Swastikas, slurs daubed on Polish embassy in Tel Aviv

[webfact]

Swastikas, slurs daubed on Polish embassy in Tel Aviv

By Agnieszka Barteczko and Ori Lewis

 

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visits the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Who Saved Jews during WWII in Markowa, Poland February 2, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Patryk Ogorzalek via REUTERS

 

JERUSALEM/WARSAW (Reuters) - Swastikas and profanities were daubed on the entrance to Poland's embassy in Israel on Sunday after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Jews, as well as Poles and others, were among perpetrators of the Nazi Holocaust.

 

Poland sparked international criticism over its stance on the facts of the Holocaust when it passed a law imposing jail terms for suggesting the country was complicit in the deaths of millions of Jews during the war.

 

At the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Morawiecki was asked by an Israeli reporter whether the reporter himself could be penalised for telling a story in Poland about his mother, who survived the Holocaust, and told him that some Poles had collaborated with the Gestapo.

 

In his answer, Morawiecki equated "Jewish perpetrators" with Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and German perpetrators, drawing immediate criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called his words "outrageous".

 

Poland's government said Morawiecki's comments were not intended to deny the Holocaust or allege that Jewish victims bore responsibility for "Nazi German-perpetrated genocide".

 

At the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv on Sunday, swastikas and anti-Polish profanities were found drawn in marker pen on a gate and bulletin board. Police, who released photographs of the markings, opened an investigation.

 

Netanyahu spoke by telephone on Sunday with Morawiecki and rejected any comparison between Polish and Jewish actions during the Holocaust, a statement issued by the Israeli prime minister's office said.

 

"The aim of the Holocaust was to destroy the Jewish people and that every Jew, everywhere, was facing a death sentence," it quoted Netanyahu as saying.

 

Netanyahu and his Polish counterpart agreed to continue to pursue a dialogue on the new law, and that teams from both sides would meet soon, the statement said.

 

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

 

Jews from across the continent were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupiedPoland -- home to Europe's biggest Jewish community at the time -- including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

 

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbours during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

 

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians.

 

"Attempts to equate the crimes of Nazi German perpetrators with the actions of their victims -- Jewish, Polish, Romani among others -- who struggled for survival should be met with resolute, outright condemnation," the Polish government's statement also said.

 

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Catherine Evans)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-02-19

[Baerboxer]

Many Eastern Europeans supported the Nazis and saw them as liberators from communist Soviet occupiers who treated enslaved peoples similar as the Nazis. The Russians orchestrated famines to murder millions of Ukrainians and others whereas the Nazis shot Jews, Gypsies and opponents and then built concentration camps and death camps to handle greater numbers.

 

Many Eastern Europeans became guards on the transports and at death camps as the German war machine needed German troops. 

 

Many Jews were force to become ghetto and camp police and serve the Nazis and police their own people.

 

Shouldn't change history. The Nazis were thoroughly evil whose racial and political beliefs meant they were prepared to murder and try to eliminate Jews, Romanies, Homosexuals, Communists, people who opposed them, and anyone who crossed them. 

Many people helped them through similar beliefs, financial gain, fear, and desperation. The Catholic Church was one. It never opposed the Nazis, Italian and Spanish Fascists and was complicit in helping some evade capture after the allied victory. The French Vichy government, and all the occupied governments were forced to cooperate. Some were ruthless in rooting out collaborators after the German defeat. Other perhaps not so.

And there were many non Jewish people who tried hard to help and protect them at great personal danger to themselves and their families. 

 

Modern day Poland and Israel should be friends. Too many potential mutual enemies.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Baerboxer

[Jonmarleesco]

'Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ... called his words "outrageous".'

 

I'm sure he did, but that doesn't make them untrue. 

[Scott]

Troll post removed. 

[Cereal]

It is indisputable fact that there were Jews and organized groups of Jews who were complicit with the Nazis in their anti-Jewish efforts.

 

Research the Judenrat.

[isaanbanhou]

6 minutes ago, Cereal said:

It is indisputable fact that there were Jews and organized groups of Jews who were complicit with the Nazis in their anti-Jewish efforts.

 

Research the Judenrat.

I think most cultures / religions have those that will do anything it takes to survive a genocide.

[Jingthing]

I don't think vandalizing embassies is helpful in an already inflamed situation, but there is a context to such actions.

 

Here goes Europe. Again. 

 

Quote

In laws, rhetoric and acts of violence, Europe is rewriting dark chapters of its past

 

BERLIN — In Poland, the president signs a law criminalizing anyone who dares suggest that the country’s citizens helped perpetrate crimes of the Holocaust. 

In Italy, a Mussolini-admiring neo-fascist goes on a shooting rampage targeting people with dark skin. 

And from Hungary to Britain, leading government figures and their allies promote dark theories about a Jewish financier plotting to subvert the national will.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-laws-rhetoric-and-acts-of-violence-europe-is-rewriting-dark-chapters-of-its-past/2018/02/19/4ab36f7a-0ddf-11e8-998c-96deb18cca19_story.html

Edited February 20, 2018 by Jingthing

[thaibeachlovers]

I thought it was the responsibility of the host nation to protect embassies from attack. What were the Israeli police doing while the vandalism was going on? Surely, given the publicity, an attack should have been foreseen and guarded against.

 

If bad actors can get that close to the embassy, they could have left bombs.