International

Polish bishop apologizes for Holocaust interview

02.02.2010 13:29

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek has apologized to the Italian Catholic web site Pontifex.com for having accused it of misquoting him saying that the Holocaust was a “Jewish invention”.

“I was wrong to suggest that the interview which I gave to Mr. Bruno Volpe for Pontifex.com [published on 25 January] was misquoted by him," wrote one of Poland’s most prominent religious figures. Bishop Pieronek explained that he accused the Italian journalist of having manipulated his remarks before actually checking the interview on Pontifex.com.

The Polish bishop admitted that in the interview for the Italian web site - which caused outrage among some in Israel and the wider Jewish community - he did say that the “Shoah was a Jewish invention,”and that his choice of words was very unfortunate. But they doe not represent his views on Holocaust, he said.

“What I meant was that the word “Shoah" was a Jewish invention used by a renowned American-Jewish writer and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Holocaust, a horrendous genocide, was, in fact, invented and carried out by the Nazi Germany," wrote the bishop.

Pieronek also apologized to Pontifex.com. “I apologize to Mr. Volpe and everyone who felt offended by my unintentionally misfortunate statement. I had no intention to falsify history or accuse anyone of ill will.” (mg)

Related stories

I was misquoted, says Bishop, thenews.pl, Jan 26

Holocaust was a Jewish invention, says top Polish Bishop, thenews.pl, Jan 25

Comments: 10 Add new comment

Janusz E. Starkel

02/02/2010 15:14:08

No honor or diginity even among priests.
Apologize for telling the truth?.

Jasiek

02/02/2010 15:20:14

Getting clear that Bishop Pieronek is an innocent man and not a holocaust revisionist. After this, he should be more careful not to be misinterpreted in such a delicate issue, as, sadly, a lot of people are still prejudiced and suspicious that the Roman Catholic Polish people are anti-Semitist.

Jasiek

02/02/2010 15:23:47

Janusz E. Starkel,

No. He is apologising for giving such misleading comments at the interview and thus causing unnecessary disputes over such a delicate topic.

Lech Bajan

02/02/2010 16:41:26

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek has never question that Holocaust that did existed and millions people died including jews, polish, roms, russians, hungarians another nationalities.

Ellie Wiesel, the inventor of the use of the word "holocaust" was a great admirer of Kosinski. Wiesel used his new word to described the Nazi genocide of the Jews on the basis of Nazi attempt to kill all Jews within the territory occupied by them. As it happened the Hitlerites killed two thirds of the Jews of Europe and one third of world Jewry. To describe this tragic event Wiesel used the Greek word "holo kaustos" meaning "burnt whole" as a description of the Jewish tragedy.

Miriam Webster's Dictionary covers with this term the mass slaughter of some twenty five to thirty millions of the unarmed European civilians during World War II. That is not, however, what the Jewish cult of the Holocaust needs.
The radical Jews do not want to count gentile lost lives together with Jews and they refuse to recognize any non-Jews as "Holocaust survivors."
Jewish professional Holocaust survivor, Ellie Wiesel said that the Kosinski's "Painted Bird" changed his life. "It is as a chronicle that 'Painted Bird'...achieves its unusual power." Both authors had a lot in common. While Kosinski "analysed the new language", Wiesel wanted "to forge a new language" of the Holocaust.

Polish gentiles could not save Jews any more than their own people. They could not prevent the killing of millions of Polish Christians and the Polish Nation itself faced genocide. It is difficult to find a Polish gentile family, which did not lose family members and close relatives under the Nazi and Soviet occupations.

Under the Soviet occupation there was a policy to nominate Jews to the most visible posts in the Communist terror apparatus. It happened on one hand because plenty of Jews volunteered for these positions and on the other because the Soviet government was shifting the blame to the Jews for Soviet crimes. Thus the Soviet deliberately aggravated the intra-ethnic relations by their policy of "divide and rule."
The collaboration between the "Jewish committees" and the NKVD in the Soviet occupied Poland is well documented. Then, the last memory of Poland of many a Polish citizens before the door was slammed shut on a boxcar bound for Siberia was that of a Jewish militiaman slamming the door. (There was no similar collaboration between Polish Catholics and the Nazis for example.) However, the problem of Jewish collaboration with enemies is more complicated. Let us remember the fact that the last experience of Jewish victims in Poland, packed into boxcars bound for the gas chambers, was that of a Jewish ghetto policeman slamming shut the death car door. The film "Pianist" made recently by Polanski vividly shows these horrible scenes. It is a matter of record that an average Jewish policeman in the Warsaw Ghetto sent to gas chambers about twenty two hundred victims.

The demand to debase the Polish people and to prepare them for a shake down by the Jewish restitution movement goes on because, besides of the Holocaust profiteers, honest people suspecting a fraud are afraid to speak up for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism.
Long forgotten are the large Polish contributions and sacrifices for the Allieds' victory, Poland was betrayed by Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran and Jalta; it was handed over to become a Soviet satellite state, after ruthless pacification by communist terror apparatus disproportionally staffed with Jews.

It is pertinent to quote Simon Wiesenthal who said on his eightieth birthday: "I know what kind of role Jewish communists played in Poland after the war. And I as a Jew, do not want to shoulder responsibility for Jewish communists, I can not blame 36 million Poles for those thousands of [wartime] extortionists."

Roman

02/02/2010 17:19:49

Lech Bajan,
What a thought provoking and interesting assement of a very delicate subject.
It would be nice if such things could be discussed intelligently and in an open way without worries of recrimination and accuastions of racism or anti-semitism either way.
The problem as you point out is that there are many parties involved that have had and continue to have their own agendas and harbour dark secrets that they would prefer stay that way.

Stephen

03/02/2010 00:07:49

Shoah was 'invented' because the term holocaust is offensive to some Jews as it has its origins in paganism. The genocide that was the Holocaust was not invented by Nazi Germany but Turkey re: the Armenian Genocide.

Jeffrey

03/02/2010 00:24:13

Stephen, In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of the European Jews. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. It was not invented by Turkey.

Stephen

03/02/2010 00:35:53

Sorry, its late and I didn't explain myself well then. I wasn't referring to the term genocide but the actual act.

Jeffrey

03/02/2010 00:41:56

Oh my bad, well the Germans killed pretty much everybody so yeah I guess genocide doesn't fit.

Janusz E. Starkel

03/02/2010 14:44:17

I was allways wander of how many people have to be murder to call it holocaust. Does extermination of Germans after second WW, the Japan extermination by 2 nuclear bombs, the stalin era and so on up to modern times. Why the holocaust applay only to jews. It is jews invention. The bishop was right, but he back up under preasure from jews. Who will build monuments for Palestine people?. I am sure that not jews.
The jews was selected for extermination, but so other nations too. While there is no scientific evidence of murdering jews by gas chambers, there is evidence of murdering Iranians and Palestinians by depleting uranion bombs. We need to not forget that all Slovak nations wast targeted for extermination by Nazi.
We need to not forget about crimes against other people by jews. People are sentenced to jail time because they "dare" to thell the truth about jews and so call holocaust. Every day people being murder because of difference in ethnic group or religion.
Planet Earth it is one big holocaust.
Treat them equal or not treat them at all.

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