reclaiming Jewish property for the Reich, engaged in "szaber", which Ringleblum translated as "robbing the robbers". My mother survived Auschwitz by working in the "Canada" commando at Birkenau, sorting the property of the Hungarian Jews, and "organizing" whatever she could. So as far as the Poles were concerned, it was the Germans, not the Jews, whom they were relieving of "ex-Jewish" property.<BR/><BR/>Now things could get ugly if a Jew miraculously survived and turned up at his home wanting it back. A few hundred maybe were killed. You can't write off the post-war violence as just part of a civil war, either, as Chodakiewicz does (Chodakiewicz and Gontarczyk are apologists for the extreme right). The Jewish death rate - maybe 500 per 100,000 - was far higher than the Polish rate, somewhere around 100 per 100,000. So the antisemites and the people Chodakiewicz defends don't get off the hook, civil war or no civil war. There was specifically antisemitic violence, no way around it. But does complicity of the Polish nation in the Holocaust follow from that? I don't think so.<BR/><BR/>Goldhagen was deservedly sent packing (Hilberg said about him, charitably, something like "nice kid, someday he'll write a good book". Gross on the other hand gets to be a celebrity. Howcum? Well, actually, Goldhagen was something of a celebrity in Germany as well, and won some national prize for his book - because politically, it was hard for German intellectuals to criticize him without sounding like German apologists. Especially after the Historikerstreit. So predictably, German historians split on left-right lines and the left defended Goldhagen. Same in Poland. It was the non-German historians, like Browning and Hilberg, who told Goldhagen to take a hike. And it will have to be the non-Polish historians - like me - who do the same to Gross. <BR/><BR/>If I have time, which is doubtful.WilliamOccamensishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03827191174386532162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-70760570024219515622008-01-28T08:02:00.000+01:002008-01-28T08:02:00.000+01:00An actual debate with Gross is not likely to happe...An actual debate with Gross is not likely to happen. Gross was invited on two occasions to a debate with Chodakiewicz on "Warto Rozmawiac" during his visit to Poland to which he responded with a list of historians he would like exclusively invited. I can't say who Gross had in mind, it wasn't said.<BR/><BR/>In light of this, I don't expect any objectivity in debates involving Gross but I'm curious to see the participants.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-88225133326668859542008-01-20T18:12:00.000+01:002008-01-20T18:12:00.000+01:00the biggest engine of anti-semitism is found in is...the biggest engine of anti-semitism is found in israel itself...the toleration of israelis of the way normal (not gun-toting, rocket launching) palestinians are being (mis)treated and dehumanized there...~JShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318349312539399227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-30642983322687319152008-01-20T16:42:00.000+01:002008-01-20T16:42:00.000+01:00You have been making the argument that Finkelstein...You have been making the argument that Finkelstein's mother was a Polish communist, shit-for-brains. The facts do not present themselves. You need to present proof of the ridiculous statements you make. You can't. You are a jackass. Do something useful like go audition for that sequel to the movie The Thirty Year Old Virgin.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-10185664370062458952008-01-20T15:44:00.000+01:002008-01-20T15:44:00.000+01:00GeezWho is arguing with you? You are an imbecile w...Geez<BR/><BR/>Who is arguing with you? You are an imbecile who doesn't know common facts. Try reading on your own and the facts will present themselves. Go <BR/>ahead and check those facts on your own.beakerkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06088967209404588378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-14958596663492832462008-01-20T07:08:00.000+01:002008-01-20T07:08:00.000+01:00I am not your errand boy. You can find the facts a...<I>I am not your errand boy. You can find the facts about Finky's parents on the web if you look. Finky's communism is also well covered as well.</I><BR/><BR/>Not very convicing, are you? I argument the burden of proof is with those who are making the argument. Loser.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-5897192368006457342008-01-20T02:35:00.000+01:002008-01-20T02:35:00.000+01:00GeezYou have no life. You are Beatroot's cyber toa...Geez<BR/><BR/>You have no life. You are Beatroot's cyber toady. Now serve some Koolaide<BR/>and run along. Imbeciles are meant to <BR/>be seen and not heard.beakerkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06088967209404588378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-42823205102799555242008-01-19T23:38:00.000+01:002008-01-19T23:38:00.000+01:00Nine of every ten politicians keep their fingers u...Nine of every ten politicians keep their fingers up their asses and only take 'em out when they are taking money.<BR/><BR/>You can find the facts about politicians on the web if you look. The bit about their fingers is also well covered as well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-48551824174158122712008-01-19T21:41:00.000+01:002008-01-19T21:41:00.000+01:00Oh Beakytwit, your endless excuses are pathetic.Yo...Oh Beakytwit, your endless excuses are pathetic.<BR/><BR/>You cannot substantiate your claims. <BR/><BR/>Checkmate, again.<BR/><BR/>You are the biggest cyberloser I've ever come across in my cyberlife.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-15174005136610524052008-01-19T20:48:00.000+01:002008-01-19T20:48:00.000+01:00GeezI am not your errand boy. You can find the fac...Geez<BR/><BR/>I am not your errand boy. You can find the facts about Finky's parents on the web if you look. Finky's communism is also well covered as well.<BR/><BR/>You do not have the IQ to jerk anyone around. The best you can do is serve Beatroot his Koolaide in the Salon and act as his court jester.beakerkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06088967209404588378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-15930149211651945522008-01-19T20:17:00.000+01:002008-01-19T20:17:00.000+01:00But why did you assume that Tusk's finger had to c...But why did you assume that Tusk's finger had to come out of his bottom? I meant his nose. Or maybe ears?beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-77901754400623997912008-01-19T19:47:00.000+01:002008-01-19T19:47:00.000+01:00Yea, like if Donald Tusk is going to take his fing...<I>Yea, like if Donald Tusk is going to take his finger out of his ass.</I><BR/><BR/>Prawda!<BR/><BR/>But it is true that Civic Platform are boring. I have been watching them since the election, hoping that massive personalities would emerge, like a Kaczynski, a Giertych, a Lepper. But nothing. Blogging about Poland has got much harder. That's why I am going to be a bit more international this year.beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-10831623700954970382008-01-19T19:33:00.000+01:002008-01-19T19:33:00.000+01:00Actually, George Soros pays me quite handsomely to...Actually, George Soros pays me quite handsomely to jerk you around, Sneakerskin.<BR/><BR/>Hey could you at least try to come up with some substantiation to your claim that Finkelstein's parents were Polish communists?<BR/><BR/>You've been asked about twenty times already, directly and indirectly. And please don't just cite some other knucklehead who says it's a well-known fact.<BR/><BR/>Too bad about Rudy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-90900838224607751702008-01-19T14:52:00.000+01:002008-01-19T14:52:00.000+01:00BeatrootScratch an anti-semite and you willsmell t...Beatroot<BR/><BR/>Scratch an anti-semite and you will<BR/>smell the stench of Finkelstein.<BR/><BR/>Obviously, you do care about America and link it to policies in Poland you disagree with. Why not just focus on Polish issues in the context of Poland? Moreover, you should also ditch the imperial tone towards Poles. <BR/><BR/><BR/>Has the organ grinder found a job for Geez? Is this what he does between stints in the park collecting change?beakerkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06088967209404588378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-15034898110585146352008-01-19T14:18:00.000+01:002008-01-19T14:18:00.000+01:00There is much more interesting things going on in ...<I>There is much more interesting things going on in the world of politics than the personality contest that is US politics.</I><BR/><BR/>Yea, like if Donald Tusk is going to take his finger out of his ass.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-89542190283799611962008-01-19T14:13:00.000+01:002008-01-19T14:13:00.000+01:00Could Beakewoot be the iwwegitimate offspwing of F...Could Beakewoot be the iwwegitimate offspwing of Finklewotsit? Is that the weason for such obsession? Mwy Gawd! Then he'd be cawwying the communist gene!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-71777252820950946632008-01-19T10:13:00.000+01:002008-01-19T10:13:00.000+01:00The Beatroot is also well aware that Comwad Finkel...<I>The Beatroot is also well aware that Comwad Finkelstein ...</I><BR/><BR/>I know this will come as a bit of a shock to some Americans, but I have never heard of Finklewotsit, nor am I particularly interested in what goes on in the US. There is much more interesting things going on in the world of politics than the personality contest that is US politics.beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-23573541047578966262008-01-19T09:48:00.000+01:002008-01-19T09:48:00.000+01:00BeatrootFinkelstein presents his mothers off the w...Beatroot<BR/><BR/>Finkelstein presents his mothers off the wall statements as being " the views of a typical Holocaust survivor". Finkelstein leaves out the part that his mother was a dedicated<BR/>Stalinist. <BR/><BR/>The Beatroot is also well aware that Comwad Finkelstein often quotes his mother. His father was a well known fellow traveler.beakerkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06088967209404588378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-31815563297717161612008-01-19T00:42:00.000+01:002008-01-19T00:42:00.000+01:00"One drop rule:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_dr..."One drop rule:<BR/><BR/>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule<BR/><BR/>I hadn't heard of that being used in Poland about Jews though. I wouldn't be surprised if some idiots think that way but it's not the consensus AFAICT (if it were I'd say the percentage of the population that is 'Jewish' is in the doublt digits)"<BR/><BR/>To be honest I'd say that the percentage that is "Jewish" under that criteria is in the triple digits..... And similarly for the percentage of Polish Jews that are Catholic.....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-85644091607782703012008-01-19T00:36:00.000+01:002008-01-19T00:36:00.000+01:00"The one-drop thing is only a USA thing.. very pop..."The one-drop thing is only a USA thing.. very popular with bean counters and census takers." HUH?????<BR/>It refers to the fact that before desegregation even if you were only 1/16th black you were still considered 'colored'... <BR/><BR/>jannowak57 said: "I would be curious at the response I would receive, if I presented myself in Israel and demanded citizenship based on these criteria." Well.. Jan, I think they would look long and hard for ways not to turn you away... As someone from the Israeli immigration agency told me many years ago "we need young, light-skinned man." Look at what happened few years later after the breakup of the USSR - thousands of 'light-skinned', non-Jewish Russians were allowed to immigrate to Israel without any proof of their jewishness other than personal statements to that effect.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08630147794309755529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-37252003725761643392008-01-18T23:37:00.000+01:002008-01-18T23:37:00.000+01:00The one-drop thing is only a USA thing.. very popu...The one-drop thing is only a USA thing.. very popular with bean counters and census takers.<BR/>Being a kind of bookstore junkie, I've never heard of this book (FEAR) until I read this post. I will pick it up and read it if I can find it. Maybe it does'nt sell well here in the USA, I don't know. It could be that readers may have suffered a kind of over-exposure with all the excellent books, movies and other media covering the Holocaust. It is'nt the most uplifting of subjects and average folks here may feel somewhat removed from its historical significance due to its geographical separation. I just hope that the Holocaust's underlying lessons are not forgotten as its memory fades in the course of time.romanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15988548647887978919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-48348348672964580772008-01-18T19:13:00.000+01:002008-01-18T19:13:00.000+01:00I am a little confused about this One Drop Thing.I am a little confused about this One Drop Thing.beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.com