by Oui
Tue Jan 28th, 2025 at 12:32:40 PM EST
A few days ago I cam across this heroic tale of particular interest to Polish struggle for independence and the First and Second World Wars. In the United States I was particularly taken aback by two Polish families living nearby with teenagers of my age. Both worked with my dad as labourer on a nursery thar also provided out "housing" for which we were grateful in the late 50s, early 60s. Within a year we moved into the home of the German foreman, a white house on the hill. 😊
Another colleague was a Mexican labourer who spoke mainly Spanish. No, English was only spoken at home with the new generation at work my dad communicated in German. The Germans and Japanese were soon as the arch enemies of America and the "West" as was demonstrated by most Hollywood films and the wrestling series catch-as-catch-can. Today and the last decade, the new favourite enemies have been the Muslims and Russians with some Chinese elements added. Educational propaganda to make dehumanization so much easier in case of war.
One Pole uttered every other sentence with his favourite: "oh boy"... that earned him his nickname. Every war is a disaster, so also the experiences for my parents had been devastating ... being married in May 1939 shortly before a general mobilisation. My dad's enterprise was ruined during the war and a stray allied bomb destroyed all his greenhouses near Mechelen in Belgium.
Our family hated the German occupation with all its atrocities and destruction of lives. We were quite amazed that the Pole was willing to send his eldest son into service of the U.S. Army to fight the commies "over there" in Vietnam. Engrained hate for all that represented a totalitarian state of Communism under dictator Stalin and a long history of suffering and death was a motive to sacrifice his eldest son. Revenge and wrath as motive will grease the war machine forever ... not based on the founding of the ECSC and later the European Union. Its success was hijacked by the US-UK military industrial complex though NATO expansion. Europe as a whole will be suffering in the next fifteen years under the yoke of Washington DC authoritarianism.
VIDEO WWII
No, NATO didn't win or earn the Nobel Peace Prize for Europe, to the contrary, it was the European Union and its principles of an economic community based on reducing production of war machinery, and sovereignty of nations in accordance with the 1945 UN Charter. Not our social-democratic principles I heard VDL announce a few days ago after America lost democracy and entered the jungle of Mr. Borrell.
Recent diary by Frank Schnittger ...
To claim Pilecki as the "hero of Auschwitz" does him an injustice as he is a true national hero of Poland in a much broader sense. Pilecki did not die on behalf of "Jewish" prisoners in Auschwitz which were mainly Poles in the first years. His family's struggle had been against Russia before WWI and for independence during and post WWII. Fighting against the Soviet occupation was the reason he will be honored. Many battles during his lifetime were heroic.
The Memory Day: Remembering Witold Pilecki, the Hero of Auschwitz
Witold Pilecki, prisoner number 4859, was a hero of Auschwitz. British historian Michael Foot considers Pilecki one of the six most courageous figures of the resistance movement during World War II.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. When it was decided to commemorate the extermination of Jews during World War II, this date was chosen for the Holocaust Memorial Day.
From 1933 to 1945, the German government built 20,000 of these camps (in German, Lager) across various European countries. The camps served different purposes: concentration camps, extermination camps, forced labor camps, etc. The victims of these camps amounted to about 11 million people, 6 million of whom were Jews. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest extermination camp, which is why its liberation date has such significant importance.
However, while remembering the victims of Auschwitz, it would be appropriate to also recall the heroes who, risking their lives, managed to gather information about what was happening inside the camp and transmit it to Western governments. Among these heroes, who remain unjustly unknown to the global public, are Witold Pilecki and Jan Karski.
Recent posts on Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps ...
Soviet Red Army seized the notorious death camp - 27 January 1945
President Andrzej Duda has called for a special exemption to let war criminal Bibi Netanyahu visit Poland for the Auschwitz memorial service ... set aside today's genocide and continued suffering of Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank in assaults by both the IDF and illegal armed Israeli settlers.
Poland's National Hero Witold Pilecki
Captain Withold Pilecki [extended version]
Withold Pilecki just about signs his own death warrant by allowing himself to be sent to Auschwitz; for that reason, one realizes immediately that Pilecki was a special man whose moral code is rare. His underground army superiors did not order him to do so; it was his own idea. There is a post-modern tendency to sully heroes and their idealism, but Pilecki is no holy fool. His Catholic faith, spirit of friendly good-fellowship, and patriotism buoy him.
What were the sources of these traits that may help us understand why he volunteered to infiltrate and how he survived Auschwitz? The most striking characteristic in his upbringing was his parents' determination to preserve the family's Polish identity.
Pilecki was born on 13 May 1901 in Poland (where independence had not existed for over 100 years). The Third Partition (1795) expunged Poland, and the Russian Empire absorbed much of it; the Germans and Austro-Hungarians engulfed the remaining territories.
Technically, Pilecki was born a Russian, although Russian authorities tried to suppress the family's heritage. Countless major and minor Polish uprisings bloodied the 19th century, and
Pilecki's ancestors were participants in the January Uprising (1863-1864) [In Lithuania]. As punishment for their disobedience, the Russians seized much of their property, forcing them into a life of exile. Pilecki's father, Julian, a child of this revolution, eventually graduated from the Petersburg Institute of Forestry and accepted a forester position in the Russian region of Karelia, northeast of St. Petersburg, causing him to study in and work with the Russian language. He married Ludwika Oslecimska, a Polish woman, and together they had five children; Witold Pilecki was the third child.
The January Uprising of 1863: Significance & Antecedents
Polish uprisings that took place in the 19th century,
an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 of the greatest Poles
died. The January Uprising cost the lives of an estimated
15,000 to 20,000 insurgents, and 40,000 of them were
sent to Siberia. The question of whether it was worth
paying such a salacious price and shedding so much great
blood was answered much earlier by Adam Mickiewicz:
'I have not heard of a nation being resurrected by
treatises and diplomatic notes'.
Great prospect for the creation of a Jewish State and the struggle for independence by Palestine.
Bismarck's Rise: Schleswig Wars 1848-1864
German Wars of Unification: The Battle of Mysunde, 1864 (Part 1)
From EuroTrib archive ...
The Bravest Man Who Ever Died | by Chris Kulczycki on Dec 13th, 2005 |
Last week I wrote about Jan Karski, who tried to warn the world of the Holocaust.
This article is about a man who showed that courage and dedication have no limits, a man who purposely had himself arrested and imprisoned in Auschwitz to help those already there and also to warn the world of the Holocaust. His name was Witold Pilecki and he has been called the bravest man in World War II.
No, no ... Bandera was not a nationalist hero in comparison with Karski and Pilecki ... the former from Galicia and Wester Ukraine collaborated with Nazi Germany and in murdering of the Jewish population ... see Babi Yar in Kyiv.
Both Poland and Ukraine have tried to revise history of its ugly sides in murdering Jews and minorities in a genocide.
Babi Yar as a Symbol of Holocaust Distortion in Post-Maidan Ukraine | Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs - 2017 |
