How Poles Helped Germans ...

Care to name a religion which isn’t self-styled?

As for the ‘Chosen People of the only true God’, what about the Catholic certainty that it is the one true church as expressed in the original Apostle’s Creed

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,

and the later Nicene Creed

We believe in one holy
catholic and apostolic Church.

both of which are necessary beliefs for Catholics as professions of their faith, and which excludes all other religions as true religions?

So, if some bigoted arsehole with the intelligence of a gnat and an abiding grudge against anyone not like his simian self decides that you are deserving of going to the gas chamber, then it’s your fault?

Undoubtedly.

Every Holocaust survivor I’ve ever met, and all the children of Holocaust survivors I’ve ever met, have always said to me when the topic of the extermination of the ancestors and relatives comes up “You can’t imagine how glad we are that members of our family were exterminated for no reason other than to allow us to glory in maintaining the guilt bounty of Hitlers’s murderous onslaught.” :shock: :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:frowning:

Your expressed views are offensive to anyone with any degree of humanity and any understanding of history.

Discussion of Europen Jewry here led me to think on the Jews in Texas.

I have a fair number of Jewish friends and acquaintances and went through high school and university with a goodly number of them. I think all of them were from Eastern Europe and Russia, most of their families arriving in the late 19th c. Why they came to Texas is a bit of a mystery to me except there was a lot of open space and land available to them. Most of the rural Jewish populations in Texas dwindled as sons and daughters migrated to the larger cities, so the comment in an earlier post that some if not most Jews were or became “urban” is true here. Still, I know a few who are ranchers - cowboys if you will - who run cattle along the Texas Mexico border, although my guess is they also drill for oil and take part in the fracking boom taking place here.

One by one the rural synagogues have closed for lack of population, but the urban Jews of San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Ft Worth appear to be thriving and growing. I think most are of the Reform persusasion but there are some Orthodox Jews here as well. Virtually all of the male Jews who were here during WW2 served in the military - the army, from the folks I know - during the war.

One of the posters here said that the Eastern European Jews were kept on the land and restricted to certain villages in the “Pale of Settlement”, were poor, if not destitute and subject to periodic pogroms. It didn’t take but a single generation in this country before many of them became small businessmen, owners of large dry goods stores, hardware stores and department stores in Texas (think Neiman-Marcus, not to mention Saks, Bergdorf-Goodman, etc) and bankers. The generation after that became engineers, doctors, lawyers and dentists, and after them authors, artists, professors, historians, social workers and so on. In other words, a fairly typical immigrant trajectory.

While there exists anti-semitism in America, it is of a low order and usually a rather low-class phenomenon as well.

I know many Jews, including my own grandfather who used to live in Houston (and is also a WWII veteran), who live in Texas. If you are interested about Jews in Texas, look up the “Galveston Movement.” It’s an interesting anecdote of Jewish history in Texas.

The Jewish immigrants were, for the most part, more successful than other immigrant groups who arrived around the same time. Many economists have measured the difference in income between Jews and non-Jews and have found that it has continued to grow. Jewish immigrants also had a much steeper income gains than other immigrant groups.

A lot of economic and and sociological research has been conducted about the reasons for that…and of course, owing to the nature of the social sciences, a lot of theories and ideas have been put forth positing reasons for it…The reasons range from genetic advantages, cultural reasons, social capital (the benefits of being a member of a group because the members of the group help each other), specialized skills resulting from anti-Semitism in Europe and a bunch of other reasons. I personally think it’s a combination of culture, social capital (not so much now but likely in the earlier generations) and history.

Flyerhell, I’m familiar with the Galveston Movement, which had slipped my mind until you mentioned it. My high school in Houston had so many Jews in it that it was otherwise known as “Hebrew High”, although the majority of students were really Christians. What it did do was raise the competitive academic stakes in the school resulting in an unusually high number of National Merit Scholars both Jewish and Christians graduating from there.

All measures of irrational ideological based [ whether religious or political based] extremism which
‘validate’ murderous actions, are sickening…

So are claims of feeling/being ‘offended’ by assumed cultural difference as a preliminary justification for a chain of oppression ranging from ostracism - insults - legal/financial penalties - incarceration - judicial murder…

Whoever does it… King Saul, Xerxes, Emperor Titus, Charlemagne, Pope Innocent, Tamerlane, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin,
Mao, Sharon, et al…

Personal insults asside the situation for Polish nation was:

  1. It was surrounded with 2 bigger oponents who threatened Polland throughout history.
  2. More important Poland got chunks of teritory from Germany that was historically German with German majority such as Danzig.
  3. If more powerfull neigbour to me said: “Look you got something that is clearly mine, I would like it back”. And if I knew my other neighbour was just waiting for some brawl to start than I (as a rational decision) would give Danzig and territory with German majority back to Germany.

Otherwise probably no, but given the:
A. circumstances and probability of war which I will surely loose with all of it’s consequences
B. fact that I got something that isn’t mine
than yes. That a rational government would do. Just as Britain returned Honk Kong to China even without threat of war.

And ofc., Hitler would have attacked anyway.

Hong kong hmmm, you have thrown something in that is no comparison to the situation poland was in

1 - The New Territories were leased from China, not part of Hong Kong itself
2 - Hong kong Island was a tiny part surrounded by and with the majority of its nationals living in part of the land that was not part of hong Kong itself
3 - Hong Kong could not survive as an independent territory once the New Territories were handed back

Poland became an independent state or should I say regained its independence in 1918 - having been partitioned between three european empires in the 1700’s

Danzig was not part of Poland at the time - it was an independent City State with the Polish Corridor splitting East Prussia from the rest of Prussia - historically and after the reformation of Poland, a majority of the population of whom were Poles.

What you basically are saying is might is right and big nations should be allowed to do as they wish with smaller nations. Small weaker nations should roll over and surrender to all claims right or wrong.

Danzig Corridor was considered Polish territory by the poles - Poland was guarrenteed access to the sea - so why do you say, they knew it was not theirs - as far as they were concerned and with the 14 point plan of Woodrow Wilson it was Polish territory