Auschwitz not Jewish enough?!

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Edited by: 1jola Nov 11, 10, 15:42 #1

This is from 7 Nov 2010 edition of the Toronto Star.

A Jewish activist, Avi Benlolo, does not like the flowers people bring to the wall where Polish prisoners were executed. In the recent past, Jews have pushed for removal of crosses fro Auschwitz and won, the removal of Karmelitan nuns and won, and now KL Auschwitz is just not Jewish enough. The fact that Toronto Star prints this slanderous article is currently forbiden on PF, so you risk suspention to discuss it.

The curators and leadership of its museum and sites have a sacred responsibility to ensure substantive context about the rise and fall of Nazism does not continue to be ignored. Greater attention must be given to the truth about Auschwitz — that it was mainly a Jewish death camp.

Germany gets it.

Now it’s time for Poland to face reality.

You can read the rest of this filth here:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/886863--story- of-auschwitz-strangely-incomplete

Please, quote freely from it.

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Edited by: delphiandomine Nov 11, 10, 15:52 #2

1jola:

You can read the rest of this filth here:

There's a surprise - you describing a Jewish issue as "filth".

Not a surprise though, you selectively quoted from the article and made it seem as if Jews want it to be a solely Jewish memorial site. Of course, the actual article points out some of the problems (that you haven't mentioned) - such as Jewish prisoners not being mentioned by name, the way that the site reflects the Communist vision of what it was and others.

You just can't stop your little attacks on Jews, can you?

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Edited by: 1jola Nov 11, 10, 16:01 #3

The Toronto Star published this retort from Hanna Sokolski, Media Relations, Canadian Polish Congress, Toronto:

"One need only go to the official website of the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau ( http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m) to see how baseless and perverse are Avi Benlolo’s charges directed against the museum, in particular, as well as against Poland and the Poles.

The tragedy of the Jews is set out very clearly and fully. However, there is more to the story than Avi Benlolo wishes to acknowledge. The Holocaust did not start in Auschwitz, as he claims. Auschwitz was built in 1940 as a concentration camp for Christian Poles. Of the 150,000 Polish inmates, half perished. To commemorate these victims is not merely a display of “nationalism.”

The vast majority of the 900,000 Jews who perished were killed by the Germans in the nearby death camp of Birkenau, which did not start its operation until 1942. They were mostly foreign Jews, because the largest death camp for Polish Jews was Treblinka.

After the fall of Communism, the entire museum had to be reorganized and the past was carefully researched and meticulously documented. The scholarship is a model of historical integrity.

The history of Polish Jews and the Holocaust is also explored in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is being built in Warsaw and paid for by the Poles. That museum’s remarkable website is also available in English (jewishmuseum.org.pl/en/cms/home-page).

Avi Benlolo’s insinuations that Poles continue to share the views of the Soviet-imposed regime are not only ugly and divisive, they discredit the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies. It does not deserve friends like that. Nor do Canadians."

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/887685--in- defence-of-auschwitz-museum

The communist vision was this lie:

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Nov 11, 10, 17:25 #4

I see Mr. Benlolo is obsessed with his Jewishness, and possibly mental. Holocaust business is competitive, so he feels he has to be a go getter:

Tablet reports on an effort by the Canadian Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to ban the book The Shepherd's Granddaughter from a program run by the Ontario Library Association for 7th and 8th graders:

The book was published in 2008 to mostly good reviews and little controversy. But when it was nominated to the 2010 Forest of Reading list, the uproar began. Canadian Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded that the book be “made unavailable” to students. “The Simon Wiesenthal Center does not promote censorship,” said president Avi Benlolo, “but the issue is that this book is so skewed and so overtly against the State of Israel. … Any school child who reads the book will grow to hate the State of Israel and possibly the Jewish people.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/04/suddenly-in-vogue-book-banning-spreads-t o-canada.html

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Edited by: Trevek Nov 12, 10, 10:02 #5

Now. with reference top the above photo, the recognised death toll at Auschwitz is now around 1.5 million. Is this Holocaust denial?

I wonder if this chap has ever been to Oswiecim, the town... with it's synagogue, Jewish graveyard and Jewish history/study centre...

The barrack he refers to, with the pictures, is in Auschwitz 1, which was a predominantly Polish/political camp. Has he visited Birkenau (where the main Jewish camp and extermination centre was), with it's Jewish memorial? perhaps the reason he could only find one Jewish name was because many Jews had similar names to Polish names! Strange thing, there is a similar activist who claimed there were no children in Auschwitz... (compalining about the book/film "Boy in the Striped Pyjamas"), when there is a whole wall full of them in Auschwitz 1.

I was recently in Stutthof, where there was a very detailed exhibition about the rise of nazism, and a Jewish memorial (even tho' most of the inmates weren't Jewish).

Krakow has Jewish study centres, synagogues and a Jewish centre/festival. I fail to see how he thinks nazism is overlooked in Poland.

This guy is just a publicity seeker.

delphiandomineThreads: 42 Posts: 9,954 Joined: Nov 25, 08 ♂ [Suspended]	Nov 12, 10, 10:52 #6
Trevek: This guy is just a publicity seeker. Both sides are guilty of this, I think. Jews are prone to being sensationalist, and Poles are prone to completely overreacting instead of simply ignoring them.

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Nov 12, 10, 11:07 #7

For example, of the hundreds of pictures of victims (all Polish political prisoners) lining the walls of one of the exhibit barracks, only one Jewish name can be easily identified. The pictures have been hanging there since the 1950s, reflective of the political history the Communists wanted to project

The man may be blind or didn't take the time to look at the pictures.

One answer can be found at the “shooting wall” where Polish political and military leaders were executed. It has become a symbolic place of Polish nationalism. Its importance (over other spots in the camp) is quantified by the piles of flowers lining its walls and the Polish flag flying high above.

Lets see, the majority of visitors are Poles...Prominent Poles were executed there. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

It's a terrible op-ed. You are required to do the Auschwitz tour with a guide (for the majority of the opening hours), and they make it a point to mention Jews and Poles and Polish Jews in just about every sentence to the point where it becomes nauseating. At Birkenau, the photos on the signs tell the story of the Hungarian Jews.

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Nov 12, 10, 11:13 #8

convex:

and they make it a point to mention Jews and Poles and Polish Jews in just about every sentence to the point where it becomes nauseating

There seems to be a minority of American/Canadian Jews that feel that Auschwitz should only mention Jewish people and no-one else. I've read the same stuff on a blog elsewhere - some American Jewish guy was *very* upset that the Poles mentioned their own people at Auschwitz. They seem to be a minority, but the typical mouthy minority.

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Edited by: Trevek Nov 12, 10, 12:39 #9

convex:

Lets see, the majority of visitors are Poles...Prominent Poles were executed there. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

Fr Maximillian Kolbe was executed in the death block... perhaps he would object to that being mentioned to as MK was supposedly anti-semitic.

I note he doesn't mention that in the main exhibitions there is very little specific info about other groups who died... because they have detailed exhibitions in different blocks. Or isn't it important, cos they aren't...?

delphiandomine:

There seems to be a minority of American/Canadian Jews that feel that Auschwitz should only mention Jewish people and no-one else. I've read the same stuff on a blog elsewhere - some American Jewish guy was *very* upset that the Poles mentioned their own people at Auschwitz. They seem to be a minority, but the typical mouthy minority.

A lot of it stems from the term "Holocaust", which is often seen as a uniquely Jewish experience. Some of these guys claim only the Jewish experience matters because it was unique (ie nobody else was persecuted solely for their ethnicity... Gypsies don't count, of course).

The problem is that being mouthy is how minorities get noticed.

BzibziohThreads: 6 Posts: 3,657 Joined: Oct 15, 08 ♀ [Suspended]	Edited by: Bzibzioh Nov 12, 10, 13:29 #10
Trevek: Fr Maximillian Kolbe was executed in the death block One tiny quibble: he wasn't executed, he died in hunger cellar starved to death. At the very end he was given a shot of poison because he stubbornly refused to die.

TrevekThreads: 33 Posts: 2,155 Joined: May 21, 08 ♂	Nov 12, 10, 17:11 #11
Bzibzioh: At the very end he was given a shot of poison because he stubbornly refused to die. So, should I say "euthanised"?

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Nov 12, 10, 17:49 #12

I don't find the article offensive, except for the last line, which sounds like a threat ("time for Poland to face reality"). His need to "educate" Poles about Auschwitz seems misplaced. Are Poles unaware that 90% were Jews? Let's order some surveys and find out before we launch an "education campaign".

For a guy who wants to educate people, his own knowledge is lacking. He says "Auschwitz was the answer to the final solution." No, the answer to the "final solution" directive from Wannsee was Operation Reinhard, conducted in Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, not Auschwitz. That's where most of the Polish Jews were killed (1.7M) in 1942/43.

Calling the flowers at the Death Wall (not a 'shooting wall') a symbol of Polish 'nationalism' is tacky. Are the flowers on JFK's grave a symbol of American 'nationalism'?

The constant death toll revisions indeed seem to be playing into the hands of Holocaust deniers. Before 1989, the death toll was 4M. In 1990 when the first post-Communist revisions were made, the figure was 1.5M (I think this number is still on the monument that replaced the 4M one). In the early 2000's, the figure dropped to 1.25M. Now (see article) the figure is 1M. I can easily imagine some Holocaust deniers smiling to themselves: "let's wait 20 more years till the official numbers drop down to what we've been claiming all along".

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Nov 12, 10, 18:07 #13

Sandman:

I don't find the article offensive, except for the last line, which sounds like a threat ("time for Poland to face reality"). His need to "educate" Poles about Auschwitz seems misplaced. Are Poles unaware that 90% were Jews? Let's order some surveys and find out before we launch an "education campaign".

I think the main problem is his assumption that people in Poland are not aware of WW2, whereas that is certainly not the case. Also, as the reply letter says, by making those claims he is ignoring a number of points about the history of the Holocaust and Auschwitz's role in it.

Fot someone of his status he seems a little to ignorant of some of these points... or is he just trying to stir things up?

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Nov 13, 10, 00:29 #14

delphiandomine:

There seems to be a minority of American/Canadian Jews that feel that Auschwitz should only mention Jewish people and no-one else.

A crushing majority of jews believe that jewish victims deserve more recognition than non jews, there is an active movement to belittle other victims, even our resident jew yehudi tried to do this multiple times, he's a polite f*ckwart but still a f*ckwart.

Jews are by and large self centered racist pieces of sh*t who believe their victims somehow deserve more memory than anyone else, this is of course to various degrees, some like the guy mentioned here are blatant in their racism towards non-jews, others like yehudi are only mildly chauvinistic, doest change the fact they're all twats.

dtaylor5632Threads: 49 Posts: 4,459 Joined: May 2, 09 ♂	Nov 13, 10, 00:53 #15
Sok, did you find the bottle again?

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Nov 13, 10, 01:21 #16

Trevek:

I think the main problem is his assumption that people in Poland are not aware of WW2, whereas that is certainly not the case.

Strange thing but I've met some Jewish people in Canada and most of them, after hearing that I'm Polish, felt necessary to educate me about Holocaust. They were convinced that I know next to nothing on the matter. So I always ask them a few pointed questions proving that the one clueless are they themselves, not me. My favorite question is "Do you know how many people managed to escape from Auschwitz?" and the answer is always shocked "Someone did?!?!". They react very emotionally to the subject but their knowledge is negligible.

POLENGGGsThreads: 5 Posts: 211 Joined: Apr 26, 10 ♂	Nov 13, 10, 13:01 #17
As a Pole I say V for Victory are you happy OP ?

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Nov 13, 10, 15:11 #18

dtaylor5632:

Sok, did you find the bottle again?

C'mom taylor you know its true, whenever we bump into jews and jewish subjects these guys have a permanently stretched out hand, they demand we pay money we dont owe, apologize for things we didnt do.

Loads of Jews hate Poles and even those that dont hate Poles are obnoxious chauvinistics cvnts, i dont give a sh*t about holocaust and the fact that they attempt to tell us how to run our own country ticks me off, what ticks me off even more is that they attempt to be "righteous" about it insulting us with a massive stick up their arse at the same time being one of the most evil fascist countries in the world.

Read some of the stuff yehudii writes, even the reasonable ones like him are ultimately messed up.

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Edited by: joepilsudski Nov 13, 10, 17:57 #19

1jola:

A Jewish activist, Avi Benlolo, does not like the flowers people bring to the wall where Polish prisoners were executed. In the recent past, Jews have pushed for removal of crosses fro Auschwitz and won, the removal of Carmelita nuns and won, and now KL Auschwitz is just not Jewish enough. The fact that Toronto Star prints this slanderous article is currently forbidden on PF, so you risk suspension to discuss it.

Auschwitz should be tossed into the dustbin of history, literally, in my opinion...A simple memorial there including all ethnic groups should be substituted...This place should not be a tourist trap, or a place for negative brainwashing of children.

Of course, Poland will not tear it down, as they are afraid of an attack by Israelis, whether military, financial or both.

Some 'cynics' have made the point that Jews have two motivations in life: Accumulation of money, and complaining.

The Jews I know are much more level headed, they just want to be regarded as individual people...However, Zionist leadership insures that they will never forget they are 'Jews' and under the 'elders' boot heel.

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