Submitted by Stef, Oct 6, 2007 23:35

Emotions are easily manipulated and one would be naïve to think that such an emotionally charged issue as the Holocaust was never cynically used to further less than noble goals.

The issue that I see Norman Davies enlightens us on is the fact that the blind appreciation that the West had for the contributions made by the Soviet Union in the defeat of German Fascism gave legitimacy, in the eyes of the Westerners, to the many lies and falsehoods of Soviet propaganda that were repeated as true by an American media in love with the liberators of Auschwitz. I believe that the cynical use of the Jewish Holocaust by the Soviets to redirect attention away from their crimes against others, is the main cause of the misunderstandings between Poles and Jews, and between Poland defenders, such as Norman Davies, and Jews.

Reports of anti-Semitic massacres in post –war Poland originated with the Soviet imposed Polish Communist Government and press, which routinely described instances of fighting, and casualties thereof, between the Polish underground, resisting the Communist takeover, and agents of the Communists, as crimes, banditry, atrocities and, yes, anti-Jewish excesses or massacres. Does anyone doubt that the Soviet government would use any means to malign their enemies

While I know that many Jews, after sixty years, would find suspect the theory that Kielce was not what it was reported to be – a spontaneous anti-Semitic pogrom, but instead a carefully staged provocation aimed at discrediting Poland as a whole because of its resistance to the e.sion of Soviet styled Communism in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, many Poles are aware that the perpetrators were uniformed Communist Police agents and are frustrated by the tone of foregone conclusion aired by many in American society. I would like to point out that after fifty years of saying that it was the German Nazis the Soviet and Polish Communist Governments finally admitted that the Katyn murders of 21,000 Polish Officers was committed by the Soviets. Our press initially sided with the Soviets on this issue and castigated the free Poles for thinking otherwise. What else will be uncovered? How else were we duped.

In regards to the mention of anti-Semitic laws in Poland, such as limits on admittance of Jews to universities, I would like to say that the only difference between discrimination against Jews in the United States prior to WW II and in Poland prior to WW II was that in Poland it was followed by unimaginable killing, destruction, suffering, repression, and suppression of the truth, all originating from without the country - while the United States was able to evolve in peace and without outside intervention into the nation we are proud of today, which is unfortunately still capable of a Crown Heights riot.

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