# 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:** 3
**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, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/41 "2018-08-03T21:04:38Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > 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. I would definitely create a new one. How’s Yad Vashem in comparison? The heap of dirt surrounded by a round cement skylight is terrible. Raze it. It’s Stalinist “manure”. Raze the entire camp. Create something peaceful that would unite Jews and Poles as well as others. To honor and remember all victims. I’m no sculptor. Or does it take an architect? ---
**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, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/42 "2018-08-03T21:12:00Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > 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. My Jewish roots are genuine. Reichman & Bernstein. Adamkiewicz & Jacobson. But my mother was Polish. A Catholic. My granny on my father’s side was also Polish and Catholic. I’m not anti-Semitic. I don’t know any Jews though. I met a couple of them in my life and both were sleazy underworld types. They hurt me. I oppose ANTI-POLONISM and Israel and the Jewish people spew lots of hate toward Poland and its nation. Like saying recently that the Poles in the majority harmed the Jews during the Holocaust. Lots of bull… ---
**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, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/43 "2018-08-03T21:22:17Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > > [@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. Regarding those books your great-grandfather wrote, were they copyrighted? Who held the copyright? How long ago was this? Because if it was long enough ago, the books may be in the public domain. And, of course, millions of people lost everything in the war. If anything, you’re lucky that your great-grandfather’s achievement is intangible, and therefore can’t really be lost. You should be proud of what he accomplished. (But not too proud, because you can’t claim any credit for any of it.) ---
**Author:** ![Wilson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@Wilson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wilson)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/44 "2018-08-03T21:55:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You win one Internet. Send me yours, please! ---
**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, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/45 "2018-08-03T22:05:04Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > As early as 1939 65,000 Polish civilians had been sent to Auschwitz, before any Jewish person had been sent there. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Auschwitz was built in 1940. Uh-huh - it OPENED in 1940. Who do you think built it? And were you under the illusion that they were there voluntarily? The camp was built by forced labor performed by Polish conscripts/prisoners. Originally, it was a camp for Poles who opposed the Nazi occupation. ---
**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, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/46 "2018-08-03T22:19:59Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Uh-huh - it OPENED in 1940. Who do you think built it? And were you under the illusion that they were there voluntarily? Construction of Auschwitz began in April of 1940. It opened in May of 1940. ---
**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, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/47 "2018-08-03T22:29:02Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > I would definitely create a new one. > How’s Yad Vashem in comparison? Do you know that, among the non-Jews honored at Yad Vashem there are more Polish than any other group? That Yad Veshem also honors Polish resistance groups like [Żegota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBegota)? Although, if you’re speaking from appearances, the Hall of Remembrance could be described as a square “heap” with a skylight. > [@](#): > > The heap of dirt surrounded by a round cement skylight is terrible. Raze it. It’s Stalinist “manure”. > Raze the entire camp. The idea behind maintaining the actual camp is that it is actual proof that the horrors it commemorates actually happened. It is evidence of a horrific crime. To raze it would be to erase that evidence. There are still people who deny it happened, if you destroy the evidence it becomes all that much easier to ignore the historical reality. > [@](#): > > Create something peaceful that would unite Jews and Poles as well as others. To honor and remember all victims. We have all the rest of the world to turn into a garden to unite people - why destroy the evidence of what happened? > [@mrka](#): > > My Jewish roots are genuine. Reichman & Bernstein. Adamkiewicz & Jacobson. No one doubts you. You don’t have to produce a pedigree. You don’t have to prove anything. > [@](#): > > I don’t know any Jews though. I met a couple of them in my life and both were sleazy underworld types. They hurt me. I’m sorry these two Jews hurt you but really, it’s far more likely you know several to many Jews and just don’t realize they’re Jewish. > [@](#): > > I oppose ANTI-POLONISM and Israel and the Jewish people spew lots of hate toward Poland and its nation. “Israel” and “the Jewish People” are not the same thing. Less than half of the world’s Jews by the most strict definition of “Jewish” live in Israel, and for broader definitions less than a third. I think some people who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and their first generation descendants, harbor some resentment or even hatred for Poland, which is somewhat understandable given their experience of Poland in that time period was “everyone in charge at this camp seems to be trying to kill me”. Outside of that group? I think a lot of Jewish people simply don’t have an opinion. Some of your angst seems to be that people either don’t know or don’t care what happened to Polish people during the war. Honestly, some really don’t care, but you’re never going to reach everyone. > [@](#): > > Like saying recently that the Poles in the majority harmed the Jews during the Holocaust. WHO said that? Do you have a name? ---
**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, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/48 "2018-08-03T22:32:56Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Construction of Auschwitz began in April of 1940. It opened in May of 1940. I may have to correct my sources, then… if you can provide a cite. ---
**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, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/49 "2018-08-03T23:27:06Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Do you know that, among the non-Jews honored at Yad Vashem there are more Polish than any other group? That Yad Veshem also honors Polish resistance groups like [Żegota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBegota)? > > Although, if you’re speaking from appearances, the Hall of Remembrance could be described as a square “heap” with a skylight. > The idea behind maintaining the actual camp is that it is actual proof that the horrors it commemorates actually happened. It is evidence of a horrific crime. To raze it would be to erase that evidence. There are still people who deny it happened, if you destroy the evidence it becomes all that much easier to ignore the historical reality. > We have all the rest of the world to turn into a garden to unite people - why destroy the evidence of what happened? > No one doubts you. You don’t have to produce a pedigree. You don’t have to prove anything. > I’m sorry these two Jews hurt you but really, it’s far more likely you know several to many Jews and just don’t realize they’re Jewish. > “Israel” and “the Jewish People” are not the same thing. Less than half of the world’s Jews by the most strict definition of “Jewish” live in Israel, and for broader definitions less than a third. > > I think some people who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and their first generation descendants, harbor some resentment or even hatred for Poland, which is somewhat understandable given their experience of Poland in that time period was “everyone in charge at this camp seems to be trying to kill me”. Outside of that group? I think a lot of Jewish people simply don’t have an opinion. Some of your angst seems to be that people either don’t know or don’t care what happened to Polish people during the war. Honestly, some really don’t care, but you’re never going to reach everyone. > WHO said that? Do you have a name? It’s age related angst. Now the past is soooooo important. My grandfather suffered from angst. I think they say anxiety now. Who said the majority of Poles harmed the Jews during the Holocaust? A certain Mr. Bennet in Israel. Only about one month ago. ---
**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 4, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/50 "2018-08-04T00:10:03Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I may have to correct my sources, then… if you can provide a cite. Here are your sites, but let me point out first that all this information is publicly available, not hard to find, and I find it obnoxious in the extreme that you’ve obviously done no research on this topic, yet insist that I provide sources to information that’s absurdly easy for you get. > **[Auschwitz](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz)** > > The Auschwitz camp system, located in German-occupied Poland, was a complex of 3 camps, including a killing center. Learn about the history of Auschwitz. > [@](#): > > Auschwitz I, the main camp, was the first camp established near Oswiecim. Construction began in April 1940 in an abandoned Polish army barracks in a suburb of the city. [https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/auschwitz\_architecture/overview.asp](https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/auschwitz_architecture/overview.asp) > [@](#): > > The Germans established the first camp at Auschwitz in the spring of 1940, on a site previously serving as a barracks for the Austro-Hungarian artillery in Upper Silesia. This was the first concentration camp to be set up in Poland, and the first prisoners were brought there in June of the same year > **[History & Overview of Auschwitz-Birkenau](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-auschwitz-birkenau)** > > Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism. > [@](#): > > In April 1940, Rudolph Höss, who become the first commandant of Auschwitz, identified the Silesian town of Oswiecim in Poland as a possible site for a concentration camp. Initially, the camp was meant to intimidate Poles to prevent them from protesting German rule and to serve as a prison for those who did resist. It was also perceived as a cornerstone of the policy to re-colonize Upper Silesia, which had once been a German region, with “pure Aryans.” When the plans for the camp were approved, the Nazi’s changed the name of the area to Auschwitz. > > On April 27, 1940, Heinrich Himmler ordered construction of the camp. > > In May 1940, Poles were evicted from the vicinity of the barracks (most of them were executed), and a work crew comprising concentration camp prisoners was sent from Sachsenhausen. 300 Jews from the large Jewish community of Oswiecim were also pressed into service. > > The first transport of prisoners, almost all Polish civilians, arrived in June 1940 and the SS administration and staff was established. On March 1, 1941, the camp population was 10,900. Quite quickly, the camp developed a reputation for torture and mass shootings. [http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/beginnings/](http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/beginnings/) > [@](#): > > Auschwitz, the site of the largest mass murder in the history of the world, did not start out as a death camp. In the spring of 1940, Rudolf Höss, a captain in the SS (Schutzstaffel), the elite defense organization that answered only to Hitler and advanced his plans, became Commandant of a new Nazi concentration camp at the southwestern Polish town of Oswiecim. Auschwitz, as the Germans called it, was in territory that Hitler had invaded the previous year. > > Höss was directed to create a concentration camp for 10,000 prisoners, using old Polish army barracks, but as he later wrote in his memoirs, “The task wasn’t easy. In the shortest possible time, I had to create a camp for 10,000 prisoners using the existing complex of buildings which were well constructed but were completely run down and swarming with vermin.” [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no4/html/v44i4a06p\_0005.htm](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no4/html/v44i4a06p_0005.htm) > [@](#): > > Background: Construction of the various Auschwitz camps began in spring 1940. Auschwitz I, the so-called Main Camp, was operational by fall of that year. [http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/auschwitz\_bunamonowitz](http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/auschwitz_bunamonowitz) > [@](#): > > By order of Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler on April 27, 1940, the Auschwitz concentration camp was built near the town of Oświęcim/Auschwitz, 60 km (about 37 miles) west of Cracow. Would you like more? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/51 "2018-08-04T00:59:13Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > … Who said the majority of Poles harmed the Jews during the Holocaust? A certain Mr. Bennet in Israel. > Only about one month ago. Ah. Naftali Bennett, Education Minister, who, with others, [objected to](https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-israel-poland-holocaust-declaration-a-disgrace-saturated-with-lies/) Bibi’s signing on to Poland’s claim that the Polish nation as a whole bore no culpability for its complicity in the crimes of the Holocaust (and in fact criminalizing stating such, backed down from as part of the agreed statement). The [joint statement](https://msz.gov.pl/en/news/joint_declaration_of_prime_ministers_of_the_state_of_israel_and_the_republic_of_poland)included this: > [@](#): > > We reject the actions aimed at blaming Poland or the Polish nation as a whole for the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators of different nations. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that some people – regardless of their origin, religion or worldview – revealed their darkest side at that time. We acknowledge the fact that structures of the Polish underground State supervised by the Polish Government-in-Exile created a mechanism of systematic help and support to Jewish people, and its courts sentenced Poles for collaborating with the German occupation authorities, including for denouncing Jews. [Yad Vashem’s take:](https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Yad-Vashem-blasts-Netanyahu-brokered-Israeli-Polish-Holocaust-deal-561720) > [@](#): > > Yad Vashem, meanwhile, sharply rejected the declaration, issuing a statement on Thursday saying that a thorough review by its historians shows that the “historical assertions, presented as unchallenged facts, in the joint statement contain grave errors and deceptions.” > > The Yad Vashem statement also said that even though the sections in the Polish law dealing with criminal sanctions for anyone attributing complicity to the Poles in the Holocaust will be rescinded, the statute will still have a chilling effect on research since civil action can be initiated against those impugning the “good name of the Polish State and the Polish Nation.” > > The Yad Vashem communique said that the joint statement “contains highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge,” and “effectively supports a narrative that research has long since disproved, namely, that the Polish government-in-exile and its underground arms strove indefatigably – in occupied Poland and elsewhere – to thwart the extermination of Polish Jewry.” > > The Yad Vashem statement said that existing documentation and decades of research refutes the claims in the Polish-Israel statement asserting that the Polish government- in-exile attempted to stop Nazi activity “by trying to raise awareness among the Western allies to the systematic murder of the Polish Jews.” > > “Much of the Polish resistance in its various movements not only failed to help Jews, but was also not infrequently actively involved in persecuting them,” the Yad Vashem statement said. > > Yad Vashem also took sharp issue with a clause in the joint statement that stated: “We are honored to remember heroic acts of numerous Poles, especially the Righteous Among the Nation, who risked their lives to save the Jewish people.” > > By contrast, Yad Vashem wrote: “On the question of the balance of forces between aid and persecution, the past three decades of historical research reveal a totally different picture: Poles’ assistance to Jews during the Holocaust was relatively rare, and attacks against and even the murder of Jews, were widespread phenomena.” … > > \ > > … The joint statement also placed antisemitism and anti-Polonism in the same clause, condemning antisemitism and rejecting anti-Polonism. > > Yad Vashem “vehemently” rejected the “attempts to juxtapose the phenomenon of antisemitism with so-called “anti-Polonism.” > > “While we should put an end to the use of the misleading and ill-conceived concept of ‘Polish death camps,’ calling the use of such terms ‘anti-Polonism’ is fundamentally anachronistic and has nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism,” it said. … No, not saying that “the majority of Poles harmed the Jews during the Holocaust” but disputing the false narrative that more actively fought against the crimes than were complicit with them and that many more just looked away. Complicity and cooperation with the Nazis by Poles was widespread; resistance against it was infrequent. That is simply history. Bibi’s glib revisionism as political expediency was disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/52 "2018-08-04T04:48:47Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > I don’t know any Jews though. I met a couple of them in my life and both were sleazy underworld types. They hurt me. Well that’s too bad. My great-grandparents came to the US separately, in different years, he a twenty-five year old laborer and she his 15-year-old intended bride. They settled in a city just north of Boston with thousands of other Polish immigrants, and I believe it still manages to be a third or a quarter Jewish these days and still has remnants of Polish culture. Meaning from this POV the Polish Jews are not a separate people. They look the same, have a common language and country of origin and have funny names like Wosniewicz and Dudelczak, and they’re over here hanging with a bunch of Catholics…how Polish is that. This is, seriously, a story that does not begin with the construction of death camps, or with religious differences, but at the start of the process where the majority is persuaded, enticed, threatened, routinely killed, and/or oppressed into making the wholesale destruction of a minority the law of the land. It would have a lot of chapters and the people involved are going to be some of the very worst and very best people, in numbers that will never be true numbers because so much is missing. That’s painful, but still a lesser tragedy. IMO. ---
**Author:** ![mrka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mrka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrka)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/53 "2018-08-04T11:15:53Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Here are your sites, but let me point out first that all this information is publicly available, not hard to find, and I find it obnoxious in the extreme that you’ve obviously done no research on this topic, yet insist that I provide sources to information that’s absurdly easy for you get. > > [Auschwitz | Holocaust Encyclopedia](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005189) > > [https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/auschwitz\_architecture/overview.asp](https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/auschwitz_architecture/overview.asp) > > [History & Overview of Auschwitz-Birkenau](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-auschwitz-birkenau) > > [Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State . Auschwitz 1940-1945 . Surprising Beginnings | PBS](http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/beginnings/) > > [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no4/html/v44i4a06p\_0005.htm](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol44no4/html/v44i4a06p_0005.htm) > > [Wollheim Memorial](http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/auschwitz_bunamonowitz) > > Would you like more? I could indeed have looked up the information myself. No problem. After all I know all of this already. And this info is readily available. As you say. But I’ve got a bad memory ever since getting brain washed and cleansed by psychosis. It’s not an experience I could like anybody to have. Some schizophrenics claim their experience is caused by a different energy. Unknown in the West. But part of the Eastern way of life. I’m not Russian Orthodox and I don’t believe in energy. God’s that is. The point is Auschwitz or Auschwitz 1 as it later got named is where the mass murder of Poles started. In a facility’s context. The camp that got built in 1940 is Treblinka. Later they named the complex Auschwitz 1, 2 and 3. I think there’s an extra camp. So, where were almost 3 million Polish victims sent and killed? The answer everybody ignores is Treblinka. Well before the Jewish victims arrived. There’s a political cover-up of the facts. There’s tragic kinds of opportunism of the Poles in relationship with Israel and the Jewish community. That’s corrupt by the way. Also in relationship to the USA and England. There’s a grotesque heap of dirt under a skylight to remember the victims by… There is no day of Remembrance. There is zero. And the Stalinistic idea we’re manure destined for a world revolution, a basic tenet of Communism, still exists. I’ve been called manure by people in Canada. They adhered to the Yalta accord. And so forth. There’s an underlying materialistic ideology in people’s minds that’s Marxist. I am all for a classless society. But I’m worried for the rulers in the past and their fate. Poland had classes or even castes prior to WW2. Workers were kept alive in both Nazis and Soviets plans. To be enslaved. As proven by the communist system that ensued after the war. MILLIONS of bourgeois and so forth well-to-do farmers, big land owners, capitalist, intellectuals, Aristocrats + their families, THE RICH were exterminated by both regimes. Communism designs to rid the world of its Richest inhabitants to this day. Beware of the Communist party of Canada for example. The old class or caste that was in power has been wiped out. You may find my great-grandfather strange but he was an intellectual. You can google him, Albert Adamkiewicz. My family lost everything. And we still get treated as manure. Outrageous. Irresponsible. Unacceptable. ---
**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 4, 2018, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/54 "2018-08-04T12:54:03Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > The point is Auschwitz or Auschwitz 1 as it later got named is where the mass murder of Poles started. In a facility’s context. The camp that got built in 1940 is Treblinka. Later they named the complex Auschwitz 1, 2 and 3. > I think there’s an extra camp. > So, where were almost 3 million Polish victims sent and killed? The answer everybody ignores is Treblinka. > Well before the Jewish victims arrived. Treblinka was built in 1942 as part of Operation Reinhard. It was north of Warsaw and has nothing to do with Auschwitz. The death camp established at Auschwitz was Birkenau, sometimes called Auschwitz II, which opened in 1942. About 2 million non Jewish Poles (as well as 3 million Jewish Poles) were killed over the course of the occupation, but they weren’t all killed together in one place. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/55 "2018-08-04T23:13:35Z")
Anyway. My condolences for your family tragedy. Yes, Poles, and in particular Polish intellectuals and religious leaders, were targeted by the Nazis as well. They deserve to be remembered. There’s [a good review](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473) on the United States Holocaust Museum site. > [@](#): > > … The Nazis sought to destroy Polish culture by eliminating the Polish political, religious, and intellectual leadership. This was done in part because of German contempt for Polish culture and in part to prevent resistance against the occupation. > > In May 1940, the German occupation authorities launched AB-Aktion, a plan to eliminate the Polish intelligentsia and leadership class. The aim was to kill Polish leaders with great speed, thus instilling fear in the general population and discouraging resistance. The Germans shot thousands of teachers, priests, and other intellectuals in mass killings in and around Warsaw, especially in the city’s Pawiak prison. The Nazis sent thousands more to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp, to Stutthof, and to other concentration camps in Germany where non-Jewish Poles constituted the majority of inmates until March 1942. … Between 1939 and 1945, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were deported to German territory for forced labor. Hundreds of thousands were also imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. > > It is estimated that the Germans killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during World War II. In addition, the Germans murdered at least 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland. It was grotesque, and while not an effort to eliminate Poles as perceived racial group, it was, as above, a concerted effort to eliminate Polish culture by use of mass murder and terror on a large scale. It is also estimated that about a fourth of the European [Roma](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005219) population was killed during the war as well. ---
**Author:** ![mrka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mrka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrka)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/56 "2018-08-05T00:54:47Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Treblinka was built in 1942 as part of Operation Reinhard. It was north of Warsaw and has nothing to do with Auschwitz. > > The death camp established at Auschwitz was Birkenau, sometimes called Auschwitz II, which opened in 1942. About 2 million non Jewish Poles (as well as 3 million Jewish Poles) > were killed over the course of the occupation, but they weren’t all killed together in one place. Of course you are right. Birkenau or Auschwitz 2. But the fact almost 3 million Poles were murdered is still ignored or part of a cover-up. Just considering the Marxist angle, the Jewish supremacy in death, the type of treasonous peace we’d got after the war. Opportunism in Poland that’s rampant today. And a Conspiracy of silence. Ad nauseam. No. Not together. The Jews arrived at the camp much later. ---
**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 5, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/57 "2018-08-05T02:20:27Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > Of course you are right. Birkenau or Auschwitz 2. > But the fact almost 3 million Poles were murdered is still ignored or part of a cover-up. Just considering the Marxist angle, the Jewish supremacy in death, the type of treasonous peace we’d got after the war. > Opportunism in Poland that’s rampant today. And a Conspiracy of silence. > Ad nauseam. > No. Not together. > The Jews arrived at the camp much later. You’re an ass. ---
**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 5, 2018, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/58 "2018-08-05T12:11:24Z")
> [@mrka](#): > > But the fact almost 3 million Poles were murdered is still ignored or part of a cover-up. It’s not covered up. Not only are the facts out there for anyone able to use Google, even institutions dedicated mainly to the Jewish victims still acknowledge the non-Jewish Polish killed and, in Yad Vashem, honor those Polish who died trying to protect others from the Nazis. No cover up. It is becoming quite clear that you will NEVER be satisfied. Well… I’m sorry. That’s why it’s a crime and a tragedy. Nothing is going to bring those people back to life and nothing will truly compensate for their loss. That’s why crime is called an “injustice”. It’s not just. > [@](#): > > The Jews arrived at the camp much later. So did the Gypsies/Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and pretty much everyone else. Why are you focusing on the Jews and not mentioning any of the others? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2018, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/59 "2018-08-05T20:31:36Z")
I’m confused as to what Yalta has to do with calling Poles “manure”. ---
**Author:** ![mrka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mrka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrka)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971/60 "2018-08-05T21:06:02Z")
I’m not an ass though it’s arguable. By Yalta I mean the west especially the USA and England reaching an agreement that’s detrimental to Poland which had to endure the Soviets and the communists for over 50 years after the war. Poland wasn’t liberated by the Soviets. The Russians targeted the Rich first of all. There are 5 million dead Poles who are forgotten and manure from the Stalinist perspective. Manure and fertilizer are part of Stalinist vocabulary. The idea is manure for the world revolution. A basic tenet of communism. People like my parents and me were called manure too. They survived the war but belonged to the class of persons who were mainly targeted by both Germans and Russians. Poland wasn’t a classless society before the war. Yalta, to me, perpetuated the injustice. Are you naive? Poland does not honor its dead because there’s a world revolution underfoot. It just means lots of corruption and opportunism. With a view on the past. We could never get anything returned. And my great-grandfather’s books are an example of property. He died in 1921. So my grandfather’s property is in question. He lost everything and never had anything returned. No compensation. I know about other victims than Poles and Jews. I focused on the Jews, because they hate Poland and its nation. I’ve got Jewish roots; my mother wasn’t Jewish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grotesque-unearthly-bad-monument/818971.md?page=4)