National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe, SN) uniforms?

[Cenowski]

German camps in occupied Polish land yes, Polish camps no.....

[dastier]

Once again my friend You have not answered the question correctly. The question was once again:

Why in all nazi occupied territories (example for territories: France, Holland, etc) only in Poland there was an instant death penalty for the whole family for hiding a jew ?
That is the question, i am not asking why there was death penalty meted out to poles for other reasons, that is was not the question. And as i said maybe someone can sufficiently explain that.

I'm no expert on this. I don't even feel I'm sufficiently well read on the subject. But its seems to me that it was understood that after the Jews, the aims of the Nazi party was to exterminate the Slavs. For economic reasons outright mass killings were somewhat mitigated by the need for forced/slave labour, agricultural products from Polish farms etc. But the long term goal was to kill the Slavs (Poles, Russians, Ukrainians in time...) to free up land for German colonization.

The quest to occupy and colonize land at the expense of the indigenous peoples already living there is not new, its not just German and it continues. (European colonial conquest in the Americas and elsewhere - whole native Aboriginal peoples were made extinct in Canada and the USA; Israel and the Palestinians; creation of a Greater Serbian at the expense of Bosnia Herzegovina; within/between nations in Africa) I'm not saying this to make an excuse for the Germans or the Nazis but it exists in many cultures and societies.

Germans under the auspices of Christianizing pagans colonized the lands of the native Borussi/Prussi people, adopted their name and created their own Prussian state. Some might also make the same argument for the Germans in Latvia and Estonia. This German attitude to the lands and the peoples of the east goes back a long time - that's why there has been so much conflict between Poles and Germans. Poles have always resisted German attempts to colonize them and assimilate the Polish people and Polish lands into a Greater Germany.

The Nazis wanted to solve the German 'problem' with the Slavs once and for all! Poles were first. Yes, the death penalty existed for Poles hiding Jews. As pointed out it existed for many things. That other nationalities did not face the death penalty for doing what Poles did was most likely due to the racial policies of the Nazis and long held attitudes of the Germans towards Poles in particular and Slavs in general.

The difficulty with all this is that German/Nazi intentions towards Slavs is not discussed/known except by interested parties and academics. Its hard to ignore what the Germans did to the Jews because of the numbers killed, the planning and methods, and that Jews were taken from all over occupied Europe. That made it difficult for western European governments to ignore - those weren't just Jews - they were Dutch, Danish, French, Norwegian, German citizens. Plus the global Jewish communities goes to much effort to not allow western societies to forget the fate of the Jews under the control of the Nazis. (and rightly so) What happened to the Poles and Russians is 'easier' to ignore.

I'll give an example of attitudes towards acts of war and their perception in my country, Canada. Its not about the treatment of an ethnic group or national group but I hope it will illustrate how some people can ignore one example of an act of violence while focusing on a similar act. (and to be clear I'm not suggesting the two acts are the same, just using them to make a point)

During WW2 the Allies firebombed the German city of Dresden killing many thousands of people and destroying much if not all of the city. A Canadian documentary was made about this event and suggested that those responsible were war criminals. Needless to say, this caused a great reaction from Canadian veterans. The controversy over this Allied action has become an opportunity for some groups, including White Power and/or Neo Nazi groups in Germany to protest, expound their ideologies and create sympathy for German suffering in WW2.

Yet never mentioned in the same context is the utter destruction of Warsaw by the German military after the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Veterans, historians etc can make arguments as to why Dresden was bombed - people can decide for themselves whether of not it was justified. But there can be no arguments made for the destruction of Warsaw by the Germans - Nazis or otherwise. It was an act of deliberate vengeance and retribution which resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Poles. Yet this act and its anniversary gets no coverage here in Canada and I suspect anywhere in the world except Poland. Compare this to what the Allies did to Dresden and the outcry over it.

Is it 'fair' - no. But if anyone should understand 'unfairness' its Poles.

Here are some books to consider:

'War Land on the Eastern Front' by V.G. Liulevicius - discuss the formation of the German attitudes towards Eastern peoples during WW1.

'Prelude to the Final Solution' by P. Rutherford - Nazi deportation of Poles to create land for the settlement of ethnic Germans in occupied Poland.

'Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East' by J. Poprzeczny - biography about the Nazi administrator who oversaw the mass industrialized murder at Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec and was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Zamosc region of Poland.

'Model Nazi' by C. Epstein - biography about Arthur Greiser, the Nazi overseer of Warthegau (occupied Western Poland) who implemented the final solution for the Jews, slave labour for Poles and resettlement and murder to 'Germanize' Western Poland.

'War of Annihilation' by G. Megaree - discusses the ideology of the Nazis and it role in the attitude and actions of the Wehrmacht to POWs, Jews and non Jews on the Eastern Front.

'War of Extermination' - H. Hannes and K Naumaan, editors - discusses the Wehrmacht and the mythology of the 'good' Wehrmacht vs 'bad' Nazis and the responsibility for genocide in WW2. (I'm oversimplifying here)

'Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in the Ukraine' by W. Lower

Apologies for the long post.

[Cenowski]

I went through the english education system so i know all too well how Polish history and some other nations histories are missed out or inbriefed and brushed aside apart from that of the American's, nazi germany and the soviets. And also a huge amount of unwanted educations on the Holocaust of the jew's and how the faith works, its was all quite disturbing.

Throught all the Soviet history that was taught to us, never once was the major 1920 War mentioned. Never once was any other mass genocides/mass murders mentioned. The Polish people who suffered also in many of the camps, Katyń, the murder of 1 million Serbs by the nazi's and there croatian ustasha collaboraters. And not forgetting before i do the Armenian genocide and the mass killing of the boer people by the British, the inventors of the mass camp idea.

[Gary J]

Ok ... The Thread has run it's course !

The thread is now closed. And please let the political side of this subject NOT be raised again.

I thank you for your co-operation.

Gary J.

[StefanM]

I know this thread was closed some time ago but original prints of SN/ONR members don't often surface so I was pleased to add this one to my archive. It is dated 1934.