Of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust of WWII, it is estimated that 3.5 million were exterminated by the Nazis in six killing camps located in Poland. The camps were Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the best known one, Auschwitz-Birkenau. The round-up of the Polish Jews was aided and abetted by the anti-Semitic Polish population, who gleefully looted the homes and shops of the Jewish victims. The Poles, with few exceptions, were collaborators who served as Hitler’s willing workers. History also records Polish pogroms against Jews after the war when survivors returned to look for their homes. Many were murdered mercilessly. Now, the Poles seem to be offended because they are linked to the Nazi death camps. Now Poland is “making it a crime to ascribe any responsibility for the Holocaust to the Polish state or the Polish people.” This in itself is a crime, since no amount of Polish legislation can erase their guilt and complicity in this heinous stain on history.
Helen Freedman