Poles and the Holocaust in Historical Perspective

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s recent reference to “Jewish perpetrators” of the Holocaust aggravated an already volatile standoff between Poles and Jews caused by the new Polish law that seeks to criminalize holding Poland responsible for the atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany on German soil during World War II. Asked at a press conference in Munich on February 17th by the son of a Holocaust survivor whether he could be prosecuted for recounting how his mother was betrayed to the Nazis by her Polish neighbor, Morawiecki replied, “Of course it’s not going to be punishable, not going to be seen as criminal, to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian, not only German perpetrators.”

Let’s be clear: there were no Jewish “perpetrators” of the Holocaust. All Jews were intended victims of the Hitlerite “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” As World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder has correctly pointed out:

Continue reading "Poles and the Holocaust in Historical Perspective" at...