Poland is demanding Germany finally pays its war reparations. Again. And Rightfully so.
Germany paid reparations after WWII to various countries and groups, but Communist puppet dictatorship installed in Poland by the Soviet Union waved reparations in 1953. This wasn’t recognized by the legitimate government in exile of course.
Obviously, the decision by that puppet regime cannot be viewed as legitimate. As soon as Communism fell, the legitimate democratic government pursued the matter in 1990.
Obviously, the government has taken up the issue again recently because Von der Leyen is still withholding Covid recovery funds even while Poland is doing more to help Ukrainians than Germany or most EU states. But the point itself is correct. And Poland should get financial support anyways.
The EU’s eagerness to return Donald Tusk to power is quite shocking. The horrors in Ukraine suddenly seem to come second when it is time to bully Poland again. But as we know, this is cause its Conservative government undermines the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, while Ukrainians fight for the rule of law apparently, even as Zelensky expels judges from its highest court.
Never before has PiS’ anti-enemy rhetoric sounded as justified as it does now. They do seem stuck between Russia and Germany again.
Poland’s suffering during WWII still gets insufficient attention. Poles were regarded as subhuman and one of the groups targeted for extermination. Their country was used by the Germans as a graveyard to be turned into lebensraum. Yet, the fact that the Nazis murdered Poles and Jews (including millions of Polish Jews) is used to speak of ‘Polish’ death camps. People had the audacity to be outraged when Poland passed a law a few years back which forbade people from claiming that the Polish nation had been complicit in the Holocaust, which Poland itself had suffered under.
Laws forbidding false and slanderous statements regarding the Holocaust are common in Europe and other parts of the world. Laws against denying or justifying the Holocaust. Denying that millions of Poles were victims is denying an essential part of the Holocaust. Why was that law criticized as an attack on freedom of speech when Holocaust laws are generally accepted?
Talk of Polish collaborationism is as ridiculous as it’s offensive. Individual Poles betrayed their nation and supported the invaders out of cowardice and/or opportunism, as did some Jews who betrayed other Jews.
That people from Yad Vashem were angry that Poland pointed out that individual Jews had committed evil deeds during the war, just like individual Poles, is insane. Both groups were persecuted. Both groups had traitors. Not all Jews are holy. The Jewish people aren’t monolithic or free from bad apples. They’re not uniquely pure. They’re just people. People who suffered from Nazi persecution, just like the Poles did. Anti-Semitism and anti-Polinism are both racial and ethnic hatred. Period. They aren’t different.
The fact that Yad Vashem historians Dina Porat said that “Those who revealed their “darkest side were Poles and they were Catholics,” says enough. Not all native Poles at the time were even Catholic. Prominent leading figures were secular and Freemasons.
Poland was THE nation that was betrayed. TWICE!! The Allies did little to actually help Poland. A lot to draw the war to the West and escalate it but little to prevent Germany’s occupation. Then they allied with the Soviet Union, stood by and allowed the Nazis to slaughter the brave Poles during the Warsaw uprising (which suited Stalin) and allowed the Soviet Union to keep the territory Hitler had ceded to them. They also went along with the installation of that Communist dictatorship.
The only reason the Holocaust could take place in Poland was because of the UK and France.
So, Poland does deserve reparations. Not just from Germany but obviously from Russia as well. The Allies may have led them join the winning side but they also committed crimes against Poland. The UK and USA should pay for providing weapons to and allying with the Soviet Union.
Anti-Polinism has somehow been strangely acceptable in the West. Is it our way of coping with the fact that we started WWII over them only to throw them under the bus? Is it motivated by Communist influence or anti-Catholicism?
Why is victim blaming acceptable with regards to Poland and WWII?
John Logan