The Catholic Register

1. 21-02-2008 21:49

Catholic Register Commits LIBEL

John Bentley Mays's charge that Poland "willingly colluded with the Nazis in their attempted destruction of the Jewish people" (Feb. 17) is not only baseless it also abhorrent.

Rather than my explaining why, allow me to quote no less an authority that Yisrael Gutman, the director of historical research at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem and author of numerous studies, who has been unequivocal in lambasting such remarks.

"I should like to make two things clear here. First, all accusations against the Poles that they were responsible for what is referred to as the ‘Final Solution’ are not even worth mentioning. Secondly, there is no validity at all in the contention that … Polish attitudes were the reason for the siting of the death camps in Poland. Poland was a completely occupied country. There was a difference in the kind of ‘occupation’ countries underwent in Europe. Each country experienced a different occupation and almost all had a certain amount of autonomy, limited and defined in various ways. This autonomy did not exist in Poland. No one asked the Poles how one should treat the Jews."

"I want to be unequivocal about this. When it is said that Poles supposedly took part in the extermination of the Jews on the side of the Germans, that is not true. It has no foundation in fact. There was no such thing as Poles taking part in the extermination of the Jewish population."

Poles -- more than 6,000 of them and growing -- form the largest group by far of any nation recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles. Poland was the only country in Europe where the Germans routinely imposed the death penalty for any form of assistance to Jews. More than 1,000 Poles -- men, women, and children -- were put to death for helping Jews.

Unlike other occupied countries, the Poles were also targeted for genocidal policies targeting their "elites" including the Catholic clergy and their vibrant underground. In addition to three million Polish Jews, three million Christian Poles were also murdered by the German invaders.

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Hanna Sokolski