Poland's Memory

From Yahoo:

"Poland remembers Warsaw ghetto and its fighters"

Israel's ambassador to Poland opened a 3-D show of Warsaw ghetto photos on Wednesday as part of observances marking the 70th anniversary of the ghetto's ill-fated revolt against Nazi Germans. The 48 pictures shown at Warsaw's Fotoplastikon are images of people walking or begging in the streets, street vendors, German troops and the Jewish cemetery. Most of them were taken between 1940, when the ghetto was set up, and 1945, when almost nothing remained of Warsaw's Jewish district. Some of the images are very poignant, like one of a boy searching for lice in his clothes. Ambassador Zvi Rav-Ner said the photos are proof of the immense suffering of the Jews in the ghetto and a warning against nationalist violence. "It is very important that these pictures show how it really was, how they all suffered," Rav-Ner said in Polish. "And then there was this great heroism. This was the first uprising against the Nazis in occupied Europe." On April 19, 1943, a few hundred poorly armed Jews put up resistance to the German forces, who were sending ghetto residents to death camps. The revolt was crushed in May, and the ghetto was razed to the ground, its residents killed. The two-dimensional photos were supplied by the family of Polish resistance photographer Stefan Baginski and turned into stereoscopic images that, when viewed through binoculars, offer a 3-D effect. Some of the photos were taken by German soldiers and some by a Polish photographer, Mieczyslaw Bil-Bilazewski, who apparently worked for both the Nazi occupiers and the Polish resistance. The show was organized by the Warsaw Rising Museum as part of observances marking the ghetto revolt anniversary. The 1944 Warsaw uprising was a separate city-wide revolt. Museum Director Jan Oldakowski said the two uprisings are often confused: the ghetto revolt being better known in the world, the Warsaw-wide uprising better known in Poland. "They are both the heritage of Warsaw, and this is what we want to say through this picture show," Oldakowski said. Earlier Wednesday, Poland's parliament adopted a resolution honoring those who suffered and died in the ghetto. It "pays homage to the victims and heroes of the uprising whose courage and sacrifice have earned admiration, respect and the memory of generations that came after them."

^ The history of Polish-Jewish relations can be best summed up by using the quote found in this article "The two uprisings are often confused: the ghetto revolt being better known in the world, the Warsaw-wide uprising better known in Poland." Even after 60+ years have passed and the events of the Holocaust and the 3 million Polish Jews (6 million European Jews) murdered well known by the whole world there is still a clear division between the two groups: the Poles and the Jews. Maybe more Poles know about the 1944 Warsaw-wide revolt because the majority of the Polish Underground did little to aid the Jews in their ghetto uprising. Anti-Semitism was strong in Poland before the war (and continued well into the 1960s-1970s) and many Poles agreed with Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews so saw little need to help save the Jews. I believe that had the Poles helped the Jews during the ghetto uprising of 1943 both sides, working together, could have done a lot more to weaken the Germans than the two separate revolts actually accomplished. I don't think the combined revolt would have succeeded, but more Jews would have survived than did in the ghetto uprising. Poland needs to remember both revolts and why there were two in the first place. Hopefully, the Anti-Semitism that helped the Nazis kill so many Polish Jews (there's a reason all the death camps were located in Poland) is hopefully a thing of Poland's past. Events and anniversaries like the one here help teach the truth to people both in Poland and around the world. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/poland-remembers-warsaw-ghetto-fighters-