sjam: We can read: As for the perpetrators, although the Soviets led the way,55 they found many eager Polish collaborators. Although no thorough search has been undertaken in the secret police personal files nationwide, the evidence accumulated here suggests that most of the functionaries of the Communist terror apparatus were ethnic Poles of lower class origin. The witnesses mention but a few Jewish Communist perpetrators.Harry: Perhaps you would like to rethink your argument. No thinking required—seems it's all in 1jola's selective copy and pasting :-) I'm out milk, but here is a biscuit,
Since you are quoting from the same article I quoted from, you know that I have read the article. Here is the article again:
As for the perpetrators, although the Soviets led the way,[55] they found many eager Polish collaborators. Although no thorough search has been undertaken in the secret police personal files nationwide, the evidence accumulated here suggests that most of the functionaries of the Communist terror apparatus were ethnic Poles of lower class origin. The witnesses mention but a few Jewish Communist perpetrators.[56]
The little 56 means a note. You have to scroll down to read it. It says:
[56] This seems to have been the case especially in the countryside but to a lesser extent on the central command level. See Chapter Six, “The Local Elite under Soviet Rule, 1944-1947,” and Chapter Eight, “Ethnic Minorities under Soviet Occupation, 1944-1947,” in Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets: A Case Study of Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003) From the same author:
In our sample below we have documented more than 500 cases of torture. Almost all victims described below were ethnic Poles and Catholics, save for a single Jewish man. One hundred and fifty four victims are identified by name, including 21 women. Most of the victims of torture, except for some of the youngest ones, were involved in both the anti-Nazi and anti-Communist struggle from 1939. The victims were subjected at least to 49 types of torture. Twelve prisoners were tortured to death, while 8 were shot immediately after the torture sessions (usually following a sham trial). Eight prisoners, including three women, withstood the torture, refused to confess, and survived their ordeal. In 143 (out of 154) cases the prisoners broke down and confessed their real and alleged “crimes.” Hence, our research strongly suggests that torture served its intended purpose,[53] a few exceptions notwithstanding.[54] Besides, this deals with interogation. This doesn't:
As Professor Krystyna Kersten has noted perceptively, the independentist insurgents and the parliamentary opposition were the chief “reactionaries.” Significantly, “reactionary” was synonymous with “bandit,” “traitor,” “fascist,” “Hitlerite,” “anti-Semite,” and “Jew-killer.” Whoever killed Jews was not just a traitor, but also “an agent of Hitler.” Anybody who opposed the Communists was also a potential “Jew-killer,” or at least could be accused of such terrible anti-Semitic deeds, and, hence, branded “a Nazi collaborator.” This was a convenient propaganda device commonly employed to dupe the West into believing that the opponents of the Communists were pro-Nazi and that the brutal crushing of the independentist insurrection and the parliamentary opposition in Poland was simply a mop-up operation which fittingly concluded the anti-German struggles of the Second World War. This was also a useful tool to rally the population behind the Communists in meting out justice to alleged Polish “Hitlerites.”[45] (The trick was further intended to endear the proxy regime to the Jewish community at home and abroad.)[46] Now, remember that notes are important?
46] This propaganda ploy therefore required that the Communists effusively play the role of the sole protectors of the Jewish people. On April 17, 1949, the head of the proxy regime in Warsaw, Bolesław Bierut, cynically informed a visiting Jewish-American delegation that “killing a Jew is ten times more of a crime than ordinary killing” and vowed to punish severely anyone responsible for crimes against the Jews. See Joseph Tenenbaum, In Search of A Lost People: The Old and the New Poland (New York: The Beechhurst Press, 1948), 227.
Numerous other so-called “pro-Jewish” statements were routinely made to that effect by the Communist officials and the regime-controlled media. See also Simon Segal, “Eastern Europe,” The American Jewish Yearbook, 5705, vol. 46: September 18, 1944 to September 7, 1945, ed. by Harry Schneiderman (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1944), 240-44; Now, what were we talking about?
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