Israel – A Polish embassy official complained today about a Holocaust cartoon feature in an Israeli newspaper, charging it depicted Poles in an unfavorable light.
The artoon depicted the story of the artist's mother escaping from Poland during World War II. One of the frames pictures Polish passengers on a train, many with drinks in their hands, harassing the young woman.
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The cartoons were republished in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita today and caused an outrage, according to Piotr Trobniak, a spokesman for the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv.
"It describes the Poles as vicious drunks and in a negative way. They look very ugly and not nice. This is a very difficult issue," Trobniak said.
The editor of the newspaper denied the charges. "We aren't saying anything against the Polish people as a whole," he said. "This is a description of the people who were there at that moment in time, according to testimony of the woman who was there." [AP]
Poland was the first country occupied by Germany in WW II. One would think that the natives would have a little hostility toward the occupier and show a little sympathy to their fellow Polish citizens, even if they were Jews. But that’s not the way it happened. Poland LIKE ALL CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES has a deeply ingrained anti-semitic attitude and it does not take much to cause that latent hatred to flare up. Here are three links to chapters from the Korczyn (Poland)Yizkor book.
Relations between Jew and non-Jew prior to WWI
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Korczyna/kor041.html#Page59
Relations between Jew and non-Jew following WWI
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Korczyna/kor041.html#Page61
Aron the crisis
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Korczyna/kor041.html#Page64
Like my father said after he survived WW2. “The only good Pole is a dead one….”
Considering the actions of many Poles during WWII, it seems to me that depicting them as vicious drunks is being a bit too kind.