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" The world rightly knows about what happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters, but it knows so little about us. We should not be forgotten." Reverend Jan Januszewski |
Hitlers plan to establish the supremacy of the Aryan race meant not only the elimination of Jewish Poles, but also of Polish Christians, who were referred to by the Nazis as untermenschen, that is, subhuman. According to Himmler's plan, Hitler ordered thekilling " without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language...[in order to] obtain the living space ..[the German nation needed]." Hitler's hatred for the Polish people was so immense he intended to eliminate them from the face of the earth. He declared, " It is essential that the great German people should consider it as it's major task to destroy all Poles.". When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the first plan of action was to round up and execute the Polish intelligentsia ( Jews and Christians). Mass executions took place, the bodies later buried in mass graves. The Nazi plan was to enslave the Polish nation by eradic whooutnumbered the Jews. Many of the men were subjected to castration experiments and then sent to the gas chambers. Jews soon became the majority of interns there andmany other concentration camps, and were singled out for the harshest treatment, and sentences. There were over 2,000 concentration camps in Poland alone. While Poles were not herded into ghettos like the Jews, they were prisoners just the same. Central Poland, was called the Gouvernement General, by the Nazis, and was in reality one gigantic penal colony in which Poles were routinely hunted down, rounded up and sent to concentration camps, or summarily executed for violating any number of German "laws", or decrees. The Polish people were systematically executed by the Nazis; 40 % of professors, 57% of lawyers, the majority of journalsts, and 20% of the Catholic clergy. All were subjected to the most sadistic treatment by the Nazis. In Hitlers plan of Lebensraum, he de-Polonized the territory. Hundreds of thousands of Christian and Jewish Poles were deported to central Poland where they were to be enslaved in the service of the German race. Over 110,000 Poles in Lublin were forced out of their homes to make room for incoming German settlers. Many Poles were deported to Germany as slave labor for factories and farms. The Germans outlawed all Polish education, closing down universities, and schools, leaving open only primary schools of education. Even speaking Polish was forbidden. Also banned were Polish music, literature, and museums. In the process of Germanization of the Polish nation, thousands of blond, blue-eyed Polish children were forcibly taken away from their families and deported to Germany. They were given falsified birth certificates, and placed with German families. Many of these children have never been found. The Germans confiscated Polish property to finance their war efforts Poles were subjected to such meager food rations that they were being slowly starved to death. In order to survive many Poles obtained fake ration cards entitling them to more food than was normally allotted to each person. The Nazi principle of collective responsibility was meant to deter Polish resistance. For every German killed by a Pole, there were at least a hundred Poles who were executed. The Germans, in their policy of pacification, wiped out as many as 500 Polish villages. In Lublin, the entire village of Jozefow was completely eliminated because of the murder of one German family there at the hands of the Poles. Mention of the Holocaust conjures up horrible images of people being exterminated for no other reason than the fact that they were of the Jewish faith. This has made the Holocaust a symbol of Jewish suffering to the exclusion of the suffering of " other victims ", who were Polish Christians. Few people are aware that the Poles suffered as greatly as the Jews under Nazi terror. To Hitler's twisted evil mind, Polish people, both Jews and Christians, were to be eliminated. It is true that 6,000,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Of this total, 3,000,000 Jews were of Polish nationality and the remainder deported to Poland from all parts of Europe. But unbeknowst to many people, there was another 3,000,000 murdered who were of Polish ethnic descent. This tragedy is made more painful for the survivors of Polish victims because the world refuses to hear the truth. We cannot forget the 3,000.000 Poles who suffered and died in unimaginable agony. We must acknowledge that the Holocaust was a Polish and Jewish tragedy. We must never forget. |
| THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST |