Trump In Poland: Whitewashing History Of Murdered Polish Jews Dishonors Heroes of Poland

     Trump, recently in Poland, gave a whitewashing speech. It may make the leaders of Poland and some Polish people feel better to whitewash their own history, to replace honesty with flattery, to assume that victimhood under German and then Russian rule frees the nation of responsibility, and to even rewrite their own history.

     Not all Poles were heroes. During the time of Nazi occupation, there were Poles that actively helped the Nazis by betraying their fellow Polish Jewish citizens by turning them over to the nazis or by helping the nazis track down Jews. 

     There were Poles that assisted in the genocide of Polish Jewry. One Polish historian at Princeton University carefully documented how many Jews were murdered by Poles, not by nazis. 

     The Poles that resisted the nazis, that were not collaborators, that did not turn in their fellow Polish Jewish citizens, that did not engage in the murder of their fellow Polish Jewish citizens, should never be put in the same league as those cowards and Jew hating Poles that helped the nazis by collaborating, by turning in Jews, or by actively assisting in the nazi genocide by killing Jews themselves. The Polish heroes that risked their lives sheltering and saving Jews, often at the cost of their own lives, will always be in a heroes league of their own.

     To this day Poland will not face its long history of anti-semitism. Jew hatred is still rampant in virtually Jew free Poland and among many Poles living inside and outside of  Poland. (One Polish man defended his hatred by declaring that other Europeans are even more anti-semitic, and that because this hatred is widespread, therefore the negative perceptions, feelings and stereotypes must be correct.)

     A Polish historian at the University of Ottawa in Canada wrote a book, "Hunt For The Jews. Betrayal And Murder In German-Occupied Poland". The book documents massacres where Poles volunteered to assist nazis in the extermination of Jews. It is reported that the historian now receives numerous death threats. 

     The history of Polish resistance to the nazis is not one of uniform glory and steadfast resistance. It is right to honor those that resisted the nazis, but it does them no honor to whitewash the crimes of the Polish collaborators and the Poles that murdered, raped, robbed and mass slaughtered Jews, including burning Jews alive, burying an eight year old child alive, and other atrocities. 

     The massacres of Jews by Poles during and after WW2 in places that include Jedwabne are historical stains that cannot, and should not be whitewashed. Whitewashing only diminishes the true Polish heroes that were not Jew hating cowards that collaborated and murdered. The true heroes are those men and women that actively resisted the nazis. The true heroes are those Poles that risked their lives to save Jews in an atmosphere of enormous cruelty and hate.