sjam: Although some have argued that the Maze prison holding IRA prisoners became a concentration camp but I am not so sure it was.
irish republicans often refer to the camps set up during the Internment Programme of the early 1970's (Operation Motorman, I believe) as 'concentration camps', which they were in the original sense. The thing is that post 1945 it also has connotations with nazi camps.
caprice49: Both Ukrainians and Poles are perpetrators and victims simultaneously. They are not the only ones. Alas the Jews too are not blameless. Perhaps we should accept that all nationalities were perpertrators and instead of all this bickering let's have a day where we all apologise to each other for our ancestors acts. Squabbling only increases tension, and recreates hatreds.
It is interesting to note that before 1939 many Polish ethnologists spent a lot of time amongst groups such as the Hutsul and Lemko, showing how they spoke a dialect of polish and were really Polish. Come 1947 and Akcja Wisla, they were classed as speaking a dialect of Ukrainian and transported!
Reading an account of the Soviet writer, Vasily Grossman's experiences as a war correspondence. One of the points he makes is that many Ukrainians joined the nazis because they were seen as liberators from the Soviets (for some, the crosses on the vehicles suggested they were christian liberators against the anti-christ Sovs). He also points out that many Ukrainians (he was from Ukraine) assisted with persecution of Jews (his mother included).
Knowing the Ukrainians and Poles had past issues, it was of no surprise that the nazis let their Ukrainians off the leash to do their dirty work. It would show the 'savagery of slavs', as opposed to the civilised germans (haha!).
Personally, I think an open debate about the roles of all nations should be carried out, in the aim of 'peace and reconsiliation'. easy for me to say, as a brit, because we've never done anything wrong anywhere in the world, have we?
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