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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 8:33 pm Post subject: Poles discover their Jewish roots |
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By Adam Easton
BBC News, Warsaw
Under Nazi and communist persecution, the few Jews who remained in Poland sometimes hid their identity, leaving a surprise in store for their descendants.
Pawel works in the kitchen of a kosher restaurant in the heart of Warsaw's growing Jewish community, near the 19th Century Nozyk synagogue, a Jewish theatre and cultural centre.
When he was younger, he used to be a skinhead.
"I am from a Catholic family. I was baptised. My parents are still Catholics," he told me.
"When I was a skinhead, I used to go around saying: oh, those Jews, look at what they've done.
"It was madness because we didn't know anything about Jews or Jewish culture. It was just slogans - like Jews Rule the World, Jews are Bad.
Six years ago, Pawel made a discovery that turned his life upside down - he found out that he was Jewish. His parents had turned their back on Jewish life and they had never told him about his background.
Many people believe the Holocaust killed off Jewish life in Poland but people like Pawel, Rabbi Pavlac and the 240 pupils at this school are proof that it is slowly coming back to life again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6151420.stm |
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Wrench
Joined: 07 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Poland had the biggest concentration of jewish poulation in Europe prior to ww2. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Wrench wrote: |
| Poland had the biggest concentration of jewish poulation in Europe prior to ww2. |
Indeed, from what i understand most of the Jews "liquidated" on behalf of Zionism during WW2 were Polish. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:51 am Post subject: |
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http://www.cyndislist.com/poland.htm
You can trace your polish or E.European name here.
my own ancestor dates back to the year 1146. (Which I knew already of course).
interesting site to look at nonetheless. Wow..people certainly died young and had lots of babies a few centuries ago... |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
| Wrench wrote: |
| Poland had the biggest concentration of jewish poulation in Europe prior to ww2. |
Indeed, from what i understand most of the Jews "liquidated" on behalf of Zionism during WW2 were Polish. |
Jews were not liquidated on behalf of Zionism. You may make the case that the Zionist organizations did not attempt to help many of the Jews being killed, if they were not planning on engaging in Aliyah i.e. immigration to British Mandate Palestine at the time. That is very different than having Jews liquidated on their behalf. The Ha'avara agreement in 1933 between Hitler and some Zionists was not an agreement to liquidate fellow Jews who didn't agree with the Zionists.
I am quite familiar with the dissenting theories out there. |
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dulouz
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Uranus
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:32 am Post subject: |
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| My Google family includes a former Miss Teen Illinois and a very Gay art professor from San Franciso. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
http://www.cyndislist.com/poland.htm
You can trace your polish or E.European name here.
my own ancestor dates back to the year 1146. (Which I knew already of course).
interesting site to look at nonetheless. Wow..people certainly died young and had lots of babies a few centuries ago... |
Thanks for this, my father will be interested in it.
The reality is that many, many Jews became Christians in Europe prior to the Holocaust - in the hundreds of years prior. There was much pressure to convert, many pogroms and fear of one's life. Poland less so, which makes it so much more ironic that its Jewish population suffered so much. Their numbers and thriving communities didn't offer protection as much as a target. The SS specifically chose Poland as the place of its "killing factories" because of the support of the Church there and of course the large thriving "urban" population. Ironic.
Isaac Bashevis Singer captures the times very well. Please read some of his great work -- not just the famous Gimpel the Fool but almost anything else. He brings the world of the Yid to life......a language and culture now never really to return...
My own great great grandparents converted. Many famous Jewish names are of a "given" origin - Jews not having any specific last name prior to the beginings of the austrohungarian empire. Poor jews got very horrible names such as Ostertag (easter day), streisand (little hairs on a horse's behind), greenspan/spoon (the poison on a silver spoon left in mayonnaise) and of course my own, Devil's bite.
The holocaust was only a culmination of virulent anti-semitism and in no way is to be seen as a purely "Nazi" event........
I also hope that Dulouz and his hate gets the big blow off .... the guy is disgusting.
DD |
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