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The Media's Slander of Poland. Ignorance, Lazy Editing or Malicious Libel?


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MediaWatchThreads: 31
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 Oct 25, 10, 21:46    #1
The Media's Slander of Poland. Ignorance, Lazy Editing or Malicious Libel?

By Alex Storozynski on the HuffingtonPost.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-storozynski/the-medias-slander-of-p ol_b_773173.html


This is a great article on Anti-Polish Slander in the media by Mr. Storozynski.

Especially about the use of the LIE "Polish death camps"

The media people who use it claim they say it to imply LOCATION of the Nazi death camps.

If that's the case, why don't they call terrorist attacks inside Israel (against Israelis) as Israeli terrorist attacks? Afterall the LOCATION was Israel?

Why don't they say "American terrorist attacks" for the 911 terrorist attacks that were LOCATED in America? Anyone with a fair mind knows why they don't call these attacks LOCATED in Israel or America by their LOCATION names. Its because it would be misleading as to who committed them.

The same should apply for the big LIE description of Nazi German concentration camps placed in Poland by the Nazi Germans that the anti-Polish media calls "Polish concentration camps".

warszawskiThreads: 60
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 Oct 25, 10, 22:20    #2
MediaWatch:
The same should apply for the big LIE description of Nazi German concentration camps placed in Poland by the Nazi Germans that the anti-Polish media calls "Polish concentration camps".


Many people are influenced by what they hear or read in the media. In this politically correct world. Then it gets my vote.
CrowThreads: 367
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 Oct 25, 10, 22:36    #3
MediaWatch:
Especially about the use of the LIE "Polish death camps"

eh? Poles also got their `death camps`?

a lot of had been invested in a hoax news in case with `Serbian death camps` and `Serbian concentration camps`.

Why are such a news in case with Serbs and Poles, needed? Who need those lies?
convexThreads: 46
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Edited by: convex  Oct 25, 10, 23:16    #4
MediaWatch:
My only point is that Polonia and Poles in Poland don't like hearing anti-Polish bigotry like the "Polish built the Nazi German death camps". Is that too hard for you to understand? Oh probably yes....

But it doesn't say that. The media also reports about Afghan terror camps too :) It's just stupidity, not slander. Call them out on the death camp bit. We also hear slanderous terms thrown about like Lodz Ghetto and Warsaw Ghetto...
zetigrekThreads: 59
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 Oct 26, 10, 00:03    #5
Actually does it really affect the society knoledge about the Holocaust? Have you ever met a person who said that Poles were running concetration camps? Actually it would sound a bit unbelivable if you had...
SeanusThreads: 22
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 Oct 26, 10, 00:27    #6
Travel more and you'll meet such wackos, Zeti. People will try and pin all manner of things on Poles and I'd have my hairs up if I were a Pole that knew history (as most do).
convexThreads: 46
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Edited by: convex  Oct 26, 10, 00:31    #7
Seanus:
Travel more and you'll meet such wackos, Zeti. People will try and pin all manner of things on Poles and I'd have my hairs up if I were a Pole that knew history (as most do).

At least in the US, most people don't care much about Poland at all (that's not meant to be offensive, just how it is...most Poles don't know much about Argentina either!). "Nazi", "Holocaust", "Concentration Camp" has always been equated with Hitler and Germany. Then you mention that Hitler came from Austria and you get a bunch of strange looks. But that's beside the point...
SeanusThreads: 22
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 Oct 26, 10, 00:35    #8
True. Still, at least Poland sounds good to a Pole when said by an American. Scatland (Scotland) is just horrible when said by sb from Wisconsin or another northern place. The land of scat, lol (happy there is scat music)

Media's slander of Poland? Specific examples please. I notice the good, the bad and the ugly. The way the media often is.

It may just be Polish defensiveness. Maybe ;)

Anyway, off to bed. Night y'all :)
guesswhoThreads: 23
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Edited by: guesswho  Oct 26, 10, 00:36    #9
convex:
Then you mention that Hitler came from Austria and you get a bunch of strange looks.


If this the only type of Americans you know then I don't want to know where you were growing up. Just a few days ago I had a conversation about the Holocaust with my direct neighbor and she knew that Hitler was an Austrian.

Seanus:
The land of scat, lol (happy there is scat music)


Tell me that you're joking now
HarryThreads: 62
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 Oct 26, 10, 00:43    #10
zetigrek:
Have you ever met a person who said that Poles were running concetration camps? Actually it would sound a bit unbelivable if you had...

I've met plenty of such people: they are called 'historians'. Poland did indeed run concentration camps before 1939 and after 1945. The confusion between those and Nazi camps in occupied Poland is something which some people exploit in order to whitewash Poland.
nottThreads: 6
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 Oct 26, 10, 01:09    #11
Harry:
The confusion between those and Nazi camps


Only 'historians' do confuse those camps, Harry.
warszawskiThreads: 60
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 Oct 26, 10, 01:36    #12
nott:
. Poland did indeed run concentration camps before 1939 and after 1945
If we take the words concentration camp in the literal sense to mean, a camp where large numbers of persons—such as political prisoners, prisoners of war, refugees—are detained for the purpose of concentrating them in one place, then so did the British during WW1 and WW2, on the Isle of man they concentrated large numbers of jews in two camps as political detainees for the duration of the war.

nott:
Only 'historians' do confuse those camps


In order not to confuse the name should be changed from Nazi concentration camps to Nazi death camps, because that is exactly what they were.
HarryThreads: 62
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 Oct 26, 10, 09:24    #13
warszawski:
In order not to confuse the name should be changed from Nazi concentration camps to Nazi death camps, because that is exactly what they were.

No: Nazi death camps were not the same as Nazi concentration camps. Dachau, Auschwitz and Buchenwald were picnics compared to Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka.
1jolaThreads: 33
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Edited by: 1jola  Oct 26, 10, 09:44    #14
This is an on-going issue that would end if the Polish goverment or a Polish organization finally sued the Wall Street Jouirnal or the New York Times. I am glad that Jewish voices are present on this issue for a change. Here is the issue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Polish_death_camp%22_controversy and a recent article by Alex Storozynski in the Huffington Post:

The New York-born Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, says, "Accusing Poles of participation in the Holocaust is a sin." Yet on a regular basis, American journalists do just that by calling Auschwitz a "Polish concentration camp." This is Holocaust revisionism.

The Nazi concentration camps were built by Germans, run by Germans, and guarded by Germans. The victims of those camps were Polish. Newspaper editors justify use of the term "Polish concentration camp" as geographical shorthand for "a German concentration camp in occupied Poland." But this shorthand is Orwellian doublespeak that turns victim into perpetrator and distorts history. It perpetuates ignorance about the Holocaust and gives impressionable readers the idea that Poles built the camps. The Auschwitz killing factory was a product of German engineering, and both Polish Jews and Catholics were murdered there.

The New York-born Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, says, "Accusing Poles of participation in the Holocaust is a sin." Yet on a regular basis, American journalists do just that by calling Auschwitz a "Polish concentration camp." This is Holocaust revisionism.

The Nazi concentration camps were built by Germans, run by Germans, and guarded by Germans. The victims of those camps were Polish. Newspaper editors justify use of the term "Polish concentration camp" as geographical shorthand for "a German concentration camp in occupied Poland." But this shorthand is Orwellian doublespeak that turns victim into perpetrator and distorts history. It perpetuates ignorance about the Holocaust and gives impressionable readers the idea that Poles built the camps. The Auschwitz killing factory was a product of German engineering, and both Polish Jews and Catholics were murdered there.
[...]
The Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita has published editorials calling for legal action against newspapers that use these defamatory phrases. But it doesn't have to end this way. Newspaper publishers and the Associated Press can easily rectify this situation by changing their stylebooks to banish the phrase "Polish concentration camps."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-storozynski/the-medias-slander-of-p ol_b_773173.html

A lawsuit would be enough for BBC, LA Times, NYT, WSJ and others to get it right. Will our MSZ finaly do something or is Stefan Komar going to be the only visible voice?

A New York policeman of Polish origin has launched a campaign against the Wall Street Journal for using the expression “Polish concentration camps” in two recent stories.

http://www.thenews.pl/international/artykul133723_polish-concentration -camp-headlines-enrage-nypd-cop.html

An insightful article in his column:

The phrase "Polish Concentration Camps" is often used by the mass media to describe death camps run by the German Nazi party. This permits the dissemination of the belief that the Poles were in some way responsible for carrying out the Holocaust. Even if some portion of readers is aware that this is untrue, a large number of citizens of the Western world have little knowledge of historical fact, and may come to wrongful conclusions. A good example of the poor level of historical knowledge among American students was documented by Edmund Lewandowski in the San Francisco Bay Area Polish American Community Newsletter in Santa Clara County, California. Lewandowski interviewed a group of high school students in 1998, showing them a picture of a concentration camp guard and asking "Who were the Nazis?" The response was shocking. The students overwhelmingly claimed that the Nazis were Poles.


http://www.nypdpulaskiassoc.org/history-concentration-camp.htm
convexThreads: 46
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 Oct 26, 10, 09:45    #15
Harry:
No: Nazi death camps were not the same as Nazi concentration camps. Dachau, Auschwitz and Buchenwald were picnics compared to Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka.

Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were never KZs, always death camps as a result of Aktion Reinhardt.

Auschwitz I was a KZ, and always classified as such, Auschwitz II was built as a vernichtungslager from the start.
zetigrekThreads: 59
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Edited by: zetigrek  Oct 26, 10, 10:12    #16
Harry:
I've met plenty of such people: they are called 'historians'. Poland did indeed run concentration camps before 1939 and after 1945. The confusion between those and Nazi camps in occupied Poland is something which some people exploit in order to whitewash Poland.


But not for Jews, Harry. Do you always have to make all those malicious remarks? And you wonder why ppl accuse you of being anti-polish.

Seanus:
True. Still, at least Poland sounds good to a Pole when said by an American.


what about Polack jokes then? ;)
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Edited by: 1jola  Oct 26, 10, 10:49    #17
Ignore him. This is the larger issue :

A good example of the poor level of historical knowledge among American students was documented by Edmund Lewandowski in the San Francisco Bay Area Polish American Community Newsletter in Santa Clara County, California. Lewandowski interviewed a group of high school students in 1998, showing them a picture of a concentration camp guard and asking "Who were the Nazis?" The response was shocking. The students overwhelmingly claimed that the Nazis were Poles.

article above.

Since you said:

zetigrek:
Actually does it really affect the society knoledge about the Holocaust? Have you ever met a person who said that Poles were running concetration camps? Actually it would sound a bit unbelivable if you had...

convexThreads: 46
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 Oct 26, 10, 10:56    #18
1jola:
A good example of the poor level of historical knowledge among American students was documented by Edmund Lewandowski in the San Francisco Bay Area Polish American Community Newsletter in Santa Clara County, California. Lewandowski interviewed a group of high school students in 1998, showing them a picture of a concentration camp guard and asking "Who were the Nazis?" The response was shocking. The students overwhelmingly claimed that the Nazis were Poles.

Curious as to how that question was phrased. Maybe highschool students in California are a bit retarded? You don't have that problem in the south of the US.
1jolaThreads: 33
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 Oct 26, 10, 11:15    #19
convex:
You don't have that problem in the south of the US.

Don't make me laugh. Walk into a Alabama high school and pose the following question; "Who are Poles?" There is good chance most will not even know what you are talking about. Don't even whip out a map, because that will embarass them even further.

convex:
Curious as to how that question was phrased.

It isn't. It was straight forward enough. Was it too long and confusing?
convexThreads: 46
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Edited by: convex  Oct 26, 10, 11:28    #20
1jola:
Don't make me laugh. Walk into a Alabama high school and pose the following question; "Who are Poles?" There is good chance most will not even know what you are talking about. Don't even whip out a map, because that will embarass them even further.

Not many in the US care who the Poles are, not important to them (that's not a slander, you and I both know it's just how it is). But, if you ask them if the Nazis were Germans or Poles, I have a good guess on which would get the nomination.

1jola:
It isn't. It was straight forward enough. Was it too long and confusing?

Yes it was very complicated for me.

1jola:
"Who were the Nazis?" The response was shocking. The students overwhelmingly claimed that the Nazis were Poles.


followed up with

1jola:
Walk into a Alabama high school and pose the following question; "Who are Poles?" There is good chance most will not even know what you are talking about.


So what you're trying to say is that high school students don't know who the Poles are, but they know they are Nazis? Bizarre. Come on, either give me ignorant about Poland all together, or brainwashed through the media that Poles were Nazis.
HarryThreads: 62
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 Oct 26, 10, 16:13    #21
1jola:
The Nazi concentration camps were built by Germans, run by Germans, and guarded by Germans.

Anybody who says that clearly knows so little about the holocaust that there's not much point in even discussing it with them.

zetigrek:
But not for Jews, Harry.

Polish Jews most certainly were sent to the pre-war version. And of course Polish Jews had more than a hand in running the post-war ones.

convex:
Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were never KZs, always death camps as a result of Aktion Reinhardt.

Not quite. Treblinka I was a labour camp, the orginal Belzec camp was also a labour camp and Sobibor was part of the Wlodawa cluster of labour camps. The only original elements which can be seen at Treblinka or Belzec are from the labour camps.
Marek11111Threads: 49
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 Oct 26, 10, 16:29    #22
Walk into a Alabama high school and pose the following question; "Who are Poles?"

Walk to any high school and ask this and you will get noting
and if you ask Harry why German shoot a Pole he will argue that German was a Pole, just anything to blame Poland ha Harry
zetigrekThreads: 59
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Edited by: zetigrek  Oct 26, 10, 17:23    #23
Harry:
Polish Jews most certainly were sent to the pre-war version. And of course Polish Jews had more than a hand in running the post-war ones.


but not because they were Jewish. Harry what's your point? What have Poles or Poland done to you that you hate us so much? We are talking about Holocaust and mentioning here Bereza is irrelevant.
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 Oct 26, 10, 17:43    #24
zetigrek:
but not because they were Jewish.

I never stated otherwise.

zetigrek:
We are talking about Holocaust and mentioning here Bereza is irrelevant.

No, we are talking about Polish concentration camps: Poland's concentration camps are not in the slightest connected to the Holocaust.

zetigrek:
What have Poles or Poland done to you that you hate us so much?

Oh look! It's the old 'anybody who states that any Poles have ever done anything which might possibly be wrong only does that because they hate Poland and all Poles' routine; how boring.
zetigrekThreads: 59
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Edited by: zetigrek  Oct 26, 10, 17:52    #25
Harry:
No, we are talking about Polish concentration camps: Poland's concentration camps are not in the slightest connected to the Holocaust.


No we are talking about useing "polish concetration camp" term in the context of Holocaust. And you know it Harry beacuse you are an intelligent man, aren't you?

Harry:
It's the old 'anybody who states that any Poles have ever done anything which might possibly be wrong only does that because they hate Poland and all Poles'


No, not in my case. Generally I'm pretty critical about Poland.

Harry:
how boring.


You're also not impressive...
FlaglessPoleThreads: 7
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 Oct 26, 10, 17:54    #26
Harry:
Oh look! It's the old 'anybody who states that any Poles have ever done anything which might possibly be wrong only does that because they hate Poland and all Poles' routine; how boring.


No but it does seem like you are on a mission here. So naturally one wonders if your mum was crippled in a pole dancing accident or something...
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Edited by: grubas  Oct 26, 10, 18:07    #27
Aren't you people tired of this kind of treads.I mean seriously how many times can you talk about Polish jokes and what Americans in the US think or say about Poland.99% of Poles in PL is not even aware of this whole thing,and I don't think they would even care if they knew.Most of them will never meet any American (and vice versa) and even if they will I don't think an American in PL would tell you a Polish joke.Really this nothing to bother yourself with for a Pole in PL.Seems to be an issue to PolAms and Poles living in the US and I would recomend you guys to take it to some American forum or something and fight it there.

As for camps ,yes with have camps in PL and we should start charging foraigners admisson (Jews should pay double since it is more important to them).You wan't to see them come over and pay and if you don't it is fine too.More advert would be needed though.We should advertise it as a must see place and make a killing out of it.BTW is there any souvenir bussines going on there?I mean can I buy prisoner uniform or get myself a retro picture of me as a SS guard?
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 Oct 26, 10, 19:31    #28
Harry:
Oh look! It's the old 'anybody who states that any Poles have ever done anything which might possibly be wrong only does that because they hate Poland and all Poles' routine; how boring.


The problem is that the American Polonia are much more sensitive about this sort of thing than Poles themselves - while it's undeniable that Poles cannot admit their mistakes (which Pole will admit to the total failure of diplomacy during the wars?) in a historical context, the American Polonia seem to be incredibly sensitive about the slightest things - things that the average real Pole couldn't care less about.

grubas:
Aren't you people tired of this kind of treads.I mean seriously how many times can you talk about Polish jokes and what Americans in the US think or say about Poland.99% of Poles in PL is not even aware of this whole thing,and I don't think they would even care if they knew.Most of them will never meet any American (and vice versa) and even if they will I don't think an American in PL would tell you a Polish joke.Really this nothing to bother yourself with for a Pole in PL.Seems to be an issue to PolAms and Poles living in the US and I would recomend you guys to take it to some American forum or something and fight it there.


Spot on. MediaWatch, being the worst kind of Plastic Polack doesn't understand this at all - probably because he doesn't speak Polish at all.
SeanusThreads: 22
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 Oct 26, 10, 19:33    #29
Media is media, they will write as they will write. No point getting worked up over it. Others can always set the record straight.
1jolaThreads: 33
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 Oct 26, 10, 20:41    #30
zetigrek:
What have Poles or Poland done to you that you hate us so much?

Z, Harry does not hate the Poles, in fact, I would say he is fond of us, but he has learned four 'facts' that he uses to agravate us. Only here though. No harm unless you think PF is an opinion maker. The level of chat here excludes this forum from anything serious. Relax.


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