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It's true that there's a nationalist movement exploiting that notion, and especially after the war, there's been a lot of mangling with numbers of victims (plen

It's true that there's a nationalist movement exploiting that notion, and especially after the war, there's been a lot of mangling with numbers of victims (plenty of the so-called Polish historians, especially the ones tied to the Soviet-installed government, tried to elevate the number). On the part that non-Jewish Poles were not targetted - while I think we agree the fictious concentration camp is part of what I mentioned above, hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Poles from both modern day Poland and modern day Germany have been victims of organized killings (take note, I don't necessarily mean concentration camps and holocaust as commonly understood). I can agree that catholic Poles were not targeted in the same way - there were numerous differences - nevertheless, the goal of Germany was to eradicate Poland as a country and Poles as a nation through either killings (which materialized in war casualties and through mass extermination), or germanization.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
The Germans did terrible things in Poland and had even more terrifying plans for Poland after the war, but there was no Holocaust against non-Jewish Poles. The way that Jewish and non-Jewish Poles were treated was worlds apart. About 90% of Polish Jews were killed (a majority of all Polish deaths during the war, despite making up only 15% of the pre-war population). Edit: The people trying to draw an equivalence between what happened to Jewish and non-Jewish Poles are largely aligned with right-wing, strongly Catholic Polish nationalists, and are not in and way fond of the Soviet era. This is mostly a post-Soviet phenomenon.
- gpjanik 4y ago
  I think we directionally agree; about the post-Soviet phenomenon - I know for fact that this phenomenon started immediately after the war and was part of consolidating power by the Soviets. The communist Poland was, in a weird way, quite nationalistic. But you are right that this phenomenon has its reneissance, or even reinforced version now as we're speaking. I don't fully understand what specifically do you mean by saying that there was no holocaust to non-Jewish Poles, but thousands of them died in concentration camps all around territories occupied by Germans and often shared identical fate to those who were of Jewish origin. If I understood you correctly, you use term "holocaust" to describe mass extermination of Jews and Jews only, and as long as you acknowledge there's been other mass killings during the war, I'm completely fine with that. e: it's not how I was taught history at school - e.g. teachers would include non-Jewish Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Romas, Sinti, and other nationalities that were sent to death camps too - I think by holocaust they basically meant death camps (regardless on who was killed in there) rather than the bigger scheme of killing all the Jews.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    > I don't fully understand what specifically do you mean by saying that there was no holocaust to non-Jewish Poles There was no systematic extermination of Catholic Poles. To be a Jew in occupied Europe was to be hunted. 90% of Jews in Poland were killed. You basically had to have a miracle to survive. There's very little in modern history like this.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago

The Germans did terrible things in Poland and had even more terrifying plans for Poland after the war, but there was no Holocaust against non-Jewish Poles. The way that Jewish and non-Jewish Poles were treated was worlds apart. About 90% of Polish Jews were killed (a majority of all Polish deaths during the war, despite making up only 15% of the pre-war population). Edit: The people trying to draw an equivalence between what happened to Jewish and non-Jewish Poles are largely aligned with right-wing, strongly Catholic Polish nationalists, and are not in and way fond of the Soviet era. This is mostly a post-Soviet phenomenon.

gpjanik 4y ago
I think we directionally agree; about the post-Soviet phenomenon - I know for fact that this phenomenon started immediately after the war and was part of consolidating power by the Soviets. The communist Poland was, in a weird way, quite nationalistic. But you are right that this phenomenon has its reneissance, or even reinforced version now as we're speaking. I don't fully understand what specifically do you mean by saying that there was no holocaust to non-Jewish Poles, but thousands of them died in concentration camps all around territories occupied by Germans and often shared identical fate to those who were of Jewish origin. If I understood you correctly, you use term "holocaust" to describe mass extermination of Jews and Jews only, and as long as you acknowledge there's been other mass killings during the war, I'm completely fine with that. e: it's not how I was taught history at school - e.g. teachers would include non-Jewish Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Romas, Sinti, and other nationalities that were sent to death camps too - I think by holocaust they basically meant death camps (regardless on who was killed in there) rather than the bigger scheme of killing all the Jews.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  > I don't fully understand what specifically do you mean by saying that there was no holocaust to non-Jewish Poles There was no systematic extermination of Catholic Poles. To be a Jew in occupied Europe was to be hunted. 90% of Jews in Poland were killed. You basically had to have a miracle to survive. There's very little in modern history like this.