# Grotesque unearthly bad monument. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 2, 2018, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971 "2018-08-02T11:47:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/21 "2018-08-02T22:00:08Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > Like saying that “a crowd of Polish people” attacked and murdered a group of Jews in Kielce. > The site of a massacre. > Try doing the work to identify the culprits. Was it really the Chinese? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/22 "2018-08-02T22:19:36Z")
What’s a crypto Jew? Anybody? ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/23 "2018-08-02T22:25:39Z")
Someone who can verify their Jewish ancestry using blockchain? ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/24 "2018-08-02T22:44:59Z")
I think I could decipher (heh) that but I’m not sure we should be discussing anything here. PM me if you’d like more info. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/25 "2018-08-02T22:53:15Z")
[Crypto-Judaism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism) The link concentrates on cypto-Jews in Spain and the New World, but they could really be anywhere. In this context, I believe **mrka** means that his forebears were suspected to be secretly Jewish and thus not who they publicly portrayed themselves to be which, in context, would have not been a good thing. Folks, however we may feel about the topics raised here, to me at least it seems **mrka** takes this seriously and I’m not sure a mocking tone is appropriate. I agree to some extent that the Jews have been extremely successful in raising awareness of the 6 millions Jews lost during WWII but other groups who were also imprisoned, tortured, starved, abused, and slaughtered have not been as well remembered. As early as 1939 65,000 Polish civilians had been sent to Auschwitz, before any Jewish person had been sent there. That was after 1200 Polish citizens had been displaced from their lands, upon which the infamous camp was built. 75,000 of the dead at Auschwitz-Birkenau were non-Jewish Poles. They were the largest group of non-Jewish victims. 300,000 of the dead at Auschwitz were people in the dual categories of “Polish” and “Jewish”. 5.5 million Poles are estimated to have died during the Nazi conquest and occupation. That is 1 in 7 Poles. 5 million of those dead, the vast majority, died outside Auschwitz-Birkneau. Nearly as many Polish people died during the Nazi occupation of Poland as the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust across all of Europe. I bring out these grim numbers to, first and foremost, assure **mrka** that some of us do remember that the Polish also suffered terribly. I also write them here so that those who did not know can learn. As for how ugly the monuments are… I do not think they were meant to be pretty. The memorialize a truly ugly time in history. I do wonder what you would build in their place, **mrka.** What do you feel would make a better marker for this terrible time? ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/26 "2018-08-03T00:09:09Z")
It feels like we’ve done this before. I’m also descended from Polish Catholics, but very bothered when people besides the Jews want their own private piece of the Holocaust, no matter who they are. I want no part of it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/27 "2018-08-03T00:47:49Z")
This poster is troubled. I would like opinions on whether engaging in this conversation is worthwhile or not. I can see that it would be worthwhile to continue if we are having a larger conversation, such as the one that **Tee** and **Broomstick** are broaching. I think if we are focused only on **mrka** ’s family, or **mrka** , snarky “fun” or not, it’s not healthy for him, and not good for the community. My opinion. ---
**Author:** ![mrka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mrka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/28 "2018-08-03T00:52:08Z")
Thanks. Some of us remember. That’s not enough. A monument to dirt, ashes, what not. Is not appropriate. And it has lingering Stalinist connotations. In terms of what’s ahead. Because behind we already got the Yalta agreement. There’s no saying at this point what lies ahead. Treason at the expense of liberty. For the world. From the great powers. Expecting the worst. Tired of the USA. And so on. I actually do have Jewish ancestry. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/29 "2018-08-03T01:29:43Z")
> [@Tee](#): > > It feels like we’ve done this before. I’m also descended from Polish Catholics, but very bothered when people besides the Jews want their own private piece of the Holocaust, no matter who they are. I want no part of it. Fine. But I’ve long felt that we need to remember _all_ who suffered in WWII. True, some suffered more, and some less, but the human toll was appalling and so, so unnecessary. As the actual witnesses are lost to time age we need to keep the knowledge alive in hopes that it will act as a sufficient caution to hold off WWIII > [@mrka](#): > > Thanks. > Some of us remember. That’s not enough. > A monument to dirt, ashes, what not. Is not appropriate. And it has lingering Stalinist connotations. That is how you see it - but those ashes are the last remains of people who laughed and loved and lived. They were not granted the dignity of the burial that they would have desired, but although we can not give them that surely we can treat that “dirt, ashes, what not” as reverently as we would their bodies? Again - what would YOU rather see? > [@](#): > > I actually do have Jewish ancestry. So do I, but it is not a requirement to know these things or have an opinion about them. Perhaps if we all cared as much for those who are NOT our relatives or not like us as we do for those close to us it would be a better world. ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/30 "2018-08-03T02:18:19Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Fine. > > But I’ve long felt that we need to remember _all_ who suffered in WWII. True, some suffered more, and some less, but the human toll was appalling and so, so unnecessary. As the actual witnesses are lost to time age we need to keep the knowledge alive in hopes that it will act as a sufficient caution to hold off WWIII I agree with that. The problem with the Polish is their being embroiled in it all. Poland didn’t exist as a nation during this time, so all of the individual acts of Poles speak for the country. And those acts say many different things, from noble to deplorable. My family here had ties to four different families there, and if there’s nobody left to speak and few records to be had, how do you know what members did what and when? So, it’s a tragedy and a rather unique one, but (IMO) something separate and distinct from what is known as the Holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![mrka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mrka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/31 "2018-08-03T11:50:08Z")
Hello. Thanks a million. I never use the word Holocaust (Holokaust in Polish) or even holocaust in connection with the mass extermination of the Polish people. It was a genocide. I read some original Nazi books of propaganda and ideology. It’s clear that the Polish people were considered inferior. Racially. They were destined for enslavement or complete annihilation. What I understand by slavery is the working class was the target. As opposed to the Rich similarly to Soviet ideology. The Rich were killed and robbed. Both by Nazis and Soviets. I’m not a communist sympathizer. Just to say that the Yalta accord gets on my nerves. I despise the opportunism that this agreement causes today. There’s no name for the genocide of the Polish people. No place or day to remember the victims. It’s a terrible cover up. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/32 "2018-08-03T12:20:06Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > I actually do have Jewish ancestry. For some strange reason I’m reminded of [**Sweet Willy**](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-116349.html), a Doper who specialized in anti-Semitic malarkey while reminding us of his alleged Jewish roots. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/33 "2018-08-03T12:40:27Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > . > > As early as 1939 65,000 Polish civilians had been sent to Auschwitz, before any Jewish person had been sent there. Auschwitz was built in 1940. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/34 "2018-08-03T12:53:32Z")
You’ve been asked, more than once, what you WOULD like as a memorial, yet failed to respond. Kinda makes it seem like nothing will satisfy you, and you might rather be endlessly angry instead. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/35 "2018-08-03T13:13:50Z")
> [@Wilson](#): > > Tell that to Fiona Apple! You win one Internet. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/36 "2018-08-03T14:06:39Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > I was simply thinking, where my great-grandfather is concerned, that nobody is never consulted on anything in my family. It’s as if we didn’t exist. One short bio in Poland mentioned that he died forgotten by everybody. My father met him, of course, and said that Albert was funny and loving. He had quite a few friends. I don’t remember their names. This is the great-grandfather after whom an artery is named? What sort of consultation do you think would be appropriate? Should a surgeon call you up, “Hey, **mrka** , I’m planning on operating on this patient and during the course of the surgery will be working on the artery named for your great-grandfather. Is it OK that I do so? Any advice before I go into the operating room?” Because that’s not how science or medicine works. You have no proprietary interest in a particular part of the human anatomy just because your great-grandfather did some pioneering work on it. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/37 "2018-08-03T17:23:36Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Auschwitz was built in 1940. [pedantry]While the construction of what is considered the camp began in 1940, there was an extant Polish army barracks in that location, used for detention by the Germans. It is possible polish civilians were housed there, but not 60K of them. Most likely no civilians, actually, but possibly some. [/pedantry] There is no question the Nazi leadership intended for the poles to cease to exist as a people, and for most to cease to exist as individuals, over time. Not sure how that relates to anything vascular, nor how it in any way negates the need for a monument commemorating Jewish victims of the holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/38 "2018-08-03T17:30:33Z")
—- ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/39 "2018-08-03T19:39:25Z")
I can see why you’re pissed about losing the artery naming money, but there is a downside to it too. Keeping the many mansions my family bought with it’s ‘medulla oblongata’ money free of dust, vermin etc while we’re out racing our yachts around the world is a logistical headache. ---
**Author:** ![mrka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mrka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrka)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/40 "2018-08-03T20:58:22Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > This is the great-grandfather after whom an artery is named? What sort of consultation do you think would be appropriate? Should a surgeon call you up, “Hey, **mrka** , I’m planning on operating on this patient and during the course of the surgery will be working on the artery named for your great-grandfather. Is it OK that I do so? Any advice before I go into the operating room?” > > Because that’s not how science or medicine works. You have no proprietary interest in a particular part of the human anatomy just because your great-grandfather did some pioneering work on it. Ok. Mucho thank you. I neither think there’s money involved or that an artery belongs to ME except my very own. It’s just that my folks have lost 100% of everything. This artery isn’t an heirloom per se but books might have been. The war wiped out everything. Plus there’s the problem with a gigantic scale genocide of the Polish people. Does Germany pay up? Russia? We don’t exist in the present because of the war. In terms of the past. It’s unresolved. The present + future are aftershocks. My parents who escaped must of have had PTSD or something. It affected me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971.md?page=3)