History of the Holocaust

[CheskiChips]

Hmm I don't have much access to Polish history where I am, I'll take a trip to the British library and see if they have anything.

Pjsdude is basically mixing up totally unrelated historical events and making them into a hideous mess of fiction.

1. Sweden and Poland are at war. Sweden invades Poland BUT doesn't kill all the Jews...or any really while slaughtering Poles. Poles get suspicious that Jews weren't killed...they must be conspiring with Swedes --> They slaughter countless Jews in "retaliation".
Now rewind about 100 years to this unrelated event...
2. The reformation was in large part founded by Martin Luther...father of Lutheranism. He wrote this great book - On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543

But if you look at it historically you will find "Major Event in Europe" = "Jews become slaughtered", so it's easy for dude to speak with such callous disregard for history and still hint at truth.

NOW, what you were looking for.


In 1920ish or so Poland declares independence and gives many freedoms to the Jews. Massive influxes come to the country, 3.4 million population after 25 years (the influx was only about 1.1 million)

Jews spoke Yiddish or Hebrew, lived in their own villages - comprised overwhelming numbers in medicine, banking etc. and were 20% of all school children. They were the most educated, the best paid, and they were also exclusionary. This obviously lead to resentment. This is why 20 or 30 years later it wasn't hard for them to say to NAZI Germany, "Okay, take them away"

 

[S.A.M.]

Pjsdude is basically mixing up totally unrelated historical events and making them into a hideous mess of fiction.

1. Sweden and Poland are at war. Sweden invades Poland BUT doesn't kill all the Jews...or any really while slaughtering Poles. Poles get suspicious that Jews weren't killed...they must be conspiring with Swedes --> They slaughter countless Jews in "retaliation".
Now rewind about 100 years to this unrelated event...
2. The reformation was in large part founded by Martin Luther...father of Lutheranism. He wrote this great book - On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543

But if you look at it historically you will find "Major Event in Europe" = "Jews become slaughtered", so it's easy for dude to speak with such callous disregard for history and still hint at truth.

NOW, what you were looking for.


In 1920ish or so Poland declares independence and gives many freedoms to the Jews. Massive influxes come to the country, 3.4 million population after 25 years (the influx was only about 1.1 million)

Jews spoke Yiddish or Hebrew, lived in their own villages - comprised overwhelming numbers in medicine, banking etc. and were 20% of all school children. They were the most educated, the best paid, and they were also exclusionary. This obviously lead to resentment. This is why 20 or 30 years later it wasn't hard for them to say to NAZI Germany, "Okay, take them away"

In other words, you think it was related to mass immigration followed by exclusionary communities? I can see how that may happen since we are seeing similar trends with anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe, directed at the inability of the immigrant community to assimilate as fast or as completely as the native residents, especially since they favoured secular Jews over religious ones.

So you think Polish treatment of Jews was because they saw them as "different"? Why would it matter to the Poles if they spoke Yiddish among themselves?

How did whole villages of Yiddish speaking Jews come about?

 

[iceaura]

What are people learning from exceptionalising the death of 6 million from 60 million nondescript nobodies?

Failure to recognize the exceptional nature of the Holocaust of the Jews is a serious blind spot in Westerner. It might be compared to a failure to recognize the exceptional nature of American plantation slavery, in its implications.

The ignorant and unfamiliar from distant and uncomprehending cultures have some excuse, of course.

the jews weren't a special case merely one group of many.

No other such group embedded in European society was so treated.

I'm still waiting for Ice to prove his allegations against the poles and gypsies

Are you actually claiming ignorance of centuries of serious anti-Semitism in Poland - even to this day?

What separates a victim from an attention seeker?

Great efforts to hide and flee, establish refuges, etc, among other easily noted features.

Thats assuming they knew what was happening. Did they?

Everybody else did, more or less. Thousands of Jews were fleeing, hiding, trying to get to America in ships, etc.

No one is saying the Nazis are blameless. But even Germans who opposed the Reich ended up in the same concentration camps. Any numbers on them?

Yes, there are numbers on them. All this stuff is documented up the wazoo - although there are still a few surprises coming out, such as the recent establishment of the existence of thousands of small concentration and extermination facilities throughout Germany and Poland and other major Holocaust perpetrating countries.

One of the crimes involved, that would get a non-Jew citizen transported to a camp, was hiding or otherwise aiding Jews. Hiding or supporting Catholics was OK, supposing anyone had a reason to. Lutherans, no problem. Grandmother was a Gypsy, but you aren't? No problem. But Jews - Jews were different.

And what was the reason for that oppression? They are all born antisemitic?

No. They acquired antiSemitism, as a cultural trait - part of their cultural diversity, often connected with their religion. There is no real mystery there - compare the Canadian development of bigotry against Pakistanis: it is quite capable of lasting for centuries, eh?

Hence, I would like to know what classifies as antisemitism by the Poles.

Having a centuries old town custom of forcing the local Rabbi to kiss the rear end of a statue of a pig every year around Christmas time, would be one example.

[they were 14% of the population and I assume they did not move there because it was unwelcoming]

You need to quit making stupid assumptions.

Why after almost a millenium did the Poles turn on the Jews?

That is not what happened.

Could you expand on this? What happened during the reformation?

AntiSemitism was long and well established in Poland and Germany long before the Reformation. Martin Luther, say, was quite bigoted against Jews, and such attitudes had been common among political or religious leaders in Europe for ages.

 

[S.A.M.]

Having a centuries old town custom of forcing the local Rabbi to kiss the rear end of a statue of a pig every year around Christmas time, would be one example.

Thats interesting, is it documented?

You need to quit making stupid assumptions.

Huh? Its a stupid assumption that when Jews are 14% of the population of an European country that they move there because they benefit? Are you claiming that Jews moved to European countries where they were unwanted? Why did they do that? Why not stay where they were safer? How did Yiddish-speaking Jews end up in Poland anyway?

AntiSemitism was long and well established in Poland and Germany long before the Reformation

Was it because they resisted Christianity? What happened to the pre-Christian pagans? How were they treated?

 

[iceaura]

Huh? Its a stupid assumption that when Jews are 14% of the population of an European country that they move there because they benefit ?

Yes. Starting with the notion that the Jewish 14% of the population of Poland was recent immigration, moved there because it was "welcoming".

Was it because they resisted Christianity?

Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a kind of red rubber boot commonly worn by certain demographic groups in Toronto, Canada, that was called a "Paki-basher".

Now was that because the immigrant Pakistanis were resisting Christianity?

In the US, I and most blue-collar white men of my generation have heard axe handles or similar pieces of wood, pipe, etc, referred to as "nigger-beaters", in routine social conversation - quite commonly among Americans of Polish ancestry, as well as other demographics.

Do we explain this by asking what kind of behavior the niggers had exhibited to earn themselves that kind of attention?

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes. Starting with the notion that the Jewish 14% of the population of Poland was recent immigration, moved there because it was "welcoming".
Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a kind of red rubber boot commonly worn by certain demographic groups in Toronto, Canada, that was called a "Paki-basher".

Now was that because the immigrant Pakistanis were resisting Christianity?

In the US, I and most blue-collar white men of my generation have heard axe handles or similar pieces of wood, pipe, etc, referred to as "nigger-beaters", in routine social conversation - quite commonly among Americans of Polish ancestry, as well as other demographics.

Do we explain this by asking what kind of behavior the niggers had exhibited to earn themselves that kind of attention?

Are you saying they discriminated against Jews because of colour?

You still haven't said why there were villages of Yiddish speaking Jews in Poland. Were they brought there as slaves or labour?

 

[iceaura]

Are you saying they discriminated against Jews because of colour?

That's dishonest of you.

You still haven't said why there were villages of Yiddish speaking Jews in Poland.

Why do you ask?

 

[S.A.M.]

That's dishonest of you.

Its dishonest of me to apply your examples of colour based racism to Polish people? Why did you give the example of niggers? Were Jews niggers in Poland?

Why do you ask?

I'm trying to understand how it may differ if it was villages of Arabic speaking Muslims instead.

Would it be different, in your opinion? What if there were villages of insular, Arabic speaking Muslims in your neighborhood?

How would you perceive them?

 

[CheskiChips]

They spoke Yiddish because that was the language most Ashkenazim chose to speak at the time, from Eastern Russia to Western Germany - where most resided. So any Jew from most any European country (aside from Spain) spoke Yiddish as either their first or second language. Many of the poorer individuals never even learned the language of their host country, when you're kicked out ever 3 or 4 generations there's little incentive. There were different dialects of Yiddish, an Eastern and a Western are all that exist today. There were probably dialects with more Lithuanian, some with more Polish...but what exists today is the Western Dialect...most of it came from immigrants from western Germany. The Eastern dialect was the second most popular and it was almost completely wiped out in the Holocaust. There was a Russian variant which I don't know any of that Bukharians spoke, there was also a Spanish / Portuguese version. Most of the Mizrahim could speak something closer to Hebrew since they lived with Arabic speakers. It's the primary source for modern Hebrew.

 

[S.A.M.]

They spoke Yiddish because that was the language most Ashkenazim chose to speak at the time, from Eastern Russia to Western Germany - where most resided. So any Jew from most any European country (aside from Spain) spoke Yiddish as either their first or second language. Many of the poorer individuals never even learned the language of their host country, when you're kicked out ever 3 or 4 generations there's little incentive.

Why did they speak Yiddish? Why not Hebrew? And since they were in Poland for 1000 years, why not Polish?

The Bene Israel in Mumbai are indistinguishable from Maharashtrians. They speak Marathi and dress like Maharashtrians.

Here is a recent depiction of the Bene Israel family by Probir Gupta

This is a real Bene Israel family

Bene Israel family in Bombay
Bombay, India, c.1890
Photo: Carmel Berkson, India
Beth Hatefutsoth – Visual Documentation Center
Carmel Berkson Collection, India

 

[CheskiChips]

Why did they speak Yiddish? Why not Hebrew? And since they were in Poland for 1000 years, why not Polish?

The Bene Israel in Mumbai are indistinguishable from Maharashtrians. They speak Marathi and dress like Maharashtrians.

Here is a recent depiction of the Bene Israel family by Probir Gupta

I don't know much about Indian Jews. I've only met one. I'd guess the assimilated because there were less external pressures.

They didn't speak Hebrew because probably because they didn't know it. Hebrew hasn't been the language of Jews since before the 2nd Temple was destroyed. The book of Daniel was written in Aramaic, and there's words even in the Torah written in Aramaic (for good reason obviously) and there's various passages scattered throughout the books in Aramaic. During the later half of the 2nd Temple era people commonly spoke Aramaic and a Hebrew-Aramaic variant. After the Temple, the majority of people took up Aramaic almost exclusively.

There were two Hebrews, a daily dialect and religious text. They were in earlier times more similar. The grammar of ancient Hebrew is very very difficult, אותותה "ohsayosayha" for example means "from the nature of the letters". As a result of Aramaic influence, which preferred series of words to describe a thing, the large compounded words of Hebrew fell wayside almost entirely after Mishnaic Hebrew. There was one modern book written in the grammar style about 20 years ago and it was heralded as a Hebrew classic - most couldn't read it.

Since Jews have been mobile for so long, they took parts of their home languages in the past and incorporated them to the present. The Ashkenazim kept their traditions as best they could, which included all black (Because it was imposed as a sanction on Jews in Europe). Their language incorporated Hebrew very often because Europeans have languages that are below the capacity of Hebrew.

In general; Hebrew is a better language. English is missing entire concepts and perspectives. Arabaic has these tenses, but its current speakers aside from a few educated don't realize it.

 

[S.A.M.]

I'm still waiting to hear why Polish Jews in Poland did not speak Polish for 1000 years.

It seems extremely odd. After all Jews in Israel learned Hebrew in 60 years.

And many of them speak Arabic as well. Even Palestinians in Israel know Hebrew.

How did they communicate with the Poles? Did the Poles speak Yiddish too?

 

[CheskiChips]

I'm still waiting to hear why Polish Jews in Poland did not speak Polish for 1000 years.

It seems extremely odd. After all Jews in Israel learned Hebrew in 60 years.

And many of them speak Arabic as well. Even Palestinians in Israel know Hebrew.

How did they communicate with the Poles? Did the Poles speak Yiddish too?

http://books.google.com/books?id=aY...istory+of+jews+in+poland#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Read this book if you actually care and stop asking stupid questions. You're not a European, you can never expect to understand European politics as intuitively as a European.
You're also nowhere close to a Jew, and you should expect to never understand them at all.

 

[Challenger78]

Whatever you do: DO NOT READ THE FIFTIETH GATE.
Just don't.

 

[S.A.M.]

http://books.google.com/books?id=aY...istory+of+jews+in+poland#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Read this book if you actually care and stop asking stupid questions. You're not a European, you can never expect to understand European politics as intuitively.
You're also nowhere close to a Jew, and you should expect to never understand them at all.

What is it that I don't understand about European politics and about being a Jew?

What am I missing out? I admit as an Indian, my ethos is limited to an eastern context, but I cannot help but be puzzled by a people refusing to speak the local language for a millenium. After all you're Jewish and you live in the US and speak English. Yet I recall you once told me that inspite of being born in the US, you do not consider it home and in fact, only tolerate your life there. I cannot imagine any other place being as much home to me as Bombay, so I am at a loss as to how anyone can feel a stranger in their birthplace, especially if they have spent the vast majority of their life there.

Could you explain it to me? Why do you feel rootless in the US?

Whatever you do: DO NOT READ THE FIFTIETH GATE.
Just don't.

Thanks it sounds interesting. I'll look for it when I am in the States next

 

[Gustav]

there was this thing called emancipation.....

France was the first country to grant emancipation to Jews. Other European countries debated the issue, but none granted Jews emancipation in the 18th century. During the 19th century, however, grants of emancipation proliferated across Europe. By 1871, with Germany’s emancipation of Jews, every European country except Russia had emancipated its Jews. In all cases Jews were expected to abandon the ethnic component of their identity; to adopt the national language in place of Yiddish or Ladino (the language of Sephardic Jews); and to accept the country in which they resided, rather than Israel, as their homeland. Jews were to become one religious group among many in Europe.

New centers of Jewish culture and creativity emerged as a result of emancipation. The Prussian city of Berlin had become a major center of modern Jewish culture in the second half of the 18th century, and other important centers emerged in Königsburg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main in Germany, and Paris in France. During the 19th century emancipated Jews also gained prominence in Vienna and Budapest, the capitals of Austria-Hungary. In these European cities Jews abandoned Yiddish as their spoken language and Hebrew as their written language. They began to dress and groom themselves like everyone else, with men giving up their peot (earlocks) and women their sheitels (wigs).​

prior to that.... yiddish and ladino exclusively. these guys were rather insular.
i believe god told em to be that way

 

[S.A.M.]

these guys were rather insular.

That seems odd, considering that for four[?] centuries they had an empire in the region and were heavily proselytising. What led to this insularity?

 

[CheskiChips]

What is it that I don't understand about European politics and about being a Jew?

What am I missing out? I admit as an Indian, my ethos is limited to an eastern context, but I cannot help but be puzzled by a people refusing to speak the local language for a millenium. After all you're Jewish and you live in the US and speak English. Yet I recall you once told me that inspite of being born in the US, you do not consider it home and in fact, only tolerate your life there. I cannot imagine any other place being as much home to me as Bombay, so I am at a loss as to how anyone can feel a stranger in their birthplace, especially if they have spent the vast majority of their life there.

Could you explain it to me? Why do you feel rootless in the US?

They have different cultures, customs, ways of speaking, priorities in life, ethics and focuses.

Christians aren't constrained by anything with exception to their easily manipulated civil law. They don't have a comprehensive sense of right and wrong, they have a sense of "accepted" and "not accepted".
Christians value word over deed, Jews value deed over word.
Christians avoid discussion of any depth claiming it to be "Argumentative", Jews will discuss anything in any level of detail...and insist on it.
Christians don't have a Sabbath, there's no real markers in time for Christians...life is a series of transient events rather than a marked point in time. Look at the Julian calendar for example, it's ridiculous and every day is as irrelivant as the last.
Christians value things like pets, cliche momentary markers (prom, graduation etc.).
Christians don't have real marriage. Jews sign documents of personal obligation for marriage - every marriage has a pre-numptual agreement if they aren't lived up to. Christians simply have robust celebrations. The best example of this is; a Jewish wedding is focused on dancing for the bride and groom, a Christian one focused on dancing for the guests.

When in Israel I got along with everybody because their behavior was similar to mine. In America everybody is disconnected. America is full of individuals working for themselves, for fame, for fortune, for nothing. Israel is full of people working for everybody.

America is diluted European vanity, which is good. Because Europe in my experience is full of the most close minded shallow vulgarity I've ever experienced.

 

[S.A.M.]

If it was so bad among the Poles why did the Jews live there? Why didn't they, for example, go to Jerusalem? After all, after the dissolution of the Roman Empire, there were no hindrances to moving there.

 

[CheskiChips]

Some did. Most didn't due to poor education, no money, and the fact that Jerusalem had become a sort of mythological place to Jews in Europe. They always believed an extreme event would take them there, but always waited for it. WWII happened.