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INTERNATIONAL

Polish farmers collaborated with Nazis, says Der Spiegel

20.05.2009 13:15

This week’s edition of Der Spiegel accuses Poles and other nations of having collaborated with Nazis during World War II.

Article about collaboration with Nazis, Der Spiegel

The accomplices: Hitler’s European helpers in the Holocaust reads the headline of the front-page article, accompanied by a photo of Hitler.

The article names Polish farmers, among others, as accomplices of the Nazis during World War II.

The article tells the story of John Demjanjuk, the Ukrainian SS-officer, who was recently extradited from the US to Munich to stand trial for war crimes, including the death of at least 29,000 Jews at the Sobibor Nazi death camp in southeast Poland during WW II.

Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Treblinka, Sobibor and Majdanek death camps and was known as “Ivan the Terrible” by the prisoners because of his extraordinary violence. 

Der Spiegel cites the case of Demjanjuk to prove that it was not only Germans who were responsible for mass murder during the Holocaust. If it had not been for Ukrainian gendarmes, Latvian auxiliary policeman, Romanian soldiers, Hungarian railway workers, Polish farmers, Dutch land register officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers and Italian soldiers, the Nazis would not have been able to mastermind the Holocaust, claims the weekly.

Historian Dieter Pohl, quoted by Der Spiegel, estimates that more than 200,000 non-Germans were involved in war crimes, which almost equals the number of Germans and Austrians responsible for the Holocaust.

The weekly gives reasons why it thinks non-Germans collaborated with the Nazis, mentioning fear, perversion, anti-Semitism, and a willingness to help the presumed victors of the war. 

Der Spiegel claims that while Italians and the French are aware of the scale of collaboration with the Nazis in their countries, Poles fail to admit it. According to the weekly, this is surprising, considering the fact that in Poland hatred for Jews is “deep rooted” and pogroms took place in Poland even after WW II was over.

Most countries, especially from Central and Eastern Europe, have to take the responsibility for the Holocaust instead of throwing the blame entirely on Germans, claims Der Spiegel. 

 

Spiegel divides Polish politicians

 

“There is freedom of press in Germany, as there is in Poland,” said Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, commenting on the article by Der Spiegel, accusing Poles of collaboration with the Nazis.

 

Unlike Sikorski, however, the head of the Law and Justice party (PiS) Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is outraged at Der Spiegel’s claims. “Germans are trying to free themselves from taking responsibility for the major crimes of Holocaust,” said Kaczynski and added that, to his horror, some circles in Poland support the opinion.

 

“If we allow Germans go in for this sort of practice, in the future we will have to pay damages to German soldiers who died during the Warsaw Uprising,” said the head of PiS.

(mg/pg)

• Jamesmace 20.05.2009 14:58 "Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Treblinka, Sobibor and Majdanek death camps and was known as “Ivan the Terrible” by the prisoners because of his extraordinary violence. "
  
  This is utter nonsense and the writer should be punished for making such false witness against someone who was found not innocent of these very charges.
  
  The Israeli Supreme Court found Demjanjuk innocent of being a guard at ANY camp - and certainly this Ukrainian who was considered untermenschen by the Nazis would never have been an officer.
  ..............
  "On August 18, 1993 the Supreme Court of Israel sitting as the High Court of Justice gave its decision on 10 petitions brought by survivors of the Holocaust and others demanding that John (Ivan) Demjanjuk should be brought to trial on charges of war-crimes at Sobibor and other concentration camps. These petitions follow the decision of the Supreme Court to acquit Demjanjuk, by reason of doubt, of the brutal offenses attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.
  
  The court of three judges dismissed the petitions."
  
  
  Jamesmace
• Sam Spade 20.05.2009 15:56 And lets not gorget the Americans and British who would not destroy the rail lines to the camps. Sam Spade
• Kasper Gutman 20.05.2009 18:20 Pretty poor excuse Sam. Kasper Gutman
• John Hood 20.05.2009 20:03 Let us not forget it is Germany that started the war.
  It is Germany that invaded Poland from the west unleashing the hell that was the Second World War, and giving the green light to Moscow to invade Poland from the east.
  When will Germany put on trial those Germans from top to bottom that killed millions of Poles and Ukrainians?
  When will Germany put on trial those Germans that burned Polish and Ukrainian homes, raped Polish and Ukrainian women, and murdered Polish and Ukrainian children?
  When will Germany put on trial those Germans that forcibly took Poles and Ukrainians from their cities, towns, and villages, to work as slave labour?
  Drive through Eastern Europe and take a look at the countless gravestones with Polish and Ukrainian names of people who died an early death , and think of the countless others that perished and have no gravestones.
  Shame on Germany for what is now going on there.
  Remove the log from your own eye first.
  "For God will judge you in the same way as you judge others"
  Matthew Ch.7 v.2.
  John Hood
• Sergej 21.05.2009 01:35 Dear Mr Hood
  Who do you want to put on trial? Aren't these admittedly despicable men mostly dead or dying? Perhaps you want to start a campaign of hatred all over again, visiting your wrath on people who weren't alive when these awful things occurred?
  That would be the surest way of making certain we have learnt nothing from the past. Sergej
• jasiek w japonii 21.05.2009 01:49 Indeed, it is natural even if there were such collaborators among Polish farmers then. Weakness is part of human nature and Poles are humans after all, and we all know it.
  
  The trouble is the Germans tend to use their rhetorical talent with such sensational words as “surprising” and “pogroms” and the above assumption to give a misleading impression that “most Poles were Nazi-collaborators during the war”, which is obviously wrong and malicious. We also know both that most of Poles in the occupied Poland were so scared that they spent everyday just working calmly and that a great number of the Polish nation risked their own lives to help Jewish people then.
  
  I am non-Polish but I know too from my personal experiences to socialise with Germans that shifting the responsibility to others is their born nature – in this case first to Hitler and then to Poles. So is it always.
  
  Understanding the above fact first of all, I would like to advise Poles that they should not get driven by the passion to take an excessive reaction against Der Spiegel.
  
  The best way is that any Polish national institutions such as the Cabinet, Ministries, Paliament, Court, etc. should keep composed to stay away from such an argument inflicted by the irresponsible neighbours’ usual rhetoric of hatred. Instead, Polish citizens should establish non-governmental organisations to tackle such arguments by cooperating each other and with the academic bodies such as the universities in both countries, the UNESCO, the Georg-Eckert Institute, etc.
  
  This time, FM Radek Sikorski is most admirable. I do not accuse Mr Jaroslaw Kaczynski because I don’t want to be sued by him. jasiek w japonii
• David Koresh 21.05.2009 03:48 Here we go again. The Germans are once again trying spread the blame for the Holocaust. They are just trying to turn the public’s attention away from facts. I believe that the term for this is “propaganda.” Thankfully, this is just a small group of dirt that has these beliefs. Most of Germany does not believe this crap. Most of Germany has taken responsibility for the actions of their ancestors and had moved on. No one will ever forget what occurred.
  
  These types of accusations just piss me off. “According to the weekly, this is surprising, considering the fact that in Poland hatred for Jews is ‘deep rooted’ and pogroms took place in Poland even after WW II was over.” Wow, simply wow. This could not be more false, a total fabrication of the German propaganda machine. This is what happens when people start writing this type of stuff down. As time passes new people looking for trouble come around and read this garbage then they believe that if its written down it must be true. Bullshit.
  
  “Poland hatred for the Jews is deep rooted.”?!?! What garbage. Before WW2, Polish Jews lived free and prospered. That did not sit well with the Germans. It would have still been this way if it wasn’t for the Germans.
  David Koresh
• romeo 21.05.2009 07:09 Same country, same bull, different time. 60 years later, a new generation of Germans are at it again. Spreading lies must be a German pass time of all time. romeo
• Daniel 21.05.2009 18:03 Typical. Why is it so hard for the Poles to acknowledge that there were collaborators among them? Why can`t it be said? But no, every Pole was so innocent. It`s always better to point the finger and deflect from your own guild.
  Is there anywhere stated, that Germans are less guilty? No. They take full responsibility for the Holocaust. But there were collaborators in every nation.
  Accept it. Daniel
• Jarred 21.05.2009 19:34 this article goes much further than just suggesting collaborators; it "estimates that more than 200,000 non-Germans were involved in war crimes, which almost equals the number of Germans and Austrians responsible for the Holocaust" . and the idea is that without those Dutch officials and Polish farmers and so forth Holocaust would not be possible. there is deep evil in Germany, they are trying to whitewash history and they lie. there is also a very active movement to dominate the world ( Europe first), and the descendants of the Nazis, many of whom were never persecuted are laughing all the way to the bank. you just keep believing them and buying their BMWs.
  Jarred

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