Reflections on Kielce and Communism:
The Obstacle of the Kielce Pogrom
to Polish-Jewish Reconciliation
by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
Putting to Rest World War II's Spirit of Hatred
World War II was a war of hatred: institutionalized hatred, ethnic
hatred, popularized hatred. Born of this hatred, monstrous actions taken by
ordinary people resulted in, among other things, the mass-murder of millions
of civilians. Long after the guns have been silenced, the spirit of
animosities energized by World War II between peoples, between cultures, and
between religious groups stays alive within some people's hearts. World War
II and its spirit of hatred will continue to live on until reconciliation
between these groups is complete.
Young people born a generation or two after the end of World War II
generally have little natural interest in nursing animosities born of
earlier eras. These animosities, in order to live on, have to be carefully
cultivated in younger people by those who may feel their interests are
served by doing so. Surprisingly, there have been systematic attempts by
some to keep these animosities alive by devising mythological accounts of
what happened preceding World War II, during the War, and in the aftermath
of the War. Even more surprisingly, some of these mythologies have been
advanced by people from groups who were victimized in the War, people who
should have the strongest vested interest in the truth being propagated.
There are many versions of these mythologies, but one in popular
currency in mid-1990's North America distills roughly to this: an outside
force known as the Nazis forcibly gained control of Germany and under
totalitarian military rule forced a policy of war and ethnic hatred and
extermination on a frightened but generally unwilling German populace.
According to this myth, the real story of genuine ethnic hatred can be found
among Jewish people and gentiles who lived in Poland, whose alleged
long-standing animosity pre-dated the War, and extends beyond the end of the
War to this day. The myth-speakers claim that the Polish nation was the true
anti-Jewish state, and that atrocities perpetrated on countless Jewish
people on Polish soil in German-occupied Poland were carried out with great
relish by a willing Polish populace that was tired of dealing with a Jewish
sub-culture that had been already relegated to ghettos prior to the War. The
existence of the myth of non-support by the German people of the actions of
the Nazi regime even motivated the title and thesis of a recent doctoral
dissertation turned into book by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing
Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1996).
Goldhagen documents the involvement of ordinary Germans in carrying out what
today are referred to as Nazi atrocities.
As Goldhagen was clarifying the role of the Germans, others were
perpetuating the myths. In April 1996, propagation of the anti-Polish myth
was advanced by the film Shtetl shown on Public Television (PBS) in the
United States. The film falsely suggests Polish complicity in the Holocaust.
Through its own baseless and malicious claims about Polish people, the film
is unwittingly a study of the encouragement of ethnic hatred by Jewish
people toward Polish gentiles. Israeli students in the film are shown making
a series of claims, sometimes gleefully, about alleged Polish involvement in
the Holocaust, including attempts to shift the blame for Nazi crimes from
the German people to the Polish people. The students even mocked Polish
rescue efforts, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Germans punished
Polish gentiles collectively for providing any form of assistance to Jewish
people, or even for not turning them in.
The film Shtetl focused negatively on the local Catholic church and
priest several times. In actual well-documented fact, Polish gentiles helped
Jewish people in Poland extensively during World War II. This assistance
included the hiding of tens of thousands of Jewish people in the homes of
Polish gentiles, which put the gentiles' entire families at risk of death.
Several thousand Polish Christians, including men, women, and children, were
burned alive or otherwise summarily executed for the crime of hiding or
assisting Jews. As an example of local Catholic Church involvement, it is
ironic that the wartime associate pastor of the very Catholic church that
was featured in the film was murdered because he was assisting Jews. His
name was Father Henryk Opiatowski of Bra _sk. Yet, Father Opiatowski was
never mentioned in the film! Nor were several other Polish residents who
were put to death for extending help to the Jews. In no other country during
the war were people subjected to death in this way for providing assistance
to Jewish people. These students of the Holocaust were certainly taught how
anti-Semitism produced six million Jewish deaths in the Holocaust;
apparently they did not also learn how anti-Polonism produced three million
Polish Christian deaths during the occupation-the Polish aspect of the
Holocaust. Since the students in the film Shtetl were not eyewitnesses to
the horrors of the Holocaust, they may very well be a window into the way
the Holocaust is being taught in some Jewish homes and schools. If the
purpose of teaching about the Holocaust is to never forget how ethnic
hatreds can be nurtured to the point of destroying a people (and it should
be), then Holocaust teaching will fail if along the way it teaches young
Jewish people to hate Polish people.
There is another example of an obstacle to Jewish-Polish goodwill that
is perhaps more significant and potentially longer lasting in promoting
ethnic hatred by Jewish people towards Polish people than the film Shtetl.
It is an exhibit in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington, D.C., that falsely presents events that occurred in Kielce,
Poland, in 1946 as part of the Holocaust. It refers to the clearly
Soviet-staged violence in Kielce as a "Polish pogrom." To many visitors of
the Holocaust Museum, the exhibit by its very inclusion seems to suggest
that after the end of World War II, a liberated Polish populace chose to
continue Hitler's work of exterminating Jewish people. The study you are now
reading examines these events in Kielce, and shows that the suggestions of a
Polish-led extension of the Holocaust are patently false. The Kielce Pogrom
had nothing to do with the German-engineered Holocaust. It had everything to
do with the Soviet-engineered strangulation of the Polish nation.
Like all effective myths, those related to World War II have some
elements of truth underlying them. In conjunction with the construction of
these myths, though, actual facts and events have been distorted or
misrepresented, and certainly the contexts within which they occurred have
been falsely stated. Sadly, the distortions, misrepresentations and
falsehoods are sometimes purposely and systematically advanced by those who
feel a need to humiliate the Polish nation and members of the Polish ethnic
group from around the world. Those who today seek to humiliate or destroy
people because of their ethnic association are kindred spirits to those who
sought to humiliate or destroy people because of their ethnic association in
the World War II era. Let me say unequivocally: anti-Semitism in the World
War II era or now is wrong and it is evil. On the flip side of the coin
bearing the image of anti-Semitism is the image of anti-Polonism. The coin
of anti-Semitism cannot be melted down and destroyed without also melting
down and destroying anti-Polonism.
I will state up front that I have a vested interest in the truth about
World War II and its aftermath being clearly illuminated. I am a veteran of
64 months of imprisonment in Gestapo prisons, concentration camps, and death
marches. My own ordeal, and the suffering and death of many of my Polish and
Jewish friends and prison-mates, not to mention the sacrifices made by the
young men who fought and died as soldiers, will have been rendered
meaningless if the hatred of Jewish people by the Nazi leadership and
various members of the German nation are simply replaced by hatred of Polish
people by Jewish people, or vice versa. Those who even today perpetuate
myths and misconceptions about animosities associated with World War II and
its aftermath are not merely bearing false witness-they are willing
accomplices to the spirit of hatred of World War II, a frightening spirit
embodied in its purest evil form by Adolf Hitler.
I have seen, first hand, the disgusting, murderous results of ethnic
hatred. I have devoted the latter part of my life to writing about the
long-term coexistence of Polish Jews and gentiles within Poland, and am
committed to trying to help diffuse animosities stemming from World War II.
In this spirit of friendship and respect, I wrote and had published earlier
this decade a documentary history entitled Jews in Poland: The Rise of Jews
as a Nation From Congressus Judaicus in Poland to the Knesset in Israel. If
World War II presented any lessons to the people of the world, it showed
what can eventually happen if ethnic animosities are allowed to fester and
grow.
The study you are now reading is a quest for Polish-Jewish
reconciliation. For it to be successful, those who would join this quest
must have one thing in common: respect for the truth. As part of this quest,
I will address how Jewish-Polish animosities have been cultivated in the
aftermath of the War, and in particular how Soviet actions and
Soviet-induced events and situations contributed to or drove the process of
cultivating the animosities. In particular, I will take the occasion of the
fiftieth anniversary of the Kielce Pogrom to discuss this event in detail
and use it as a basis for discussion of the larger geopolitical situation.
This study deals primarily with the results of Soviet-institutionalized
hatred and the Soviet crime of provoking situations purposely designed to
sour Polish-Jewish relations. In general, the public in Western countries
knows very little about the specifics of these types of Soviet misdeeds.
For this study, the book Poland: Communism, Nationalism, Anti-Semitism
by Michael Checinski (New York: Karz-Cohl Publishing, 1982) is an important
source of information for the Cold War period. I will use Checinski's book
as a resource to help illuminate the events and situations in the aftermath
of World War II that relate to Polish-Jewish relations. Checinski's book
details the relations between Poles and Jews in the postwar "People's"
Republic of Poland and the damage done to these relations under the
conditions created by the Soviets. Checinski was an insider of the
Soviet-controlled terror apparatus. As a Jew who survived the _ód_ Ghetto,
Checinski (Ch_ ci_ski) was naturally very sensitive to Soviet policies which
fomented and used anti-Semitic excesses in the satellite empire to serve
Soviet purposes of the time. Checinski's book shows Soviet methods used to
bring the destruction of law and morality to Poland and other satellite
states. I also draw heavily on material from a book by Krystyna Kersten,
Polacy-_ydzi-komunizm: anatomia pó_prawd 1939-68 [Poles, Jews, Communism:
The Anatomy of Half-Truths 1939-68] (Warszawa: Niezale_na Oficyna
Wydawnicza, 1992) and also from Pogrom _ydów w Kielcach 4 lipca 1946 [Pogrom
of Jews in Kielce, July 4, 1946] by Bo_ ena Szaynok, (Warszawa: Bellona,
1992). Along the way, I will include some necessary background information
relating to World War II. Overall, through this study I hope to help unravel
some of the root causes and dynamics of Polish-Jewish relations after World
War II, and how these are strongly affecting Polish-Jewish relations even
today.
The Kielce Pogrom in a Nutshell
A "pogrom", a Russian word that translates to "devastation," is
defined as "an organized massacre, especially of Jews in Russia, such as
1881, 1903, and 1905." ( The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English
Language, 1989.) Anti-Jewish violence in Russia was usually started with a
false accusation that a ritual murder had been perpetrated on Christian
children by local Jews. Violence directed against the Jews that occurred on
July 4, 1946, in the town of Kielce, referred to as the Kielce Pogrom, is
aptly named for several reasons. For one, it was indeed organized. And as it
will be explained in detail, it was organized by the Soviet-controlled
terror apparatus in Poland, a captured country which was under Soviet
occupation at the time. This pogrom, although not on Russian soil, was
arranged by a totalitarian leadership centered in Russia and it was started
with the same technique of planting a false accusation that a ritual murder
had been perpetrated on Christian children. And as even the common
dictionary definition shows, this is not the first time Russians have
instigated this type of activity.
In the Kielce Pogrom, an uprising occurred over the span of many hours
that resulted in the death of 41 Polish citizens: 39 Jews, and two gentiles.
It was a horrible crime, and regrettably, there was some complicity among a
very small number of gentile Poles in this inexcusable violence. Some of
these Polish criminals, as will be pointed out, were tried and convicted for
their crimes. The reports, however, of the involvement of a mob of 15,000
cheering Polish citizens are completely untrue. Also, the idea that the
uprising was of a spontaneous nature is also untrue. As it will be shown in
this study, this event was carefully provoked and staged by the Soviet
occupiers at that time. This event was staged to achieve specific political
purposes dictated by Moscow's global strategy including Europe and the
Middle East.
The Soviet-Nazi Partnership
Why would Soviets want to stage an uprising that would embarrass
Poland? After all, didn't both Poland and the Soviets fight alongside of
Britain and the other allies in World War II? Didn't Hitler's German army
invade both Poland and the Soviet Union, and isn't "the enemy of my enemy my
friend?"
There is general public awareness that the United States and the
Soviet Union were World War II partners in the Allied fight against Nazi
Germany. Many fewer, however, are aware of the nearly two-year Nazi-Soviet
partnership embodied in the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty,
which was signed on September 28, 1939. It divided all of Poland between
Germany and the Soviet Union and contained secret provisions for the mutual
extermination of potential Polish opponents of both Germany and the USSR.
Both Germany and the USSR agreed to control their respective parts of
Poland. This meant taking all necessary measures to contain and prevent the
emergence of any potential Polish actions toward either Germany or the USSR,
and then communicating with each other on the progress made toward the goals
of the treaty. The treaty lasted until Germany invaded the Soviet Union in
- Soviet hostility toward Poland and the desire of the USSR to control
as much Polish territory as it could continued beyond the German invasion of
Poland.
The Soviets implemented their part of the German-Soviet Boundary and
Friendship Treaty by executing 21,857 members of the Polish leadership
community including a number of Jewish people. Katyn contained the graves of
4,443 such men and became a symbol of the mass execution of members of the
upper echelon of Polish society in the Spring of 1940. At the same time
Germany ran a parallel operation with the code name Aktion AB
(Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion, which translates to "extraordinary
pacification"), culminating in the execution of about 20,000 Polish
professionals.
Because of the German-Soviet Treaty to divide Poland among themselves,
the Eastern half of Poland was under Soviet, not German, rule from
September, 1939 to mid-1941. During that time, there were many Jewish people
who collaborated with the Soviet terror apparatus against the conquered
Polish state. Among the many eyewitnesses to those events is the famed
Polish courier Jan Karski, who was made an honorary citizen of Israel for
his efforts to warn an unresponsive West about the fate of Poland and Polish
Jewry. In February 1940, Karski reported: "Jews are denouncing Poles to the
secret police and are directing the work of the communist militia from
behind the scenes... Unfortunately, one must say that these incidents are
very frequent." (Report to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London.)
Hundreds of published accounts, including Jewish ones, confirm that
Jews were involved in the roundups of Polish soldiers and officials (e.g.,
at Ro _yszcze, Kowel, and Brze__), the jailing and executions of Poles
(e.g., at Lwów, Tarnopol and Czortków), and in policing the deportation of
Poles, by cattle car, to the Gulag ( e.g., from Gwo_dziec and Jedwabne). By
the time the Germans attacked their erstwhile Soviet ally in mid-1941, over
one million Poles had been deported to distant and probable death from towns
like Bra _sk (featured in Shtetl). All of this occurred before the Jewish
Holocaust got underway. Naturally, these events had a significant impact on
Polish attitudes, though that was not the only factor influencing them.
Conditions in Bra _sk under Soviet occupation were detailed in a recent
study by Zbigniew Romaniuk, titled "21 miesi_ cy w_adzy sowieckiej w
Bra_sku", in Ziemia Bra_ska, volume 6 (1995)-it does not make pleasant
reading.
German Occupation of Poland and Control of Jews
By mid-1941, Germany gained control of all of Poland and the Germans
continued the establishment of Jewish ghettos that they had started in 1939.
Germans formed the Jewish ghettos by evicting hundreds of thousands of
gentiles from their homes and then crowding many more Jewish families there
than the space could reasonably accommodate. There were no Jewish ghettos in
Poland before Germany started creating them in 1939. It is ironic that some
people not well acquainted with the history of the ghettos have mistakenly
thought that the ghettos were formed by a bigoted Polish population who
spitefully wanted to segregate the Jewish population to selected areas.
Instead, the real truth is that Polish people were unwillingly removed from
their homes by the Germans to form the ghettos, and then the Polish people
illegally aided the Jews by bringing them substantial amounts of food and
other supplies.
In terms of living conditions, the ghettos formed by the Germans bore
a haunting similarity to the concentration camps that the Germans had been
organizing since 1933. The Polish Armed Resistance reported that 500,000
Jews were crowded into the Warsaw Ghetto: 600 people per acre. Hunger, and
unspeakably poor hygienic and sanitary conditions resulted in the spreading
of tuberculosis and other contagious diseases. The Polish Underground
reported: "The isolated ghetto is restricted to internal trade, consisting
of people's private property, clothing, and household goods which are sold
at low prices for extremely expensive food.... There is no heating fuel in
the ghetto.... The health and sanitary conditions are beyond
description-there is a monstrous hunger and poverty.... Overcrowded streets
are full of aimless, pale, and starving people.... People die in the
streets.... An orphanage is being overcrowded with daily arrivals of newborn
babies.... The Germans' plunder of once-affluent Jews continues...as well as
the treatment of Jews in an exceptionally brutal manner..."
Each ghetto had its own Jewish Council (Judenrat) which oversaw
day-to-day affairs and a Jewish police force which carried out German orders
to supply laborers and, as pointed out by Jewish historians such as Isaiah
Trunk and Hannah Arendt, to round up Jews for deportation to death camps.
Thus, relatively few Germans were needed for such " Aktions," or official
actions by the German government against the Jewish people. Nor did their
success involve any type of cooperation from Polish gentiles. Because the
system set up by the Germans did not rely on Polish police, even the
opportunity for the Polish police to aid the German roundup of the Jews was
marginal or non-existent, as pointed out by Raul Hilberg, the foremost
Holocaust historian, in his important work, Perpetrators, Victims,
Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945 (New York: Aaron Asher/Harper
Collins, 1992). Conditions in the Bra_sk ghetto have been described in
Isaiah Trunk's Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi
Occupation (New York: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 380, 502; in Brainsk: Book of
Memories (New York: Shoulson Press, 1948); and in a recent study by Zbigniew
Romaniuk, titled "Bra _sk i okolice w latach 1939-1953: reminiscencje
zdarze_", in Ziemia Bra _ska, volume 6 (1995), pp. 3-32. Bra_sk also had its
corrupt Judenrat and ghetto police, and the liquidation of the ghetto was
carried out by German SS divisions and non-Polish auxiliaries (Ukrainians
and Lithuanians). A death penalty was imposed on any Pole who dared to
assist a Jew (though many did in fact do so notwithstanding.)
Polish gentiles certainly were not the masterminds who formed the
ghettos nor collaborators with the Germans in the brutal treatment of the
Jews. To the contrary, Polish gentiles sabotaged German plans for the
starvation of ghetto inmates. The Polish gentiles made illegal deliveries of
food to the ghettos- including about 25 tons of flour per day in Warsaw
alone. Many Poles were shot by the Germans for making such deliveries. When
the daily food ration in Warsaw fell to 184 calories for a Jew, 669 for a
Polish gentile, and 2,613 for a German, 80 percent of the food consumed in
the ghetto was smuggled in by Polish gentiles. The supply of raw materials
into the ghetto was forty times greater than that officially permitted by
the Germans, according to the records of the Jewish Council of the Warsaw
Ghetto. (Pogonowski, Jews in Poland, pp. 106-107.)
After Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler verbally ordered
the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question," namely the extermination of
eleven million European Jews. To work out and communicate the details of
implementing the "Final Solution," the Wannsee Conference was held in Berlin
on January 20, 1942. At the conference, the leaders of the German civil
service established the specific means by which the genocide was to be
conducted. As a direct result of the conference, the German government
announced an invitation for bids from German industry to purchase equipment
for an industrial process to exterminate eleven million European Jews.
According to plans developed at the conference, terrorized Jewish personnel
were to be used in the extermination process. Also, the plans further
directed that the extermination camps were to be isolated from the Polish
population for maximum secrecy. For this reason, the camp guards were
recruited from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Despite German
terror and German attempts to keep Poles in the dark about the Germans'
actions, radio broadcasts made by the Polish resistance regularly informed
the West of German atrocities in Poland. (Pogonowski, Jews in Poland, pp.
110, 119, 120, 121, 124, 125).
Massive deportations from the Warsaw ghetto in the Summer of 1942 (to
the Treblinka death camp) were not carried out with the assistance of any
Polish agency. Indeed, in German-occupied Poland, there was not even a
vestige of a Polish government at that time. Instead, the deportations were
organized by the Jewish police in coordination with the Judenrat and the
occupying German forces. Horrifying descriptions of this Aktion are found in
the diaries of Emanuel Ringelblum, the chronicler of the Warsaw ghetto, and
elsewhere. These sad events are only a part, but a significant part, of the
eventual roundup and execution by the Germans of a large proportion of
Poland's Jews in what later came to be referred to as the Holocaust.
On April 19, 1943, a Jewish uprising began in the Warsaw Ghetto as
Germans started the final liquidation of the Jews there. The massacre ended
on May 8, 1943. Professor Marian Fuks later wrote: "It is absolutely certain
fact that without help and even active participation of the Polish
resistance movement it would have not been possible at all to bring about
the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto." ( Biuletyn _ydowskiego Instytutu
Historycznego w Polsce/Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute in
Poland, January-March 1989, p. 44.) Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader
of the revolt, shares this view: "We didn't get adequate help from the
Poles, but without their help we couldn't have started the uprising.... You
have to remember that the Poles themselves were short of arms. The guilty
party is Nazism, fascism-not the Poles." ( The Canadian Jewish News,
November 9, 1989.)
It should go without saying that the German occupation and brutal
control of Poland was not welcomed by the Polish people. Unfortunately,
neither could the Polish people find solace in the eventual Soviet re-entry
into Poland and their consequent program of brutal control. Upon Soviet
re-entry into Poland in 1944, the Soviet terror apparatus was systematically
liquidating the remnants of the Polish Home Army and any perceived Polish
opponents of a Soviet takeover and control of Poland. It is an undeniable
fact that many Jews, usually communist functionaries, were collaborating
with the Soviets in denouncing, jailing, and executing Poles. (See for
example, Wanda Lisowska's 1946 account on conditions in Ejszyszki, another
town in Eastern Poland featured in Shtetl, found in Zeszyty Historyczne, no.
36 (1976), and reproduced at page 29 of this book.)1 Poles suspected of
having either collaborated with the Germans or of being anti-Semitic could
be, and were, executed with impunity. For example, in Drohiczyn, not far
from Bra _sk, nine Polish gentiles were murdered by local Jews because they
were falsely suspected of killing a Jew, a crime in fact perpetrated by the
Soviets [ Archiwum Polski Podziemnej: Dokumenty i materia_y, 1939-1956
(Warszawa, April 1994), volume 2, p. 80.]
Tens of thousands of Polish gentiles were executed in repressions that
affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Polish gentiles. The
foregoing are not invented facts: both Simon Wiesenthal (see below) and
Stanis _aw Krajewski, vice-chairperson of the Polish Council of Christians
and Jews, among others, have publicly admitted their shame on this account.
Under these types of wartime circumstances, where Jews were successfully
encouraged to betray Polish gentiles to the Soviet authorities, animosities
toward Jews in the general population were not a matter of anti-Semitism,
but simply a matter of survival. Active Jewish collaboration and popular
support for Soviet forces invading Poland occurred from the beginning of the
War. In the book Poles, Jews, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal, edited by
Antony Polonsky et al. (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization,
1996)-Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, volume 9, Dov Levin writes: "The Red
Army entered Vilna [Wilno, Poland] early on the morning of Tuesday, 19
September 1939, to an enthusiastic welcome by Vilna's Jewish residents, in
sharp contrast to the Polish population's reserve and even hostility.
Particular ardor was displayed by leftist groups and their youthful members,
who converged on the Red Army tank columns bearing sincere greetings and
flowers."
Despite these enormous obstacles, and the fact that Polish gentiles
also were undergoing their own Holocaust which consumed several million
victims, hundreds of thousands of Polish Christians risked their lives to
help Jews. In Warsaw alone, before the uprising of 1944 which resulted in
its total destruction, some 15,000 Jews were being sheltered. Emanuel
Ringelblum estimated that as many as 60,000 out of the city's 900,000
Christian residents were involved in the rescue efforts. Assistance has been
documented at more than 600 Catholic churches, monasteries, convents, and
church-run orphanages throughout Poland. Poles form the largest group
recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Gentiles," as many as 40 percent of
all those recognized. Yad Vashem is an official Israeli institution devoted
to honoring those who saved Jews from the Holocaust.
Just as there were some Jewish collaborators during World War II,
small numbers of Polish gentiles also collaborated with the Germans. There
is no justification or excuse for their actions, and neither was this
conduct condoned or tolerated. With the active support of Polish public
opinion, the Polish Underground passed and carried out many death sentences
against anyone found collaborating with the Germans. It is regrettably true
that collaborators, whether with the Nazis or the Soviets, whether Polish
Christians or Jews, were an effective force to contend with. But at the same
time, they were tiny, marginal and unrepresentative groups in their
respective communities.
Simon Wiesenthal has advocated the following wise and balanced
assessment of that tragic period which consumed millions of Jewish and
Polish lives: "Then the war came. It is at times like these that the lower
elements in society surface-the blackmailers who would betray Jews... On the
other hand, the 30,000 or 40,000 Jews who survived, survived thanks to the
help of the Poles. This I know." During the five years of German occupation
many of the efforts to shelter Jews ended tragically for the Jewish victims
and their Christian friends. Most instances of sporadic assistance are
seldom remembered and taken into account.
What do the leading Holocaust historians have to say about alleged
Polish complicity in the Holocaust? Yisrael Gutman, director of research at
the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem and editor in chief of The
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990), has stated authoritatively: "All
accusations against the Poles that they were responsible for 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." And again: "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." Professor Gutman stated that the
percentage of Poles who collaborated with the Germans was "infinitesimally
small." Richard Pipes, of Harvard University, wrote in the introduction to
Pogonowski's book, Jews in Poland, published on the fiftieth anniversary of
the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: "It must never be mistakenly believed that the
Holocaust was perpetrated by the Poles. Nor must it be ignored that three
million Poles perished at German hands." Szymon Datner, longtime director of
Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute, has been equally blunt: "Poles are not
responsible for the crimes of the Holocaust."
Events Following World War II
Only Soviet-trained intelligence agents were trusted by the Soviet
government among Polish prewar Communists. Among those "the
Jews...were...considered less susceptible to the lures of Polish
nationalism, to which even impeccable Polish communists were not thought
immune." (Checinski, op. cit., p. 71.) During 1945, the Soviets recruited to
the Office of State Security a very large number of Jews. Mostly Jews,
including Holocaust survivors, were assigned to carry out the Soviet policy
of de-Nazification in the former German territories which Poland was to
annex on the basis of the Potsdam Agreement in compensation for her Eastern
Provinces lost to the Soviet Union in 1939.
After the War, over 1,200 former Nazi camps were used to hold German
nationals, 99 percent of whom were noncombatants. Under the guise of
de-Nazification, members of the pro-Western Polish resistance and their
families were processed together with the Germans. In a brief period of time
between 60,000 and 80,000 people died in the de-Nazification camps.
Starvation diets, typhoid fever, and mistreatment caused the high death
rate. Torture was commonplace. Jewish officers of the UB (Urz_d
Bezpiecze_stwa-Office of State Security), including those who themselves
survived unimaginable suffering at German hands, were now used by the
Soviets to inflict the same on others. Again, to quote Simon Wiesenthal, "I
always say that I know what kind of role Jewish communists played in Poland
after the war. And just as I, as a Jew, do not want to shoulder
responsibility for the Jewish communists, I cannot blame 36 million Poles
for those thousands of blackmailers."
Polish gentiles bore the brunt of the killing force unleashed by the
Soviets while they established their totalitarian hold on Poland and the
Polish people. Checinski cites a study based on party and security archives
that estimates 80,000 to 200,000 Polish gentiles were killed by the Soviets
during their takeover, while approximately 1,600 Jews were killed at the
same time. (Checinski, op. cit., p. 64.)
John Sack, a former CBS News bureau chief in Spain and a journalist
for 48 years, spent seven years doing research and conducting interviews in
Poland, Germany, Israel, and the United States to document the story of
Jewish actions taken directly after the end of World War II in response to
the wartime atrocities. On November 21, 1993, the CBS program 60 Minutes
presented an interview with Mr. Sack and footage of interviews with the
survivors who testified to torture and killings in those camps. A Polish
woman, Dr. Dorota Boreczek, former inmate of the _wi_toch_owice camp,
testified that she was arrested (at age 14) and tortured together with her
mother. Her father, a member of the Polish Home Army, was executed. [See
John Sack, An Eye For An Eye (New York: Basic Books/Harper Collins, 1993),
- 163-165.]
The Sovietization of Poland
It is important to remember that the end of World War II did not mean
the liberation of the Polish people or of Poland, in any sense of the word.
After World War II, Poland did not have self-determination. Its government,
police, and military were under the complete and absolute control of the
Soviet Union. Poland was forcibly made to be a communist state that was not
formally a part of the Soviet Union, but a "satellite state" that was
tightly ruled as part of the Soviet empire. Several months before the July
1946 events took place in Kielce, Winston Churchill eloquently articulated
the realities for the Soviet Union's satellite states. On March 5, 1946,
Churchill made his famous "Sinews of Peace" speech in which he popularized
the term "Iron Curtain" originally coined by a Yugoslav writer:
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has
descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the
ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Prague, Vienna,
Budapest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them
lie in...the Soviet sphere.... I do not believe that...Russia desires war
[but] the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and
their doctrines.... There is nothing they admire so much as strength and
there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness, especially
military weakness."
The Soviet strategists who were in control of Poland saw significant
advantage in fostering an animosity between Jewish and gentile Poles. This
animosity was used as a tool to aid in the subjugation of Poland early in
its capture into the Soviet empire in 1944. After World War II, Soviet
machinations in this regard succeeded in converting the image of Jewish
victims of German-Nazi genocide into the image of Jewish oppressors.
(Kersten, op. cit., p. 130.) This was purposely done to put the Polish
gentile population between "a rock and a hard place." Polish gentiles were
left with two options: either don't respond to the Soviet oppression, or
respond to the Soviet oppression and thus appear to be anti-Semitic.
Although the image of Jews as oppressors was spread beyond Poland,
this phenomenon was very noticeable in Poland, where there was a steady flow
of news and often well-substantiated (if sometimes exaggerated) rumors of
executions of anti-communist Poles by Jewish executioners serving in the
Soviet-controlled terror apparatus. Kersten describes this unfortunate
development when Soviet policies created the impression that Jews played the
main role in the subjugation of Poland and other satellite countries to the
communist system. At the same time, the communist propaganda machine equated
opposition to the "socialist" regimes with anti-Semitism. So, if a Polish
person opposed the socialist Sovietization of Poland, that person was
branded as an anti-Semite. This smoke screen was used successfully to
obscure the reality of the Soviet subjugation of Poland by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet terror apparatus in Poland included the so-called Polish
military counterintelligence. It was initially integrated with the Soviet
Smersh (Death to Spies) organization directed against German spying and
subversion. However, when the front crossed the prewar Polish territory,
Smersh was used increasingly against the significant Polish resistance to
Soviet domination. In November 1944, the Polish section of Smersh became
renamed Informacja, in which Col. Ch _ci_ski later served for 10 years.
Informacja remained under the close supervision of Smersh and was at first
headed by Soviet Maj. Pyotr Kozhushko. Soviet officers assigned to the
Polish army were considered vulnerable to Polish influence and were under
close surveillance by a special Informacja department. Informacja was
clearly a Soviet-led force, not at all an independent force loyal to Poland.
At the time of the most intensive terror, between 1944 and 1955,
Smersh used its Informacja branch to have agents pose as members of the
military prosecutor's office. They used this apparatus to conduct political
trials in military courts in Poland. Tortured witnesses were "prepared" for
these trials and later were secretly executed "to remove any trace of the
provocation." (Checinski, op. cit., p. 57.) In that period, of the 120
officers serving in Informacja, only about 18 were Polish-born. Most of
these 18 were Polish Jews and the rest were Soviet citizens, some of them
Jews.
The Soviets were creative in inventing their own opportunities to
manufacture conflict between Polish Jews and gentiles. For example, it was
Soviet policy in Poland to change Yiddish names of Jews into Slavic-Polish
names. This practice was resented by both Jewish and gentile Poles. An
American journalist, Samuel Loeb Shneiderman, who visited Warsaw in 1946,
wrote in his book Between Fear and Hope (New York: Arco, 1947) that under
the cover of Polish names Jews were continuing their ethnic identity and
must have felt like their ancestors forced into conversion to Christianity
during their persecution in Spain. (Kersten, op. cit., pp. 77, 108.) The
name-changing became widespread. It served to deprive the Jews of their
cultural heritage in order to form a "progressive Jewish nation," to use
Stalin's expression.
Checinski describes how Stalin ordered the NKVD to prepare a civilian
network of police terror and repression, called the UB, to work in parallel
with the Informacja in Poland. The "Polish intelligentsia boycotted the
security service, which was treated with universal contempt as an instrument
of foreign domination." (Checinski, op. cit., p. 61.) Thus, the NKVD,
despite its deep-rooted anti-Semitism, "could not do without Jews. Jewish
officials were often placed in the most conspicuous posts; hence they could
easily be blamed for all of the regime's crimes." (Checinski, op. cit., p.
62.) The Soviet strategy of using people with striking Semitic features as
the most visible executioners of Soviet policy in Poland was also aimed at
presenting understandable anti-communist feelings within Poland as
anti-Semitism. In 1945, the upper echelons of the terror apparatus were
staffed with Jews. This created the appearance that many Jews in Poland were
members of the Soviet-controlled terror apparatus. A public proclamation,
made at a convention of Jewish members of the ruling communist party (
Polska Partia Robotnicza-PPR) on October 7-9, 1945, stated that in postwar
Poland, conditions were created for the Jews to find an outlet for their
political, social, and national ambitions. Needless to say, neither Poles
nor Jews trusted this official statement. The Zionists openly advocated a
massive emigration to Palestine (Kersten, op. cit., p. 80), which for
different reasons was also desired by the Soviet leadership.
Soviet Aims in the Middle East
In Soviet Cold War policy, the Middle East was very important because
of its vital oil reserves. It is well known that after World War II the
Soviets systematically used to their advantage the desire of Jews to fight
for the establishment of the state of Israel. Bernard Lewis of Columbia
University ( Semites and Anti-Semites, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986) as
well as other Jewish historians state that, until the creation of the State
of Israel, the only source of weapons for the Jews fighting for their
independence was the Soviet Union and its Czechoslovak satellite. Early in
1996, Ezer Weizman, the President of Israel, officially thanked Prague for
these weapons, while on a state visit to the Czech Republic. In 1946, the
United States government was in possession of "a number of official and
semi-official indications provided by the [Soviet-controlled] Warsaw
government that it is encouraging the migration of [a major] part of its
Jewish population." [George Lenczowski, The Middle East in World Affairs,
Second Edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1956), p. 330.]
The Soviet postwar aim was to get rid of the British mandate in
Palestine and play a more active role in the strategically vital Middle East
while consolidating their grip on the newly acquired satellite empire.
Toward this end the Soviets committed numerous acts of terror to pressure
Jews to emigrate out of the satellite states to be able to join the struggle
for Israel. However, once they were out of Soviet control, only about one
third of Jewish emigrants were willing to go to Palestine. About two thirds
preferred to remain in the West and go to the United States, France, or
other Western countries. This high attrition rate from what the Soviets
hoped would be a large Jewish exodus to the Middle East resulted in Soviet
efforts to intensify Jewish emigration. They did it by staging pogroms in
all of the satellite states in order to deliver the largest possible number
of able-bodied men, many of them trained soldiers, to the Palestinian
battlefield where the Jews were short of manpower.
The year 1946 was one of intensification of Soviet-sponsored
anti-Jewish violence throughout the region. The Soviets staged several
anti-Jewish riots in Poland, including the one in Kielce. In nearby
Czechoslovakia, a two-day anti-Jewish riot was staged in Bratislava and
simultaneously in _ilina. The Soviet-provoked riots at these two localities
occurred on August 2 and 3, 1946, during a convention of the Slovak
association of former guerrillas controlled by the Soviets. Scores of Jews
were injured and Jewish apartments were ransacked. In _ilina alone 15 Jews
were severely wounded. So the occurrence of Soviet-provoked anti-Jewish
riots was not unique to Poland. What was unique to Poland was the additional
necessity felt by the Soviets to severely embarrass Poland, primarily
because of the significant Polish resistance the Soviets encountered during
and after the War. The Bratislava riot served its purpose to frighten the
Czechoslovak Jews so that they would depart. Since Czechoslovakia was
permeated with communist influences predating World War II, there was no
significant Czech resistance to the communist takeover by the Soviets like
there had been in Poland. Soviet news releases of the pogroms in Hungary
followed a policy similar to that used in Czechoslovakia. Namely, they
received relatively low or non-existent amounts of promotion in the Western
press.
Actually the 1946 wave of anti-Jewish riots under Soviet occupation
was preceded with an earlier similar wave in 1945 in all areas that the
Soviets had occupied and converted into their satellite empire. The earliest
was on May 2, 1945 in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, which was followed on
September 24, 1945 in Ve _ké Topo__any in eastern Czechoslovakia, where a
riot was perpetrated by uniformed police and military under the Soviet
control. It lasted 6 hours and wounded 49 Jews. The riot engulfed
neighboring villages. Anti-Jewish riots followed in the Czechoslovakian
towns of Chynorany, Krásno on the Nitra River, Nedanovce, etc. [Kersten, op.
cit., pp. 134-135; see also Martin Gilbert, Atlas of the Holocaust (London:
Michael Joseph, 1982), p. 241.] No show trials were staged after all the
pogroms in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine. An exception was
made of the riot of the July 4, 1946 in Kielce which was advertised as much
as possible in the media because the Soviets wanted to accomplish more in
Poland than simply to press Jews to emigrate. The Soviets wanted to present
Polish people to the world as anti-Semites in order to strengthen the Soviet
totalitarian hold on Poland without arousing pro-Polish sympathies in the
West.
The Eruption of Violence in Kielce
The Kielce Pogrom was an event provoked by the Soviets in conjunction
with their attempt to Sovietize Poland that started in 1944. They were
successful, but not flawless, in making it look as if there was just a
random uprising of Polish gentiles against Jewish citizens. Although the
Soviets took pains to destroy much specific evidence relating to this event,
they made a number of mistakes that clearly reveal that this was a staged
event, one that could only be provoked and carried out by the Soviet
authorities in charge. To this day, the Soviet Union (and now Russian)
authorities have refused to release their official files containing
information relating to these events, files that would corroborate other
indications that this was a Soviet-provoked event.
Some of the Soviet mistakes in staging the Kielce Pogrom will be
discussed. In particular: (1) Twelve of the victims were found to be killed
by gunshot wounds, though the general Polish citizenry alleged to have
randomly conducted the violence did not have guns, as was admitted in the
show trial which followed. (2) Soviet authorities had firm control of the
populace; there was no right of free assembly, including the formation of
crowds in the streets, in Soviet-occupied Poland. (3) Soviet security
leaders thwarted efforts by the local district attorney, who wanted to take
actions to stop the violence. (4) After the initial violence was ended, it
was re-ignited by secret police agents who apparently attempted to pose as
steel mill workers. (5) Normally stern and brutal security police turned
temporarily friendly as they spread false rumors of ritual killing of
Christian children by Jews. (6) A selected group of people were permitted to
cross a perimeter of sentries that surrounded Kielce; Catholic priests
attempting to break up the violence were not allowed to pass. (7) A clumsy
Soviet-style show trial was hastily held five days after the event that
purported to show the complicity of the general Polish population in this
event; the inconsistencies in the conduct of the trial itself provided ample
evidence of the Soviet plot to institute the violence in Kielce.
The focal point of the Kielce Pogrom was a residential compound at 7
Planty Street. Most of the occupants were Jewish, and many were members of
the communist party. Among the residents were members of an armed "kibbutz"
composed mainly of people who had recently arrived from the Soviet Union.
Some were former German prisoners, and others had escaped captivity by
hiding in forests or in homes of Polish Christians. The kibbutz members were
undergoing military training and thus had permission from the Soviet-led
authorities to own and use firearms. This fact was well-known in Kielce,
because the kibbutz members would occasionally parade through town with
their firearms. The only other residents who had permission to be armed
worked for the Soviet terror apparatus in Kielce. Ordinary residents of
Poland, people who did not work for the Soviet terror apparatus, were not
allowed to be armed. There was a death penalty for the illegal possession of
firearms.
On July 3, 1946, a cobbler and secret police informer, Walenty
B_aszczyk, whose UB code name was "Przelot," reported to the local police
that his eight-year-old son Henryk was missing. The boy had been given a
ride out of town on July 1, 1946, and upon his return was abducted by Antoni
Pasowski, a Jewish agent of the Office of State Security, the UB. Henryk was
taught by Pasowski to say falsely that he was kidnapped and held at 7 Planty
Street. Further, he was coached to say that he saw dead bodies of recently
missing children at that location. (Kersten, op. cit., p. 129.) On July 4,
the boy was released by Pasowski and returned home. He went with his father
to the police station to cancel the missing child report and to tell the
false story of his abduction, the story that was fabricated by Pasowski.
Next, the boy was manipulated by Pasowski to falsely identify a
passing Jew as his abductor who, the boy was made to say, held him in the
basement of the compound at 7 Planty Street. There was one critical problem
with this completely false accusation: 7 Planty Street in actuality did not
have a basement! Meanwhile, a crowd was permitted to gather and a rumor was
planted about the attempt of "another" ritual murder of a Christian child in
addition to the supposed murders of previously missing children. A crowd of
200 to 300 people was allowed to form in the streets. Later communist
propaganda expanded the number to 15,000 people. Some people in the crowd
were allowed to move toward the compound at 7 Planty Street. The staged riot
in downtown Kielce was under tight control at all times by the Soviet-led
police force.
At 10 a.m. on July 4, before the crowd members reached Planty Street,
15 to 20 police officers, including five or six officers of the Informacja
arrived at the compound. The officers of the Informacja were men unknown in
Kielce. Once there, they were in control of who could and could not
approach, enter, or leave the compound in which Henryk B_ aszczyk claimed to
have been imprisoned. The uniformed police were ordered to enter the
building but were met with automatic gunfire from the Jewish occupants. One
officer and one patrolman were killed, and several uniformed men were
wounded. After the gunfire from the compound, the security officers and
policemen attacked and began shooting the trapped Jews and expelling them
out of windows into the street. In Soviet-controlled Poland, of course, the
uniformed military, the secret police, and the local police officers were
Soviet-controlled forces, not independent Polish forces.
An interesting thing happened at about 11 a.m., one hour after the
start of the riot. The local district attorney, Jan Wrzeszcz made a plea to
those in charge of the security forces to allow Wrzeszcz to work with the
local police force to put an immediate end to the violence. (Szaynok, op.
cit., p. 37.) Those in charge of the security forces rejected his plea. The
plea was made to NKVD supervisor Col. Shpilevoi and to Maj. Sobczy_
ski-Spychaj, head of the local security forces. Shortly after the plea was
received, telephone calls were made to key security leaders in Warsaw. The
office log of Sobczy_ ski-Spychaj contains notes of his telephone
conversations with Stanis_aw Radkiewicz, who was the Minister of Public
Security, and with Jakub Berman, a Jew who was at the time the main Soviet
agent in the ruling Polish Politburo in charge of all security matters.
Clearly, the Soviet agents wanted the provocation to continue, and wanted to
thwart all efforts to stop the violence.
Despite the best efforts of the Soviet agents to keep the riot going,
the violence stopped on its own before noon. The riot was restarted at noon
when a hit squad of secret police agents disguised as workers arrived from a
local steel mill. Many of them were hired shortly before the pogrom and of
course, since they were not real steel mill workers, did not report to work
after the July 4 pogrom. They came to the site of the violence armed with
pieces of scrap steel, which they were ordered to leave at the murder site
as tangible evidence that steel workers were involved in the violence.
Before departing the hit squad was addressed by Antoni B _aszczyk, an older
brother of Henryk (who was used to provoke the riot). The departure of the
storming party from work was organized by the personnel manager in the steel
mill who at the same time served as the district head of the voluntary riot
police, the "ORMO" and was an agent of the UB. [Krzysztof K_kolewski, Umar_y
cmentarz: Wst _p do studiów nad wyja_nieniem przyczyn i przebiegu morderstwa
na _ydach w Kielcach dnia 4 lipca 1946 roku (Warszawa: von borowiecky,
1996), pp. 96, 142-143.] The riot was allowed to spread in the form of
sporadic killings and robberies. Shortly after 2 p.m. a train was attacked
at a station, Piekarzowa, near Kielce. Several Jewish passengers were killed
by a mob led by agents provocateurs who controlled the railroad personnel
during the attack.
In the meantime, a crowd of onlookers was allowed to gather in the
streets. The security men were repeatedly spreading a rumor that a "Jewish
ritual murder of another Christian child" might be in progress. Police and
military men spoke to the crowd in an unusually friendly fashion and
abandoned their usual stern and authoritarian demeanor. (Szaynok, op. cit.,
- 62.) The rumor that the Jews were murdering Polish Christian children was
connected with earlier reports about missing children who were allegedly
kidnapped to be used for blood transfusions and then murdered. These rumors
were spread by agents provocateurs, who thus kept attracting people to the
scene of the riot. After 6 p.m., the pogrom came to an end as security
forces arrested 62 rioters. In all, throughout the city of Kielce and its
outskirts, thirty-nine Jews and two gentiles were killed. Other deaths
followed among the wounded.
Some of those wounded but not killed by the security officers were
killed by the mob that included the bogus steel workers. The question is,
who was permitted to cross the perimeter of sentries around downtown Kielce
at that time? Krzysztof K _kolewski, an investigative reporter and writer,
determined that it was a hit squad of secret police agents in civilian
clothes. These people pretended to be a mob while in reality they were
agents acting under strict orders. The few bystanders who joined the fake
mob of disguised secret police agents were marked with chalk on their backs
by two secret policewomen. Those marked bystanders were later put on trial
along with others including uniformed men who were not a part of the UB
operation. Secret police agents disguised as civilians were exempt from any
charges in exchange for strict secrecy about their mission and were
permitted to keep the items stolen from Jewish victims. Obviously, if they
broke their silence, they would incriminate themselves in the murders and
robberies of Jewish victims. (K _kolewski, op. cit., pp. 92-94, 143-144,
149-150, 159.)
Some of the murders in the Kielce violence were committed by common
criminals who robbed and murdered their victims as the riot was permitted to
spread. However, many of the murders could only have been committed by
members of the security forces. In particular, bullet wounds were discovered
in twelve of the murdered Jewish victims. Bullets could originate only from
the uniformed police, soldiers, and functionaries of the security forces as
the mob members did not have any guns (as was admitted in the show trial).
Dr. Seweryn Kahane, the head of the local Jewish association, the "kibbutz,"
was murdered by an Informacja officer who shot him in the back of the skull.
He was executed because he became an inconvenient witness to the
provocation. A few days later, another inconvenient witness died under
unexplained circumstances after he testified about the violence staged in
Kielce. He was Albert Grynbaum, a Jewish officer in charge of a county
office of the UB, who helped to organize the defense of the kibbutz and
testified about the provocation.
Early in his book, Checinski identifies a highly-ranked Soviet
intelligence agent, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Dyomin or Demin (Checinski, op.
cit., pp. 25-26), who was assigned in 1946 to Kielce, a relatively
unimportant town in central Poland. This apparently inconsequential location
was hardly consistent with his rank and qualifications. From all
indications, Dyomin's assignment was to bolster the Soviet pressure on the
Jews to emigrate and at the same time to create a dramatic diversion to draw
attention from the Soviet falsification of a crucial Polish election
referendum, which was to "legitimize" the communist government in Poland.
Why was it necessary for the Soviets to draw attention away from the
election? The Soviets considered the conquest and control of Poland to be
one of the most important Soviet gains of World War II. The Yalta Accord
made by the Allies was a cornerstone of the post-war Soviet empire, an
accord that the Soviets liked very much because it gave them the biggest
empire in Russian history. However, the Soviets were concerned that the
United States could back out of the agreement at any time, since the Yalta
Accord's status in the United States was only as an executive agreement and
not as a Congressionally-ratified treaty. The Yalta Accord gave the Soviets
a number of rights, including the right to control Poland and other
so-called "satellite states" in the form of a Soviet "zone of influence"
that was accepted and recognized by the Western Allies. The same Yalta
Accord demanded that the Soviets guarantee free elections in Poland. The
Soviets desired to illegally control the elections in Poland, confirm a
previously-installed Soviet-controlled communist puppet regime, and thus
solidify their political strangulation of Poland, while simultaneously not
provoking the sympathy of the American public. The Dyomin assignment was
therefore crucial: to engineer a series of situations in which the Poles
could appear to be persecuting Jews, Nazi-style, so that a fed-up American
public would welcome or ignore Soviet attempts to clamp down on Poland and
stop the apparent persecution of Jews by the Polish gentile population. The
Soviets realized they had an enormous amount to gain by prominently
portraying Polish people as anti-Semitic to the American and West European
public.
It is speculated by many, including American Ambassador to Poland at
that time, Authur Bliss Lane, that the Soviets purposely chose the exact
date of the United States Independence Day holiday to stage the provocation.
This choice would serve to maximize press exposure and associated public
attention on what otherwise would be a slow news day. Also, it was a day
when people did not go to work and could react fully to the dramatic news of
the bloody riot. Bliss Lane was among those aware that the July 4 pogrom was
staged to overshadow the Soviet election-tampering in Poland and to serve
Soviet schemes in the Middle East. The American Ambassador also noted that
its purpose was to discredit Polish opposition to Sovietization "especially
among Jewish circles in the United States." Both communist and non-communist
sources, in Ambassador Lane's words "admitted that it was not spontaneous,
but a carefully organized plot." [Arthur Bliss Lane, I Saw Poland Betrayed
(Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1948), p. 249.] In spite of U.S. Embassy
reports that were cognizant of the realities of the situation, the Soviet
aims were achieved because American public opinion was swayed against the
Polish people, which was the aim of the Soviets.
The Kielce riot was not the first time that the method of provocation
used in Kielce was employed by the Soviets. A year earlier, in June 1945,
Sobczy _ski-Spychaj was in charge of the UB in Rzeszów where the Soviets
attempted to provoke violence by alleging that a ritual murder had been
committed by the Jews. A police patrol falsely reported an arrest of a rabbi
wearing a bloody apron and standing next to what was alleged to be the body
of a girl hanging on a butcher's hook. The false story maintained that
behind the rabbi, on the floor, were the dead bodies of 16 children. The
provocation did not work because the few Jews in town were forewarned and
left Rzeszów. Since the provocation didn't work and those who had bungled
the scheme were potentially embarrassing witnesses, the members of the
police patrol who reported the allegation against the rabbi were arrested
and never seen again. (Kersten, op. cit., p. 110.) A year later, the same
man in charge of the security force that attempted to provoke an incident in
Rzeszów, Sobczy_ski-Spychaj, was in the identical position of being in
charge of the security office in Kielce in time for the occurrence of the
Kielce riots. Sobczy _ski-Spychaj reported to the Soviet authority Dyomin
during the time of the Kielce riots.
In Kielce, the agents who staged the violence on July 4 were paid to
do so. According to the deposition of the widow of Col. Wiktor Ku _nicki,
the chief of police in Kielce, a man fitting the description of Dyomin
delivered to Ku_nicki's apartment the money (in foreign currency) for paying
off the agents provocateurs needed for the eruption of violence in Kielce.
Ku_nicki died on December 26, 1946 under unexplained circumstances. He was
most likely killed on NKVD orders as he became inconvenient because he knew
too much about the Soviet provocation in Kielce. This style of eliminating
inconvenient people was a familiar pattern in the Soviet terror apparatus.
To make sure that the traces of Soviet provocation were eliminated the files
of the Informacja attached to the 2nd Infantry Division in Kielce were
recently destroyed by fire in November 1989 (it was near the end of
communist rule in Poland.) (Szaynok, op. cit., p. 93.)
Some of the specifics of Dyomin's intelligence career are
well-documented. Dyomin was the key Soviet agent in the 1946 Kielce
provocation, and stayed in Kielce only long enough to accomplish his
assigned task. He arrived three months before the outbreak of the riot. He
stayed through the riot, interrogated witnesses of the riot, and then two
weeks later he left Kielce. Later in his career, Dyomin was stationed in the
Soviet Embassy in Tel Aviv in 1964-67 as a specialist in Jewish matters and
in 1969 was assigned to the Soviet Embassy in West Germany. In the American
literature he was described as a high-ranking officer of Soviet military
intelligence, the G.R.U. [John Barron, KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret
Agents (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 385.]
Military Trials Following the Pogrom
The murders and other crimes committed by the non-Soviet participants
during the pogrom were within the jurisdiction of the local civilian court.
Instead, the Supreme Military Court, closely supervised by the Soviet
Smersh, was selected to try civilian perpetrators of the pogrom. The show
trial was preceded by Soviet-style investigations, during which tortures
were often used to extract confessions. The role of uniformed men and armed
security agents who inflicted bullet wounds in Jewish victims was excluded
from the investigations and the show trial of the rioters.
The show trial was conducted from July 9 to July 11, 1946. Though they
acknowledged that an organized provocation had occurred (Checinski, op.
cit., p. 23), the military court did not reveal who was responsible. Of the
mob, 12 men were tried of which nine were sentenced to death. These included
seven of the onlookers who joined in the murders conducted by agents of the
terror apparatus, and two uniformed men who were not a part of the UB
operation. Those who did most of the killing were never tried. The
prosecutor, Kazimierz Golczewski, a Polish Jew known as an old NKVD hand,
consistently violated all normal legal procedures during the trial. He did
this with full approval of the three military judges, namely, Marian Barton,
Stanis _aw Baraniak, and Antoni _ukasik. [Antoni Czubi _ski, Dzieje
najnowsze Polski: Polska Ludowa (1944-1989) (Pozna_: Wielkopolska Agencja
Wydawnicza, 1992), p. 113.] At one point during the trial, Golczewski went
as far as to threaten a defendant with additional bodily harm when the man
was complaining about tortures inflicted upon him during the interrogation.
The entire show trial was a mockery of the law. It was a Soviet-style
show trial conducted in Poland to fulfill political and propaganda purposes.
The very conduct of the show trial was proof of the complete Soviet
domination of life in Poland. It was absolutely impossible for anyone other
than the Soviets to provoke and stage a pogrom in which security forces
either directly participated in the riot or stood by and let the pogrom go
on under their noses for eight hours. The sentries who were posted around
the riot area did prevent Catholic priests Roman Zelek and Jan Danilewicz
from reaching the places of the violence, because it was their intention to
try to pacify the mob. [Kersten, op. cit., p. 128; also Stanis_aw Meducki
and Zenon Wrona, eds., Anty_ ydowskie wydarzenia kieleckie 4 lipca 1946
roku: Dokumenty i materia_y (Kielce: Urz_ d Miasta Kielce and Kieleckie
Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1992), volume 1, p. 94.] Because of Moscow's control
over the Polish communist government, the global Soviet policies determined
the events in Poland. This explains why a high-ranking intelligence officer
like Dyomin, who was also a Jewish specialist, was sent to Kielce and stayed
there only long enough to supervise the staging of the riots, then to
interrogate witnesses, and then departed immediately as soon as his short
assignment was completed.
The weaknesses of the show trial created a need to announce the arrest
of the officers who "did not show enough resolve during the riot." Military
and police officers associated with the pogrom were arrested and were given
very light sentences by the Military Regional Court in Warsaw on December
16, 1946. (Kersten, op. cit., p. 128.) The most immediate instigator of the
Kielce violence, Antoni Pasowski, a Jewish member of the Public Security
Agency, was never tried. Henryk B_ aszczyk was not asked to testify. Other
less-advertised trials were held in Kielce on September 24, October 10,
December 3, 1946 and March 1947. (Szaynok, op. cit., pp. 74-93.)
Maj. Sobczy_ski-Spychaj, the head of the Kielce State Security Forces,
was promoted to head the regional Informacja soon after the Kielce event.
This promotion was typical, for he was in the middle of a long career of
being used by the Soviets to betray Poland. According to testimony of Józef
_wiat_o (former NKVD and UB agent who defected to the West), Sobczy
_ski-Spychaj was the Soviet agent who was parachuted to Poland during the
war and brought with him instructions for the communist underground to
collaborate with the Gestapo in betraying to the Germans the organization of
the Polish Home Army controlled by the Polish Government-in-Exile in London.
While in Poland, Sobczy _ski-Spychaj worked as radio-code operator for
communication with Smersh under the command of Gen. Ivan Serov. Sobczy
_ski-Spychaj was flown to the USSR in 1944 by a special NKVD plane.
(Kersten, op. cit., pp. 96, 129.) Later in his career, in the Summer of
1950, he was appointed to head the passport office in Warsaw. As the head of
the passport office Sobczy _ski-Spychaj persecuted Jewish applicants for
passports. He was reported to have used foul language and threw a number of
persons down the stairs. At the request of the Soviets, Sobczy _ski-Spychaj
was promoted to the rank of colonel and was elevated to the head of
personnel office of the Ministry of Defense. He was kept in sensitive posts
as a useful agent of the NKVD. In June 1958 he earned his high school
diploma. He died in 1988 in Warsaw. (Szaynok, op. cit., p. 92.)
Widespread awareness of the Soviet provocation of the riot caused
protests against the death sentences. Demands were made for a full
investigation into the affair. Catholic clergy, including then absent Bishop
Kaczmarek of Kielce, the opposition parties as well as General W _adys_aw
Anders and other leaders of Polish political emigration were named during
the show trial as anti-communist conspirators behind the Kielce violence.
The show trial could not substantiate any of these charges.
The hurriedly-organized show trial did not give any chance for the
defense lawyers to prepare themselves. There was, however, plenty of effort
made to bring a large crowd of Polish and foreign news correspondents. The
communists counted on the ignorance of foreign reporters of Soviet
show-trial techniques and they assumed that Polish newsmen would be too
intimidated to report on the abuse of the law. It was clear that for the
Soviets, anti-Semitism was a convenient political and propaganda tool used
to disrupt Polish society. It also served to identify anyone smeared with
anti-Semitism as a "fascist" guilty of collaboration with the Nazis during
the war.
Disbelief, Pain, Shame
In Poland, the news of the details of murders in Kielce caused first
disbelief, then pain and shame that a Polish mob could be capable of such
horrible atrocities and brutal killing frenzy no matter whether the crimes
were provoked by the Soviets or not. Throughout Poland meetings were held
condemning the pogrom of Kielce as a horrible atrocity. Stanis _aw
Miko_ajczyk, the leader of the opposition Polish Peasants' Party,
immediately condemned the pogrom. However, reports of his condemnation in
the media were censored. The demand for a parliamentary investigation of the
pogrom was rejected by the communist government. The Soviet-led government
promised the formation of an investigative commission composed of all
political parties. It never materialized.
Since one of the aims of the Soviets was to cause an exodus of Jews
from Poland, the Soviet authorities took actions to make the exit from
Poland as easy as possible. A few days after the funeral of the victims of
violence staged by the Soviets in Kielce, Soviet General Gvidon Chervinsky,
the chief of border guards, called his Jewish assistant, Micha _ Rudawski,
and ordered him to establish two more "illegal" crossing points for Jews on
the Czechoslovakian border. (K _kolewski, op. cit., p. 191.) These crossing
points were supposedly illegal, but in reality they were purposely
established by the Soviets and allowed free egress for Jews but not for
anyone else. The new crossings were added to those existing already in
Szczecin (Jewish code name Khyzar, or bristle in Hebrew, because Szczecin in
Polish means bristle market) and in K_odzko (Jewish code name Dorom). The
southern crossings were to serve Jewish emigrants going through Austria to
Palestine and the northern crossing at Szczecin served those Jews who
travelled to West German displaced persons' camps and from there south
through Austria or Italy to Palestine. As stated before, about two-thirds of
the Jewish emigrants preferred to go to the United States, France, or other
western country. As a result of Jewish emigration, by the end of 1946, there
were 100,000 Jews left in Poland of the quarter of a million that were there
at the beginning of the year. At the same time, over 200,000 Polish Jews
were in West Germany and Austria waiting for further migration. The
Anglo-American Commission promised admission of 100,000 Jews to Palestine.
In the West German D.P. camps, Jewish socialists advocated returning to
Poland while Zionists insisted on immigration to Palestine. (Pogonowski,
Jews in Poland, p. 349.)
A Polish documentary, The Witnesses [_wiadkowie], illustrates the
feelings of pain and shame inflicted on the Polish society by the Kielce
Pogrom. Many realized that the Soviet provocation succeeded in damaging the
good name of the Polish people by cynically staging the vicious pogrom and
playing up the card of anti-Semitism. The Soviet occupation and policies
conditioned a limited number of people in Kielce to respond to the
provocation. Also, no one familiar with the Kielce Pogrom claimed that it
was a spontaneous violence. (Kersten, op. cit., pp. 96, 130.) The Catholic
Church clearly stated that the provocateurs and perpetrators of the murder
in Kielce must be absolutely and without any reservations condemned in the
light of God's and human laws and that all rumors about Jewish ritual
murders are lies. (July 7, 1946, Bishop Teodor Kubina). Cardinal Hlond, the
Catholic Primate of Poland, stated on July 11, 1946: "The Catholic Church
always and everywhere condemns all murders. It also condemns those that take
place in Poland regardless of who commits them and regardless of whether
they are committed against Poles or Jews, whether in Kielce or elsewhere in
the country. The way the unfortunate and deplorable events unfolded in
Kielce demonstrates that they were not spurred by racism. Their basis was
entirely different, and both painful and tragic. These events are a hideous
calamity which fill me with sadness and sorrow." Czes _aw Mi_osz, Nobel
Prize laureate for Polish literature, called these tactics "socialist
terrorism." Among victims of the Soviet or socialist terrorism were many
Polish democratic leaders who were neither anti-Semitic nor reactionary.
Unfortunately, the Moscow files on the Kielce violence have never been
opened. These perhaps contain the reports of NKVD/KGB Col. Natan Shpilevoi
and G.R.U . high ranking officer Mikhail Dyomin, who apparently was in
charge of choosing the site and staging the provocation in Kielce. Thus, in
the absence of direct evidence from Moscow, the Soviet provocation remains
the most likely hypothesis, one that is corroborated by all of the available
evidence. Clearly, the presence and activities of these two Soviet officers
preclude any possibility that the violence in Kielce erupted spontaneously.
Conclusion
The tragic events known as the Pogrom of Kielce of 1946 are
demonstrably a part of Soviet postwar global strategy. The Soviets
ruthlessly exploited Jews for Soviet political purposes. The pogroms staged
behind the lines of the Red Army were provoked or condoned in order to
generate an exodus of Jews who otherwise would not emigrate. The migration
of Jews to Palestine was needed by the Soviets to abolish the British
mandate there and profit from Arab-Israeli conflict in order to interfere
with oil supplies to the West. Meanwhile, a minority of the Jewish
population was used by the Soviets to establish communist regimes in the
satellite states.
The Pogrom of Kielce was ignited by the Soviet introduction of an
organized provocation based on planting false reports of ritual murders, a
method of provoking violence originally started by the czarist governments.
As was detailed, a very similar provocation was staged a year earlier in
Rzeszów by the same NKVD agents. The Pogrom of Kielce was timed for
anti-Polish propaganda purposes to persuade the Western powers that Poland
should remain a colony of the Soviets, rather than being allowed to return
to freedom as did other Allied nations. For that reason it was singled out
for extensive news coverage which was to convince Western politicians that
"Polish anti-Semitism" could only be tamed by the Soviets and that allowing
Poland to become free would cause another wave of anti-Semitism and murders
of Jews.
The Kielce Pogrom, perhaps more than any other historical occurrence,
has been used to falsely show evidence of Polish actions to exterminate
Jews. This view, clearly put forward by a 1940's Soviet establishment keen
to subjugate Poland, has been allowed to become the commonly accepted
"conventional wisdom." In this case, the conventional wisdom is wrong: it
does not square with the historical facts. Those who can examine the
historical record but then choose to ignore it and purposely libel an entire
nation and ethnic group are on the wrong side of history: they are using the
methods of Hitler and Stalin.
It is sometimes said that throughout history people and their nations
are inclined to gear up to fight the last war. So it may be with attempts at
ethnic destruction. In the Information Age, new Holocausts may be possible
not so much by gas chambers, the technology of genocide for World War II,
but by printing presses and their modern-day electronic equivalents. Is
hatred for a person simply because of his ethnicity more acceptable today,
as long as the object of the hatred is a Pole rather than a Jew? And once it
is decided that it is important to instill hatred against members of a given
ethnic group, can there be any limit to the perpetration of lies, myths, and
mischaracterizations to drive the hatred home? And once ethnic hatred is
started and nurtured in a people, where will it end? The Holocaust itself
unfortunately provides one answer, one such ending point.
Clear and reprehensible evidence of anti-Polonism can be seen by
inclusion of the events at Kielce, horrible though they were, as a Polish
continuation of Hitler's evil work of the Holocaust. This defamation of
Polish people can be seen in downtown Washington, D.C., at the Holocaust
Museum. This type of anti-Polonism can be read in occasional press accounts
that slur the Polish people and sometimes can even be heard in informal
discussions. Despite these open sores, it is not too far-fetched, I think,
to imagine that Jews and Poles, two peoples who survived a twin Holocaust
perpetrated by the same country, could develop a new relationship based on
friendship and goodwill. It may well be time, fifty years after this tragic
event took place, to put the Kielce Pogrom in its proper perspective as an
event unconnected with the Holocaust and an event not conducted by a free
and willing Polish population, a population that in actual fact abhorred
this violence. The Soviet design to falsely discredit the Polish people
through this staged event has amazingly outlived even the Soviet Union
itself. The spirit of hatred of World War II and the associated Holocaust,
and the habit of hate against Poles promoted by the former "evil empire" of
the Soviet Union will still exist as long as its tentacles still reach into
the minds and actions of ordinary people. Shalom, my friends, and pokój.
Peace to all.
Special recognition is given to the Information Services of the
Canadian Polish Congress for materials and help given during writing of this
study
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Myers" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
To: "clem clarke" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2006 11:10 AM
Subject: Tariq Aziz asked to give evidence against George Galloway
(1) Be careful about Porn
(2) Letter to Eric Hufschmid
(3) Voltaire and Jews
(4) Jewish Record Producer Behind Hispanic Anthem
(5) Tariq Aziz asked to give evidence against George Galloway
(6) End Time Values. The Demise of America
(1) Be careful about Porn - by Peter Myers, April 30, 2006
I use a number of email addresses, but principally This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The others receive a little bit of spam or porn, but my main address is
deluged
by it.
This can hardly be accidental - it's a punishment for my truth-seeking. An
attempt to hinder my work, by slowing me down. And possibly a trap.
Many of the porn emails - with lurid subject lines - contain links one can
click
on to see the sex scene.
Never click on any of them. If you do, a record may be kept of your visiting
the
site, and this could be used against you in future - eg to blackmail you, or
besmirch your reputation.
Apart from that, it would reveal your weakness to the sender, who would be
further encouraged.
The sender of many of these porn emails is a woman - or so it seems. Don't
believe it - that's just a lure. Instead, see a Mossad operative - a man -
behind the subterfuge.
Some people, deluged by spam and porn, change their email address. I refuse
to
do so, and have found ways to beat off the attack. It does not slow me down,
or
defeat me in any way. Instead, I get an insight into my emenies' mindset and
grovelling lowliness.
I have made it a practice never to change a single link on my website, ever
since it went public. That is, anyone who bookmarked one of my pages some
years
ago, will find the same link working today. The only exception is pages
under
development, which I might mention in these email discussions but which I
had
not listed in my official index at
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/download.html
Turning away from porn does not mean becoming puritanical. On the contrary,
Pornography is miles away from Art of the erotic kind. The difference is the
Pornography treats the other merely as an object, a body, whereas Art
depicts
the other primarily as a person, a soul.
As an example, I recall cases of seeing a woman who appeared beautiful, but
upon
opening her mouth and revealing her mind, any such beauty vanished.
Apart from that, some things are best left to the imagination.
Yesterday, at a garage sale, I heard of a case of some people in this area,
caught growing hydroponic marijuana underground.
The hydroponic kind is the kind being blamed for "schizophrenia" among
marijuana
users. That's because, lacking soil, the roots absorb the many dangerous
chemicals put into the nutrient mix. In contrast, marijuana the herb, the
"weed", has long been used in Hindu and Islamic societies, moderately,
without
reported adverse consequences.
Anyway, these underground growers were caught because their electricity bill
had
blown out.
And that reminds me of the Promis computer software - used by all police
agencies - described by Ari Ben-Menashe. He mentions (but not in the extract
at
this link) that the software keeps track of changes in electricity and water
use: http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/vanunu.html
(2) Letter to Eric Hufschmid - by Peter Myers, April 30, 2006
Eric,
The 2005 edition of Painful Deceptions is quite different from the 2003
edition:
more professional but less personal.
It shows no footage of you, or photo of you, and does not use your voice.
It says that you produced it, but in some places talks of you in the third
person, as "Hufschmid did this" etc; yet I recall cases of the first-person
too.
This is a puzzle to me. Perhaps you felt that you had to lower your profile
...
for security reasons.
You have now parted ways with some of your earlier associates. This is
understandable to me - you have discovered Zionism - and Mossad - which you
seem
not to have done in 2003.
I, on the other hand, was immediately onto Mossad. Within the first week
after
911, I noticed Jared Israel, of Emperors' Clothes, deriding claims of Mossad
involvement, in a discussion forum at Pravda.
Conspiracy analysts are divided in many ways; this is not surprising, since
we
are all groping for the truth "through a glass darkly".
But the biggest divide is between those who "write out" any Israeli/Mossad
involvement, and those who "write it in".
The former find themselves hitting the "glass wall" - the one they don't
know is
there until they hit it.
Those who "write out" the Israel tie want to blame Bush, Cheney, the
Christian
Right etc. They would have a large number of people involved in a 911
conspiracy
and cover-up - scam as you call it.
I on the other hand think the number of true conspirators small. That's a
necessity for safety reasons. There would be a lot of other people who would
be
used by them - dupes, some possibly done away with after their unwitting
service.
Mossad's taste for using other agencies to do its dirty work was described
by a
former Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky:
How Mossad Got America to Bomb Libya & Fight Iraq
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/ostrovsky.html.
Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent, says its motto is "By way of deception,
thou
shalt do war".
Mossad, he says, provoked America's air strike on Libya in 1986 by making it
appear that terrorist orders were being transmitted from the Libyan
government
to its embassies around the world. But the messages originated in Israel and
were re-transmitted by a special communication device - a "Trojan horse" -
Mossad had placed inside Libya.
Mossad next moved against Saddam, drawing the United States to make war
against
him.
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Shin Bet agent, similarly showed how Mossad used
unsuspecting Palestinians to assassinate its enemies:
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/vanunu.html
One can see Mossad's mindset. It likes such solutions because they are
elegant.
Even so, there is more to US history than Mossad. Those who talk of a
"British"
or "Illuminati" or "Luciferian" conspiracy (Larouche, Webster Tarpley, Henry
Makow, Barry Chamish, et. al.) are partly right too, in the sense that there
at
least three major conspiracies or factions:
- "British" (which includes the US)
- Zionist
- Socialism of the Trotskyist or H. G. Wells kind - the Internationalist
kind,
not Stalin's.
I have written up the relationship among the three at:
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/british-conspiracy.html
- J. Dillon wrote in his book on the Peace Conference of Versailles that it
was
dominated by the Anglo-Saxon powers, and that they in turn were dominated by
their Jewish members:
'Of all the collectivities whose interests were furthered at the Conference,
the
Jews had perhaps the most resourceful and certainly the most influential
exponents. ... a considerable number of Delegates believed that the real
influences behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples were Semitic' (The Peace
Conference,
Hutchinson & Co.,
London, 1919, p. 422).
More at http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/stalin.html
Then, after the next World War, there was another plan for World
Government -
the Baruch Plan, authored by David Lilienthal and Bernard Baruch (both
Jewish),
and put to Stalin in 1946 by the American Government:
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/baruch-plan.html
Stalin himself was murdered in 1953, within two months of the "Doctors
Plot".
The murderers were in two factions: a Russian one (led by Khruschev), and a
Jewish one (Beria, Kaganovich):
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/death-of-stalin.html
It is difficult to unravel 911 without getting into wider conspiracy
analysis,
such as my website is devoted to: http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/
On the other hand, "generalists" like me need the different kinds of
"specialists", such as yourself.
I have two DVDs of Confronting the Evidence (2005). One has Painful
Deceptions
(2005), and the other does not - even though the cardboard cover says that
it is
included.
(3) Voltaire and Jews
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:12:53 +0500 From: "Eric Walberg"
<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
I've just been discovering Voltaire. What an incredible philosopher. Sooo
contemporary. I'd love to reader more of what he says about Jews but have no
access here. Do you have something in your library or can you add something?
Many thanks if either is the case.
Eric
http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/13dicta.htm
http://library.flawlesslogic.com/jtr_01.htm "The Jewish nation dares to
display
an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all
masters;
always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others,
always
barbarous -- cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity."
-- Voltaire, (1694-1778), one of the greatest French eighteenth century
writers,
from Essai sur le Moeurs
Ironically, notes Jacob Katz, "Voltaire did more than any other single man
to
shape the rationalist trend that moved European society toward improving the
status of the Jew." [KATZ, From, p. 34] Still historically remembered
(according
to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1994) "as a crusader against tyranny and
bigotry," Voltaire turned repeatedly and angrily against Jews who he
believed to
epitomize such "tyranny and bigotry." Jews, he complained, "are ... the
greatest
scoundrels who have ever sullied the face of the globe ... They are, all of
them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and
Germans are born with blond hair. I would not in the least be surprised if
these
people would not some day become deadly to the human race ... You [Jews]
have
surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct, and in
barbarism.
You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny." [GOULD, p. 91] On
another
occasion Voltaire charged that "the Jew does not belong to any place except
that
place which he makes money; would he not just as easily betray the King on
behalf of the Emperor as he would the Emperor for the King?" [KATZ, J, Fro,
p.
44]
Thirty of 118 of Voltaire's essays in his Dictionary of Philosophy address
Jews,
usually disparagingly. Voltaire calls Jews "our masters and our enemies ...
whom
we detest ... the most abominable people in the world." [PRAGER, p. 128
****** and this tantalizing bit from Nietzsche:
"Jews chose voluntarily and with a profound talent for self-preservation the
side of all those instincts that makes for decadence, not as if mastered by
them, but as if detecting in them a power by which the world could be
defied.
The Jews are the very opposite of decadents ... they have put themselves at
the
head of all decadent movements." -- Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900) [AGUS, p.
295]
AND this from Fichte:
"I see no other means of protecting ourselves against them," wrote Fichte,
"[other] than by conquering their Promised Land and sending them all there"
(Lewis, 111-112). Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin declared that Jews were
"one
exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite
closely
and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries, but also
across all divergences of political opinion ... [Jews have] that mercantile
passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national
character" (Lewis, 113).
and among Soviet emigres:
in interviews (at a Harvard archive) with 329 refugees from the Soviet Union
in
the early 1950s: "A detailed examination of the background information of
those
who registered hostile attitudes to Jews reveals that they were of various
age,
national, educational, and status groups, and that they left the USSR at
different periods" (Korey, 11). The top six "anti-Semitic" assertions by
this
diverse group of people included assertions that
(1) Jews occupy a privileged and favored position in Soviet society. 2) Jews
are
business- and money-minded. 3) Jews are clannish and help each other. 4)
Jews
are aggressive and 'pushy.' 5) Jews are sly, calculating, and manipulative,
and
know how to 'use a situation.' 6) Jews are deceitful, dishonest,
unprincipled,
insolent, and impudent (Korey, 5).
[critics of Jews] represented a bewildering range of opinion and personality
types" (Lindemann, 13). And why is this "uncomfortable [for Jews] to
recognize?"
Because, by even a child's exercise of logic and common sense, the common
denominator of all such disparate people can only be the enduring truths
about
Jews as each observer experienced them in varying historical and cultural
circumstances.
Lewis, Bernard. Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and
Prejudice. Norton, New York, 1986. Lindemann, Albert. Esau's Tears: Modern
Antisemitism and the Rise of the Jews. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Korey,
William. The Soviet Cage: Anti-Semitism in Russia. Village Press, New York,
1973
(4) Jewish Record Producer Behind Hispanic Anthem
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 05:40:49 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Briton behind anthem that enraged Bush
Tony Allen-Mills, The Sunday Times (London), April 30, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2158064,00.html
A BRITISH record producer who started his career as a tea-boy in a London
studio
has emerged as the man behind a Spanish-language version of The
Star-Spangled
Banner, America's national anthem, that has upset President George W Bush.
Adam
Kidron, 46, released Nuestro Himno - Our Anthem - on Friday as a gesture of
support for Hispanic immigrants. He has outraged rightwingers who complain
that
the Spanish version's new lyrics are confrontational, and that immigrants do
not
make enough effort to learn English. America's 40m Latinos have declared
tomorrow a day of protest to back demands for improved citizenship rights
for
11m Hispanic illegal immigrants. As the country braced itself for the
shutdown
of schools, restaurants and building sites, Bush declared at a White House
press
conference: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English." Other
right-wingers have complained that the new version is disrespectful to
American
patriotism and divisively belligerent in tone. One of the Spanish lines -
sung
by a Latin star named Pitbull - translates as: "My people keep fighting/
It's
time to break the chains."
Kidron was unrepentant yesterday. As chief executive of Urban Box Office,
which
specialises in Latin music, he works closely with immigrant musicians. His
idea
for a revised national anthem came when a Republican congressman declared on
television that illegal immigrants ought to be kicked out. Kidron said he
was
"disgusted" by America's lack of generosity towards workers whose cheap
labour
is regarded by many as crucial to the US economy. He looked around for a
record
that would be "a song of pride for Latinos" and hit on the idea of Latin
musicians reinterpreting The Star- Spangled Banner. "I suppose I had a faint
idea that if you do something a bit different, someone always complains," he
said. "But it just seemed really cool to do something that was artful,
emotional
and, to some extent, patriotic." Instead, Kidron's New York office was
flooded
with hate mail complaining that he was demeaning the national anthem and
discouraging immigrants from embracing American culture. As the US
television
networks scrambled to book him for interviews he said: "I'm afraid we may be
stoking prejudice. We don't seem to be much of a cultural bridge."
Kidron built a successful career in London in the 1980s producing artists
such
as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Neneh Cherry and Aztec Camera. He arrived in
America in the 1990s and has developed Urban Box Office as a specialist
entertainment company focused on Latin markets. Among the artists featured
on
Nuestro Himno are Gloria Trevi, a Mexican pop diva, Ivy Queen, a Puerto
Rican
star, and Wyclef Jean, representing the Haitian immigrant community. Kidron
said
he was appalled by the argument that Hispanic immigrants should leave their
past
behind in order to become Americans. "Look at how many Americans parade
their
Irish roots on St Patrick's Day," he said. "And go down to Little Italy in
New
York. When you hear people speaking Italian in those restaurants, you think,
oh
good, it's authentic, the food must be good. Yet it seems to be a
qualification
for Hispanic immigrants that they mustn't carry the flag of the country they
were born in and they mustn't sing in their own language because it proves
they
are not assimilating." He described Bush's remarks as "ridiculous".
(5) Tariq Aziz asked to give evidence against George Galloway
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 07:32:30 EDT From: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Galloway inquiry wants Saddam deputy to testify
From Daniel McGrory and Ali Hamdani in Baghdad
The Times April 29, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2156507,00.html
BRITISH diplomats in Baghdad have asked Tariq Aziz, Iraq's former deputy
prime
minister, to help an investigation into allegations that George Galloway was
given cash by Saddam Hussein under the Oil-for-Food programme.
The diplomats made the secret approach through Mr Aziz's lawyer this week on
behalf of Parliament's so-called "sleaze buster". The lawyer, Badie Izzat
Arief,
claimed that they offered to try and secure Mr Aziz immunity from
prosecution on
any charges arising from the Oil-for-Food scandal.
Embassy officials want to meet Mr Aziz, 70, in the US-run detention centre
where
he is held with other top members of Saddam's regime to put a series of
questions from Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for
Standards.
Sir Philip is investigating claims that the MP for Bethnal Green & Bow took
money under the UN Oil-for-Food programme - a charge that Mr Galloway
strenuously denies and about which he has already successfully sued and won
damages from one national newspaper.
Mr Arief told The Times that his client has been interrogated 312 times by
the
CIA and UN investigators since his arrest in April 2003, but this was the
first
British approach."We were surprised to hear from the British, but let's see
what
they want," Mr Arief said.
"The main question I believe is whether money was paid by anyone in Iraq to
Mr
Galloway's charity, the Mariam Appeal."
He said that US officials had asked his client more than 100 detailed
questions
about Western politicians alleged to have received money from Saddam, but
none
about Mr Galloway.
"The CIA haven't asked about Mr Galloway. They are obsessed with Jacques
Chirac.
Mr Aziz told them: â*~I find it strange you want revenge on Chirac. He is
the
respected President of France, so I regard the question as insulting.' "
Mr Aziz, who also served as Saddam's Foreign Minister, spent a Christmas
holiday
with Mr Galloway, in Baghdad, in 1999. Mr Galloway described him as "an
eminent
diplomat and intellectual person".
In the same interview Mr Arief said that Mr Aziz, who surrendered to US
forces
soon after the 2003 invasion and has never been charged, is suffering from
deteriorating health.
He revealed how Saddam's former right-hand man now lives in a small cell in
what
was a Republican Guard barracks, now part of Camp Cropper, the huge US base
near
Baghdad airport.
The urbane, English-speaking envoy with a passion for handstitched suits now
shuffles about in a tatty tracksuit and flip-flops in his 6ft by 5ft cell,
with
just a narrow bed, a hardback chair and a small cupboard for furniture.
"He is a shrunken figure," Mr Arief said. "He can't walk unaided, doesn't
eat
properly and isn't taking care of himself. The Americans are keeping him in
the
hope of browbeating him into testifying against Saddam. As a matter of
conscience, he won't," Mr Arief said.
George Galloway said last night that it was "very significant" that Britain
had
approached Mr Aziz to seek information about him before next week's local
elections, in which his Respect Party is expected to take seats from Labour.
Mr
Galloway said: "I could question the propriety of visiting a political
prisoner
who has had heart attacks and strokes and who is being systematically denied
family visits, medical visits and legal visits."
He added: "But I have every confidence that Mr Aziz will have told them that
there is no truth whatsoever in these persistent allegations."
(6) End Time Values. The Demise of America
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 13:05:22 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
End Time Values. The Demise of America
Stojgniev O'Donnell,
Pravda.Ru, 27.04.2006 http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/79605-0
Russian Christians now admit that the concept of human rights and liberties
as
advocated by America and the West has no application in contemporary Russia.
That country is drowning in vices directly linked to the West's concept of
inherent rights and liberties: abortion; homosexuality; dissolution of
traditional marriage; pornography; slavery, prostitution, and exploitation
of
the oppressed, etc. The Russian Orthodox now understand that such American
"values" are, in fact, vices which harm every human society as a collective.
Such American "rights" have not brought happiness. They represent the
deviance
of the cult of the individual. From my Third World perspective, I am amazed
that
some Americans continue to argue that America's virtue is that it protects
such
"rights" (=vices).
I focus here on similarities between America and the Soviet Union, two rival
systems which have collapsed. Both systems boasted some admirable ideals.
There
was a period of several decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century when America offered immigrants numerous opportunities, which many
citizens took advantage of. The Soviet record is more spotted. It took me
some
time to understand the Soviets' rabid anti-religiousness. Why did the
Soviets
work so tirelessly to destroy traditional Russian culture, much of which is,
in
fact, oriented towards biblical Christian socialism? It came, of course,
from
the desire of Jews, the major component of Soviet communism, to take revenge
upon Christian Slavs. A natural reaction, one might apologize, of history's
formerly powerless against the powerful. But might Soviet communism have
"worked" without the Jews? Probably not, because so much of Soviet communism
was
based upon radical, indiscriminate violence (against Christians and others),
something from which no good ever comes: a lesson to any Muslim listening.
(Ends
never justify means). The Soviet Union fell apart, such that Ole Soviet King
Cole Putin, despite his many talents, has been unable to put it back
together
again.
We are now witnessing the demise of America. For decades, America
successfully
marketed its "values" throughout the world (accompanied often by hefty cash
subsidies for corrupt, subservient regimes). The aims of the American
ideology
were no less ambitious than those of Soviet communism, and the Americans
were
victorious over the Soviets, for a couple of years anyway.
But after the collapse of the Soyuz, the shallowness of American values
became
evident throughout the world. It turns out now that American-style
Brown'n'Root
democracy does not, in fact, suit Iraq, a land long plagued by European
colonialism and internal division. It is now clear that America never
intended
to export its American-style democracy to totalitarian regimes in Israel,
Egypt,
or Saudi Arabia. American democracy is a sham, all double-talk, just like
the
Soviets' spin on the fraternal brotherhood of nations.
Democracy for several generations now has not existed in America. The large
corporations continue to increase their power, irregardless of the red or
blue
façade of the regime. The moral pedigree of a Clinton is as nasty as that of
a
Bush. As identified by a recent controversial study ignored by the American
media, it is, indeed, a cabal of pro-Israeli groups which controls America's
purse-strings and foreign policy.
America is dying. I assure those Americans who still feel secure about a
regular
pay check, their job perks, vacations, company cars and cell phones, annual
bonuses, benefits, government entitlements, U.S. dollar-based investments
and
accounts, etc etc., that their lifestyle is crumbling. There is no longer
any
right or logic in America's prosperity. What gives Americans the right to
consume the bulk of the world's energy resources? By what right does an
American
drive a hummer while much of the rest of the world walks, rides bicycles,
and
commutes by public transportation? No longer can America's traditional
rights be
excused. Those rights are mostly derived from a narrow, archaic Anglo-Saxon
tradition: the "right" to carry (and use/abuse) firearms and the "right" to
exploit land and natural resources for personal benefit. The American Middle
Class has outlived its period of historical relevance and soon will be
replaced,
by Hispanics, India's Indians, and Chinese. Those groups have no qualms
about
bearing and rearing children.
It is the twenty-first century. America is rat-infested history. America
will
fall, overrun by fatwah-inspired Muslims; wild, dispossessed,
self-identified
Apache or Aztec guerillas; looting, reparations-deluded African-Americans;
indignant Eskimos; flaming cross-dressers and advocates of every sort of
politically correct nonsense. History doesn't last forever, and anyway,
America
had a couple of good centuries before it turned to cr*p.
--
Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7 41262296
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