| Carolyn, I'm surprised that you answered me. By rights, I should be beneath your notice. I'm not a historian, an author, or a guest on talk radio – just an occasional letter writer and grass-roots caller. But since you've dignified me with a response, I will point out (again) where you have made your mistakes. Let the readers decide for themselves which of us indulges in fantasy. Your derogatory allusions to my heritage reflect more unfavorably on your own character than they do on anything about me. Just for the record, I am not ½ of anything. I'm 100% American, with two Polish and two British grandparents. I hope that's OK. Yes, I lost my temper the second time I called Mike Piper's show, last September. I began my third and final call by saying that I'd been wrong to lose my cool, that I was sorry, and I made no excuse for myself. In my moment of unbridled anger, since you bring it up now, I called Mike a hypocrite. That doesn't really qualify as "name-calling" though, since I regard it as an accurate designation. Mike has made a career out of complaining about Jewish abuses, not least the murderous land-grabbing, ethnocide and mistreatment of indigenous people in Palestine. Presumably, his objections are based on moral grounds. Yet he's an apologist for Nazi Germany, which pursued similar policies, on a much grander scale, notably against Poland. Selective morality is no morality at all; it's hypocrisy, like I said. You dispute that these things actually happened. They are still too present in living memory and too well documented to require proof or reference. But I will indulge you anyway. I have just looked up Hitler's Mein Kampf online. For instance, see Chapter XIV: Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy, where Hitler outlines his plan for Germany: "we are justified in claiming …. colonization of the Ostmark …. acquisition and penetration of the territory east of the Elbe," and so forth. Now, Carolyn, you may believe those territorial acquisitions in the East were (still are?) justified. If that's your opinion, it's perfectly OK. Just say so! But don't deny that Hitler announced his intentions clearly in this regard – and then proceeded to carry them out, through aggressive war, because this is exactly what happened. Same goes for the genocide against the Poles. If you don't like Polish people, Carolyn – which seems to be the case – and even if you think they all ought to be put out of their misery, once and for all, why, that's OK too. Just say so! Come clean with it – you have a right to your own tastes and your own opinions, just like anyone else. But please don't deny that these things happened, because they did. Even such a pro-Nazi author as David Irving – in the first 200 or so pages of his 1977 tome Hitler's War – makes numerous references to the slaughter of the Polish elites. He doesn't dwell on this, or express any particular regret, but he doesn't make any bones about it either. At one point he alludes to the fact that many professional German soldiers were so sickened by this policy that they had to be transferred elsewhere. Richard Giziowski documents perhaps the most distinguished of these in The Enigma of General Blaskowitz, whose protests against these atrocities earned him Hitler's enduring hatred. In the end, much of the dirty work had to be left to Himmler and his degenerate thugs. I never asked you to defend your position, and I'm not particularly interested in reading your articles or listening to you air your jaundiced disinformation on talk radio. As I've already demonstrated, I know that the case you're making here is indefensible, both morally and factually. But thanks for the leads, anyway; you never know when stuff like that might be useful. It's hard to unravel the twisted logic, Carolyn, in your longest paragraph, which begins with reference to opening the mass graves at Katyn. I think the underlying issue here is your sensitivity to the way that Germans and Germany are, in certain contexts and in certain ways, made into a figure for evil incarnate. Actually, this is something that I agree with you wholeheartedly about. These characterizations are all too common, and the place they occupy is much too respectable and prominent. They are unfair, untrue, and they serve no good purpose. My own sense, however, about the best strategy for dealing with such attacks, is that it's not productive to take a defensive posture. I like what Gandhi said: "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." In other words, focus on yourself; don't focus on others. That's all that you can ever be responsible for anyway, isn't it? I suggested the same thing in a different way in my first letter. Do you remember? It seems, in the end, that the worst you can say about the Poles, Carolyn, is that they disagree with you – i.e., "unconvincing Polish-apologist" – that they're arrogant, which you base on unsubstantiated hearsay, and that they're emotional. I have to laugh. You are really arguing about nothing at all. You should laugh too; lighten up, Carolyn. Let's make a deal: I'll forgive you (…I already have…) if you'll forgive me. As I'm sure you're aware, this world is in a real pickle now, and it needs all the good people it can muster to make things right. Let's work on that together … and forget about re-fighting the Second World War. How about it? Yours truly, Bob
--- On Thu, 4/22/10, Carolyn <warwo14@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Carolyn <warwo14@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [jacobandesau] Fwd: The Speech the Polish President Never Gave
To: jacobandesau@yahoogroups.com
Cc: blamming@yahoo.com, RePortersNoteBook@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 11:12 PM
James --- thanks for posting this here. If you hadn't, I wouldn't have seen it (unless, of course, someone sent it to me, which so far no one had). Well, this is "Bob," the 1/2 Pole, from the Mike Piper show of over a year ago. Bob called in with the same nonsense he is peddling here. It's not easy to talk to Bob as Bob get very angry, loses control and indulges in some serious name-calling. You can see it in his letter, but as it is a letter, he keeps himself somewhat in control. Just barely. Bob certainly remembers me from then and figured it was the same Carolyn. Bob used the identical fantasy history then as he's doing now, i.e. "Nazi Germany slaughtered Polish elites by the tens upon tens of thousands. It was Hitler's explicitly stated intention to enslave and eventually exterminate the Polish nation in order to acquire precious Lebensraum (living space) for the great master race of German folk." Bob doesn't give any proof or even reference for these statements, nor for any of the other equally unhistorical and unconvincing Polish-apologist statements he puts forth. If Bob wants me to defend my position, I invite him to read the translation/commentary I prepared (with Wilhelm Mann), published in the March/April 2010 issue of The Barnes Review. The title is "Fateful Decisions; Irreversible Consequences" ... the subtitle is "Hitler Confidant Reveals Fuehrer's Inner Thoughts on Poland, Russia Invasion; British, Soviet Push for War." It covers nine pages, beginning on page 49. If he gets hold of the magazine, he can also read the article before mine, which is instructive, titled "Poland's Censored Holocaust" by Marc Roland, on page 43. www.barnesreview.org Bob is also invited to listen to my radio broadcast of April 12 in which Katyn and the war between German & Poland is discussed. It is archived as a podcast here: That publicizing the mass graves found in the Katyn forest by the Wehrmacht was advantageous for the German government goes without saying; that does not take away from the fact that they exposed the crime to the world by an impartial gathering of international experts ... something that the Soviets NEVER did at any time in their history. Are the Germans to be held to a standard of "radiant tenderness" and transcendent forgiveness that no one else is held to?! All Bob is doing is repeating the tired old propaganda that the Germans should never try to defend themselves; if they do they will be called "arrogant." I think it's pretty well agreed upon by most that the Poles are an extremely arrogant people. As to Bob's quote by Chesterton -- allow me to present a quote of my own that I just saw the other day, thanks to another female on the J&E List. It's from an AP article on how the Polish President's death will reshape Polish politics. A Polish political scientist at Kielce University by the name of Kazimierz Kik, said of twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski: "If he decides to run, he may hope for a win on sympathy votes because Poles make decisions based on emotions."
Bob is living up to his Polish heritage. Regards, Carolyn
--- On Thu, 4/22/10, James Sanchez <seattleplatypus@att.net> wrote:
From: James Sanchez <seattleplatypus@att.net>
Subject: [jacobandesau] Fwd: The Speech the Polish President Never Gave
To: jacobandesau@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 5:26 PM
Begin forwarded message: Date: April 18, 2010 11:21:04 PM PDT Cc: inphoman911@ yahoo.com, maureenm@sbcglobal. net, Steven.Burrall@ kp.org, rick458@cox. net, piperm2@lycos. com, wcolin@aol.com, votefraud@fuse. net, smith@iamthewitness .com, ognir2@gmail. com, polishnews@att. net, painfulquestions@ aol.com, skylax@comcast. net, hal.womack@gmail. com Subject: Re: The Speech the Polish President Never Gave
| Response to Carolyn 19 Apr 10 I applaud Carolyn's expressed intention of exposing the unspoken truth. Sadly, though, she has overlooked a whole throng of 800-pound gorillas. Allow me to point them out. Uncovering the mass graves at Katyn was **hugely** advantageous for the Germans in the spring of 1943. It generated tremendous stresses in the Allied camp, as the German propaganda ministry well understood and gleefully anticipated. It was over this affair that Stalin broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government in London, already deeply strained because the entire Polish officer corps captured by the Soviets in 1939 had long been conspicuously and unaccountably missing. Yes, the Germans allowed a Red Cross mission, including independent Polish forensic experts, to investigate the site. Their motivations were entirely political, as noted above. The notion of German "concern for humanity," which Carolyn refers to here, is breathtaking in its falsity. It would be laughable if it weren't so troublingly common and characteristic. Like the Soviets, and in full partnership with them for almost two years, Nazi Germany slaughtered Polish elites by the tens upon tens of thousands. It was Hitler's explicitly stated intention to enslave and eventually exterminate the Polish nation in order to acquire precious Lebensraum (living space) for the great master race of German folk. Can your readers possibly be ignorant of this fact? Can readers who are exercised about the abuse of Palestinians today be totally indifferent to – or, perhaps, quietly enthusiastic about – the annihilation of Polish people, on a much grander scale, seventy years ago? The quintessentially Hitlerian concept of untermenschen, "subhumans," was applied to no other nation more hatefully than it was against the Poles. Is this a formulation that "truth-tellers" and "patriots" in the USA ought to find acceptable? It's hardly surprising that the Germans defeated the Polish army in 1939. Why is Carolyn so proud of this fact? I detect vainglory and triumphalism in the way she mentions it. These are not the kind of emotions we ought to be indulging; they are not the hallmark of a spiritually mature person. Germany was far stronger, more populous, more developed, and less hampered with liabilities than Poland. Poland's strategic and geographical position was militarily hopeless. The intervention by the USSR, in the third week of fighting, without question hastened the inevitable outcome. The Germans used up more than 80% of their ammunition in a few weeks, and they sustained greater losses against Poland than they did in a vastly more equal (and equally brief) contest against France, the Low Countries and Britain some eight months later. To their eternal disgrace, France and England did not honor their treaty obligations to support Poland. If they had, the war would have ended soon, as Germany's vital industrial heartland in the west was undefended and could have been easily captured by the French. Hitler had to throw the whole weight of his war machine at Poland to achieve a quick victory, even with the Soviets fighting on his side. For a deeper understanding of what was really going on here, we must note that big bankers and industrialists had built up the military establishments of **both** Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Arguably, they were aiming at a conflagration that would devastate all parties without much discrimination. Poland resisted intense pressure to collaborate with either of the two totalitarian superpowers against the other. Polish independence was the last, fragile barrier that held back the gathering impetus to a second, major European war. Once Poland was destroyed, Germany and Russia had a common border, and the way was open for them to tear each other's guts out. Who gained by this? Can we detect a parallel today, in how the Moslem and the Christian worlds have been set up to war against each other? When we take sides in the Nazi-Soviet conflict, when we interpret WW II from this beguiling angle – i.e., the good and noble Germans against the wicked Jewish commies – we are only getting suckered, once again, into an old, Hegelian dialectic snare. We ought to know better than this by now. Carolyn's praise for German "thoroughness" is absolutely right and proper. Please note how well this quality is expressed in the ability of polemicists like Carolyn to avoid any reference to German aggression and bestiality, or to evince any trace of compassion or remorse. Auschwitz is indeed – by some – exploited in the most disgraceful fashion. The poisoning of souls with hatred, especially young ones, is among the most distressing phenomena of our times; the damage is so hard to undo, and the long-term consequences are so dire. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a death-camp survivor in his own right, someplace in his writings framed the essence of the matter perfectly: "The line between good and evil runs through every human heart." We are so deeply inclined to point the finger of blame at others, and there will never be any shortage of reasons to support this view – whatever the particularity of our partisanship. Yet the key we are all looking for, the answer to our tragic, human dilemma – like the Kingdom of God itself – lies within each one of us. When we examine Polish responses to the colossal and unprovoked assault that Poland sustained, the perception of heroism and victimhood, about which Carolyn so ardently complains, is anything but misplaced. Of course, one can always point to exceptions, but overwhelmingly, the broad characterization of hero/victim versus villain/perpetrator could scarcely appear more fitting to a fair-minded observer than it does with reference to Poles and Germans in the context of WW II. But that's only to the extent that we're looking for heroes and villains, that we're stuck on feeding a victim-and-victor mentality. As I've just noted, this does not take us where we need to go; it's not really what the present world crisis requires that we become. Regarding Carolyn's attack on the Polish character and her allusion to the festering of Polish resentment against Germany, my own extensive, if necessarily subjective observations do not support this view. I find Polish people remarkably magnanimous, forgiving, and able to leave the hurts and wrongs of the past behind – without, however, consigning them to oblivion or surrendering them to dishonorable and malevolent revision. If there is anyone who walks around with a chip on their shoulder, it's German chauvinists like Carolyn, as witnessed so eloquently in the callous, contentious, myopic and one-sided statement she has posted here. Carolyn has every right to be as she is and to express her views. What concerns me is why anyone finds them worth posting and passing along. It's disturbing that this forum and others like it are propagating messages which not only express interethnic antipathy, but do so in a manner that's as unbalanced and uncalled for as Carolyn's letter. Evidently, the demagogues are stepping up their activities on every front. What I wish for Carolyn, personally, is that she will be able to transcend these narrow and destructive mental paradigms and someday soon experience the radiant tenderness that bathes our hearts in grace when we learn to let go, to forgive, and to love those who have injured us (even if we don't always like them). The lesson is difficult, but it's profound: paradoxically, the lowly are uplifted. We're told that our Maker "hates a proud and haughty spirit," so surely in the end no good can come to us from living out of such modalities. One last observation: in a forum that focuses on Jewish abuses, that challenges the notion of a "Chosen People," that exposes Jewish hypocrisy, and that decries the indifference of Jewish criminals to the suffering they've caused, it's quite bizarre to find these same propensities being fostered and exalted in the German psyche. One could survey the entire planet and be hard pressed to find a nation that has not in some way, at some time, been in conflict with and suffered injury at the hands of its neighbors. The Japanese were set up by the Americans, provoked, and lured into a trap at Pearl Harbor. We inflicted a catastrophic defeat on them at Midway because we could read their secret codes. It's questionable whether, man to man, we could have beaten them in a fairer fight. We dropped atomic bombs on them and incinerated Tokyo. I've known many Japanese over many years in my personal and professional life, yet I have never sensed that they bear a grudge against us. They mourn their losses in dignified privacy, and in their memory they honor the victims of our atrocities; but they don't hate us, nor do they plot revenge. Many examples like this could be cited from world history. "Never forgive; never forget." Where have we heard this before? Of all the peoples in the world, I can think of only two that harbor so jealously a sense of their own uniquely aggrieved status and who are so utterly callous about, and unwilling to acknowledge or regret, the grief they've brought to other nations. Correct me if I'm wrong about this. But I find it curious and perplexing. -Bob
I judged the Poles by their enemies. And I found it was an almost unfailing truth that their enemies were the enemies of magnanimity and manhood. If a man loved slavery, if he loved usury, if he loved terrorism and all the trampled mire of materialistic politics, I have always found that he added to these affections the passion of a hatred of Poland. She could be judged in the light of that hatred; and the judgment has proved to be right. Attributed to Gilbert K. Chesterton, British writer
--- On Sun, 4/18/10, ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> wrote:
From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com>
Subject: The Speech the Polish President Never Gave
To: "reportersnotebook" <RePortersNoteBook@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sunday, April 18, 2010, 11:42 AM
April 18, 2010
Comment from a reader: Mr. Kaczynski had an opportunity to tell the whole truth about the Katyn affair, but it appears from this speech draft that was released that he was going to behave in the usual Polish fashion and only tell the part that fit the Polish preferred version of history. In Polish history (and in their school books, I'm sure), Poles are either heroes or victims. I'm referring to his failure to mention that they only learned of the fate of their fellow citizens because the German Wehrmacht uncovered the hidden graves and then the Hitler governement organized a commission of international experts to examine and come to conclusions as to the cause and determine the perpetrators of the crime. Without this German thoroughness and concern for humanity, Poland would probably never have known the fate of these fellow citizens; the mass graves would never have been found. But true to the Polish character, with it's historic resentment toward Germans, he couldn't bring himself to include the German contribution to the unravelling of the fate of these men. And after all, there is Auschwitz ... the biggest tourist attraction in all Poland. He wouldn't have wanted to compromise that in any way, would he? It thrives on hatred of Germans, Nazis, even the Wehrmacht ... hatred than never ends. And then, Germany defeated Poland ... in only 17 days. Russia did not, even though they took it over. Polish nationalism and fragile self-esteem can live with Russia, but not with Germany. They cannot rise to the level of honorableness and truthfullness that is required. I'm sorry, I cannot feel badly for this man, or for any of them. I call it ausgleichende gerechtigkeit (a word I just learned) ... it means something like "balancing justice." Regards, Carolyn (Prepared for Delivery April 10, 2010)
Dear Representatives of the Katyn families! Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!
In April 1940 more that 21 thousand of Polish prisoners from NKVD cages and prisons were murdered. That genocide crime was committed of Stalin's will, by order of the supreme authorities of the Soviet Union.
The alliance of the Third Reich and the USSR, Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the aggression against Poland on September 17, 1939 found its astonishing culmination in the Katyn massacre.
Not only in the forests of Katyn but also in Twer, Kharkov and other known and still unknown tragic places the citizens of II Rzeczpospolita (the Second Polish republic) were killed. These were people who were creating the foundations of our statehood, who were relentless in the service to our Motherland.
At the same time the families of the killed and the thousands of pre-war borderland citizens were deported to the depth of the Soviet Union where their silent sufferings were marking the way of Polish Eastern Golgotha. Katyn was the most tragic station on this way. Polish officers, clergymen, civil servants, policemen, border guard and prison service officials were exterminated without legal proceedings and court sentences. They became the victims of the war that had not been announced. They were murdered with the humiliation of the rights and conventions of the civilized world. Their dignity as the soldiers, Poles and human beings was trampled.
Death caves were supposed to hide the bodies and the truth about the genocide forever. The world was never supposed to learn.(in Polish text) The families of the victims were unvested of rights for public mourning, sorrow and dignified commemoration of the closest. The soil had covered the traces of the crime and the lie was supposed to erase it from peoples' memory.
The hiding of the truth about Katyn - the effect of the decision of those who led to the crime, became one of the communist policy fundamentals in the after-war Poland: it became the founding lie of PRL (Polish People's Republic). That was the time when for the memory and the truth about Katyn one could pay a very high price. Nevertheless, the families of the murdered and other brave people were true to that memory, they were defending it and were passing it to the next generations of Polish people. They carried it through the times of the communist governments and confided to the fellow-citizens of free and independent Poland. That is why we owe respect and gratitude to all of them and especially to Katyn Families. On behalf of the Republic of Poland I am offering thanks to you as by defending the memory of your closest you have saved so important dimension of our Polish consciousness and identity.
Katyn became the painful wound of Polish history, it also has been poisoning relations between Poles and Russians for long decades. Let us make the Katyn would to finally heal and scar over. We are already on this way. We, the Polish people do appreciate the activities of the Russians during the last years. We have to follow the way that brings our peoples closer to each other. We cannot stop or turn back.
All the circumstances regarding the Katyn crime must be fully investigated and clarified. It is important that guiltlessness of the victims becomes legally confirmed and all the documents regarding the crime are disclosed, so that the lie about Katyn disappears forever from the public sphere. We demand for these steps primarily in memory of the victims and for the respect of the sufferings of their families. We also demand for these activities in the name of common values that must create the foundations of trust and partnership between the neighboring peoples in the whole Europe.
Let us together pay homage to the murdered and let us pray for them. Praise to the heroes! Honour to their memory!
-- Peace.Michael SantomauroEditorial DirectorCall anytime: 917-974-6367ReporterNotebook@ Gmail.comhttp://www.Debating TheHolocaust. comAmazon's: DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton
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