Why Did the Pope Keep Quiet About Hitler?
Read below. This is the Pope you are so proud of.
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by Cara DeCoursey on 8 November 2012 • 42
Pope Keeping quiet about Hitler? Pope Pius XII The Pope lived in Germany from 1917-1929 (before the Holocaust), do you think he felt some sort of allegiance to Germany and therefore had another reason for keeping quiet about Hitler? Questions Was elected Pope in 1939 Was the pope during the holocaust Kept quiet about Hitler Secretly sheltered a number of Jewish folk Spoke to officials encouraging them to help them Article Summary During World War 2, while the Holocaust was happening, the Pope decided to keep quiet about it though he knew what was being done to the Jewish people. One of the Pope's bishops, Galen, stood against Hitler's actions and spoke up for the Jewish people creating a temporary halt in the killing streak. The Pope decided to stay politically neutral during these horrible events that Hitler triggered. Began before World War II and ended with the war Hitler decided to eliminate the Jewish population and gathered followers (nazis) 6 million Jewish people were murdered Clemens August Count von Galen Only one of Pius's bishops who spoke out against the Holocaust Was critical of the nazi party from the beginning Temporarily slowed down the killing sprees with his public speaking. Pius admired Galen for his actions. Do you think standing against his government? Even after Italy having an alliance with Germany? If you were in the Popes shoes, what would you have done? => Do you think what he did was wrong? => If the Jewish people begged you for help, would that change your decision? If the Pope spoke up for the Jewish people, how would that affect and change the outcome of the holocaust? Would it have an impact on us today? If this were to happen today would the Pope handle it the same, or differently? => Another holocaust? => What would happen? How do you think the Jewish people would feel towards the Vatican, knowing that The Pope kept quiet during the Holocaust? Why did Galen decide to stand up and not the Pope? => Why was he the only Bishop that spoke up? The Pope was elected right at the beginning of World War 2, do you think all the pressure of the war somewhat affected him and his decisions? => Why? => How? Do you think there was a under the table deal with Hitler? About not speaking up about the Holocaust? (Alliance with Italy and Germany) Do you think the Pope told Galen to speak up against the Nazi party so that something would be done but he would remain politically neutral? Is remaining politically neutral enough justification for not speaking up against Hitler?
http://http://prezi.com/_baez8uxszcs/why-did-the-pope-keep-quiet-about-hitler/
As a " catholic" you cant face the truth? Who cares?
and again, that isn't the question?
what truth am i supposed to be facing exactly. the truth someone named cara decoursey actually doesn't even say anything about.
the truth doesn't bother me at all.
the truth is is that i can think of better uses for our taxpayer monies than to pursue the demonisation of a man respected by catholics worldwide for absolutely no reasons whatsoever or to use those monies to fund some "museum" so that they have carte blanche to pursue such an agenda.
you folks threw your own kids into the fuckin' showers without a peep while catho;ics throughout europe were rescuing you hand over oot, sending some of you to israel to be killed by the precursers of your own IDF and now you try to salve your guilt and and blame your craven behaviour on every easy target you caan find.
take a little responsibility for yourselves.
all i was asking is why our taxes should fund this. why do jews think americans should spend their tax money to find out whatever pius xii was doing in WWII.
i hope they open the vatican files too because i am sure they will find nothing but the acts of a gentle man in a horribly difficult position...and i will expect the jews will not even offer an apolology for this unconscionable witch hunt.
The Jews " threw their own kids into the fuckin showers?" Catholics were rescuing us? Were there some? The answer is " yes". However the majority were Barbarians. Jews offering an apology to the Vatican? They owe us an apology for their Hate and Anti- Semetic teaching. The IDF killed us? lol Stop drinking NOW !!!
Burning Alive"
by Andrzej Kaczynski, published May 5, 2000 in the Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita"
Introduction
By Morlan Ty Rogers, June 27, 2000
On July 10, 1941, more than 1,600 people -- practically the entire Jewish population of Jedwabne, near Lomza in northeastern Poland -- were forced into a barn on the outskirts of town and burned alive by their Polish neighbors. Inside this barn were several dozen relatives of mine. Although most of Jedwabne's population was Jewish before World War II, today there is no trace left of the Jewish community which lived there for more than 300 years. For almost 60 years, the cruel truth of the events of that day were distorted and concealed by the Polish authorities and by the residents of Jedwabne, who in public denied any role in the mass murder. This denial was cast in stone during the 1960s, when a small monument was erected at the site of the barn which placed the entire blame for this atrocity on the German Nazis.
It is only because a few lucky survivors managed to escape and live through the rest of the Holocaust that we know what really happened. Thanks to them and others who fortuitously left Jedwabne before World War II, we know the names of some, but not all, of the more than 1,600 people killed that day whose only crime was that they were Jewish. Their testimony and a partial list of the martyrs are preserved in the Jedwabne yizkor book, which appears on this website at
Yedwabne, Poland
During a visit to Jedwabne in 1985, I came face to face with the monument falsely attributing full responsibility to the Germans and denying the principal role that Polish residents of Jedwabne had in the annihilation of their Jewish neighbors. As long as Poland remained Communist, there was little hope that the truth would come to light there. Even seven years after the fall of Communism, Polish society still was unprepared to confront its past. After the New York Times published a letter I wrote about the false monument in Jedwabne in 1996, a number of Polish newspapers published articles disparaging the Jewish survivors' accounts.
Last year, I learned that Professor Jan Gross of New York University had discovered documents hidden in an archive in Poland which confirmed that the mass-murder of the Jedwabne Jews was committed primarily by Poles and that Germans played only a minor role. Professor Gross has written a book about the events in Jedwabne in July 1941 called "Sasiedzi" ("Neighbors") which was just published in Poland. In April of this year, he presented his findings on Jedwabne at a conference at Yeshiva University in New York about Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust. His lecture generated great interest about Jedwabne inside Poland and resulted in a number of articles in Polish newspapers, including a lengthy article that appeared on May 5, in Poland's leading newspaper, "Rzeczpospolita".
This article is the first time that a major Polish newspaper has acknowledged that the brutal killing and burning alive of the Jews in Jedwabne and several nearby villages in July 1941 were committed by Poles.
A few days after the article ran, representatives of the growing Jewish community in Warsaw traveled to Jedwabne with officials from the Polish prime minister's office, and met with the mayor of Jedwabne, Krzysztof Godlewski. During this meeting, the mayor acknowledged that the existing monument attributing the murder of the Jedwabne Jews solely to the Germans was a falsification of history, and he agreed in principle to replace the inscription on the monument with a historically accurate one: i.e acknowledging that the actual murderers were Poles. The hope is that the new monument will be erected in time for the 60th yahrzeit for Jedwabne's martyrs in July 2001.
The "Rzeczpospolita" article can be found in the original Polish at
RP.pl - Rzeczpospolita cystyka_a_1.html
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BURNING ALIVE:
In Jedwabne, the German extermination of the Jews
was carried out by Polish hands.
"Burning Alive", by Andrzej Kaczynski, published May 5, 2000 in the Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita". All rights to the original article are reserved by the author and Rzeczpospolita. Any requests for usage of the original article shall be referred to Andrzej Kaczynski. We wish to thank "Wiez", publishers of "Thou Shalt Not Kill - Poles on Jedwabne" (
http://free.ngo.pl/wiez/jedwabne/main.html), and the translator, William Brand, for permission to publish their translation of this article on the JewishGen website.
On July 10, 1941 in Jedwabne, in the Lomza region, the Germans ordered that the entire Jewish community of the small town be exterminated. Local Poles carried out the death sentence. Recently revealed eyewitness accounts by Jews who survived the Holocaust confirm this. Nor do Polish residents of Jedwabne who witnessed the tragedy deny it. From these same sources, it is also known that the Germans used Polish hands to commit similar massacres of Jews in Wasosz, Wizna and Radzilów. Many of these documented testimonies were previously known to Polish scholars. These scholars did not, however, contribute to exposing the shocking truth about Polish involvement in the Nazi extermination of the Jews. This knowledge has reached us from abroad.
One tragedy, two histories
A boulder with a memorial tablet is the only trace of more than two hundred years of Jewish presence in Jedwabne, near Lomza. But the inscription on it accusing the Nazis alone of carrying out the destruction of the Jewish residents of the town does not tell the entire truth. Nor did historians living in Poland reveal that truth. Only recently, Professor Jan Tomasz Gross of New York published Szmul Wasersztajn's account describing the general participation of local Poles in the murder of the Jedwabne Jews. This document, written in 1945 and preserved in the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, had been known to, or at least referred to by Polish historians who nevertheless concealed its true significance. A collection of later Jewish testimonies, which also accuses a certain number of Poles from Jedwabne and the nearby villages of involvement in the crime (it accuses them by name, and there are at least thirty names), has recently been placed on the Internet in the United States.
A discussion on the subject of the murder of the Jedwabne Jews has developed over the Internet, based on this documentation as well as on a lecture by Professor Jan Tomasz Gross at an American university. One posting, from a month or so ago, reads in part: "The Germans entered Jedwabne. The Poles asked them to leave town for eight hours. Eight hours later, there were 1,100 fewer Jews." The author got her distorted information second hand, or she heard about it, but not accurately. Another author confuses the dates and informs the world that [in Jedwabne - trans.] the Poles murdered Jews who had survived the Nazi Holocaust. The June 3, 1946 pogrom in "Kielce, in comparison was small beer" he states. Both authors display considerable curiosity about, and a degree of familiarity with Polish affairs. These are the results of covering up the truth. The reaction of Internet readers who know little or nothing about Poland is something that it is better not even to think about.
I checked to see what Polish Shoah researchers had written on the subject. It turns out that there are two different, and even contradictory versions of the destruction of the Jedwabne Jews. Polish sources attribute responsibility for the massacre exclusively, or almost exclusively, to the Germans, the Nazi gendarmerie and police. The Polish role in them is downplayed, silenced, or denied outright.
Are they going to take away formerly Jewish property?
Many Jedwabne citizens refused to talk, and yet without great difficulty I obtained general confirmation of the Jewish accounts of the perpetrators of the extermination. Not only older people who lived in town throughout the war knew and stated that Poles committed the murderous acts, but so did young people who knew the truth only through family stories. "None of the murderers is still alive," they assured me. Yet almost all of them demanded anonymity. When our photographer approached some youngsters gathered in the town square and asked them to point out any mementoes of the Jedwabne Jews, or the monument to them, they first asked with a hint of sarcasm whether he had come to take back the property that formerly belonged to the Jews.
Only one Jewish apartment house remains in Jedwabne. The author of one of the accounts placed on the Internet visited the town some 20 years ago and lamented that he saw hardly any Jewish buildings left.
During World War I about 75% of the town was destroyed. A few years before World War II, the church and synagogue were rebuilt. The Germans burned down the splendid new synagogue, the pride of the Jedwabne Jews, in September 1939.
On September 28, 1939, the two invaders, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, agreed on their division of Poland. For 20 months, Jedwabne was under Soviet occupation. The Germans again entered the town on June 23, 1941, the second day of their attack on the USSR. Eighteen days later, almost all the Jedwabne Jews were burned alive.
The Jewish version
The few Jews who survived the burning or who heard about it from eyewitnesses, accuse the Poles, their neighbors and fellow townspeople in Jedwabne, as well as others from the nearby villages, of the crime. According to their accounts, Poles were the sole perpetrators of this crime. Germans may have issued the orders or incited the pogrom, but it is not certain whether they were in town at the time, and they may have even tried to moderate or limit the extermination.
The first source is two depositions that Szmul Wasersztajn, an eyewitness to the tragic events in Jedwabne on July 10, 1941, presented to the Jewish Historical Committee in Bialystok in 1945. These statements are preserved in the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. The JHI archives also contain depositions on the events in Jedwabne and the vicinity by, among others, Menachem Finkelsztejn, Abraham Smialowicz, and A. Belawicki. All of them accuse the Poles. These documents have been known to scholars for a dozen or more years-at least they are cited by all Polish scholars in their lists of sources. Jan Tomasz Gross was the first to publish one of Szmul Wasersztajn's two depositions (the longer one) in its entirety (in a festschrift for Professor Tomasz Strzembosz, Europa nieprowincjonalna [Non-Provincial Europe], Warsaw, 2000). While indicating that while he found several discrepancies between Wasersztajn's two depositions, Gross did not engage in any basic criticism of them as sources (obviously regarding them as credible). He also outlined plans for further research on Polish attitudes to the extermination of the Jews in the period following the [1941] German attack on the Soviet Union.
Among the testimonies on the Internet (
Yedwabne, Poland) are those of three eyewitnesses: Herszel Piekarz-Baker, Rywka Fogel and Icchak (Janek) Neumark.
Wasersztajn claims that on the third day of the German occupation of Jedwabne, June 25, 1941, "local Polish bandits" started robbing Jewish property, brutally beating and even killing Jews. "With his own eyes" he saw three people murdered. "Jakub Kac was stoned with bricks; Eliasz Krawiecki was stabbed repeatedly with knives, then his eyes were gouged out and his tongue was cut off. He suffered inhumanly for twelve hours before drawing his last breath." Rywka Fogel names four other victims of the massacre.
Wasersztajn continues: "That same day I observed a horrible scene. Chaja Kubrzanska, twenty-eight years old, and Basia Binsztejn, twenty-six years old, both holding newborn babies, when they saw what was going on, they ran to a pond, in order to drown themselves with the children rather than fall into the hands of bandits. They put their children in the water and drowned them with their own hands: then Banska Binsztejn jumped in and immediately went to the bottom, while Chaja Kubrzanska suffered for a couple of hours" [Gross's translation]. Rywka Fogel offered different details. The two women exchanged babies. They slashed their own veins before throwing themselves into the pond. According to Wasersztajn, the hooligans treated the tragedy as a spectacle. Fogel claimed some Poles rescued the women the first time they attempted suicide. Their husbands, communist activists, escaped with the Russians.
The pogrom lasted one day. Wasersztajn stated that it was stopped by the priest, explaining "that the German authorities would take care of things by themselves" [Gross's translation].
On July 7th and 8th, Jewish refugees from pogroms in Wizna and Radzilów tried took shelter in Jedwabne. About 1,000 Jews lived in Jedwabne and it is not known how many fled with the Russians. Some place the number of fugitives as high as 700. Some hid outside of town, expecting a catastrophe since the Nazis were organizing a pogrom in a different locality each day.
Early in the morning of July 10th, the people in hiding watched as many peasants from the outlying hamlets arrived in town by cart-like on a market day. Germans also arrived. Eight Gestapo functionaries held a meeting with representatives of the town's Polish authorities. According to Wasersztajn, the Germans wanted to kill most of the Jews while sparing skilled craftsmen who would be useful to them, while the Poles demanded that none of the Jews be left alive, because there were enough skilled Christian craftsmen to do any work. Other Jewish accounts give a similar account of the meeting. Some Polish witnesses also overheard the local side taking just such a stance in the negotiations with the Gestapo.
The Jews were ordered to gather in the town square. "Local hooligans armed themselves with axes, special clubs studded with nails, and other instruments of torture and destruction and chased all the Jews into the street" [Gross's translation], testified Wasersztajn. They forced the Jews to weed and clean the square. A statue of Lenin was toppled from its pedestal and young Jews were ordered to carry it around the square while singing Soviet songs and chanting: "This war is our work". According to some accounts, the Poles selected dozens of strong young men and ordered them to carry Lenin's statue to the Jewish cemetery outside of town. There, they forced them to dig a large pit and bury the statue in it. After that, they murdered all these men and threw their bodies into the same pit. The rest of the Jews were kept in the town square all day under the scorching sun, without a drop of water. They were insulted and beaten. Polish hoodlums tormented the gray-haired rabbi, Awigdor Bialostocki, and did not spare the women and the children. In the evening they marched all the Jews, in rows of four, towards the Jewish cemetery. According to some accounts, the rabbi was ordered to march in the front rank carrying a red banner. Everyone was forced into a barn. The barn was doused with a flammable liquid and set alight. Icchak Neumark, a former citizen of Jedwabne, testified that a Pole whom he recognized stood guarding the barn door, axe in hand. "He was ready to kill anyone who tried to get out. My family and I were standing near the door because, fortunately, we were among the last to be pushed into the barn. Suddenly, the barn door fell apart in the flames. The one guarding the door raised his axe to strike me, but fortunately I managed to knock it away. My sister, her five year-old daughter, and I managed to escape to the cemetery. I saw how my father collapsed in flames on the earthen floor [of the barn]."
Those who were not burned alive in the barn were beaten to death wherever the Polish perpetrators found them. Rywka Fogel heard the terrible screams of Jozef Lewin, a boy whom the bandits clubbed to death. "The goys grabbed little Judka Nadolna, cut off her head, and played with it like a soccer ball," testified Fogel. Icchak Neumark said that one woman, nine months pregnant, had her abdomen ripped open by her father-in-law's farm hand. "I saw with my own eyes how Aron lay dead in the street with a cross carved into his chest. Three-year-old Chana hid in a chicken coop. The goys found her and threw her into the fire like a piece of wood", said Neumark.
"Not even one German participated in the killing that day. On the contrary, two officers came to the barn of destruction to save at least the craftsmen, tailors, cobblers, blacksmiths, and carpenters, whose labor the Germans required. But the goys told them: 'Not one Jew can remain alive. There are enough skilled craftsmen among the Christians,'" Neumark reported. "Even though the Germans gave the order, it was Polish hooligans who took it up and carried it out, using the most horrible methods," said Szmul Wasersztajn. "The Poles decided to kill all the Jews and they did so. The Germans looked with disdain upon the overt bestiality of the Poles," testified Herszel Piekarz-Baker, the author of one of the accounts published on the Internet.
This is just some of the article . Of course we all know as a " catholic" you are very proud of it
http://http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/jedwabne/yed999.html
