Polish Holocaust denial and the weaponization of history

Worldly

Vox Media Podcast Network

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Yochi, Jenn, and Zack talk about a controversial new law in Poland that makes it illegal to accuse the "Polish nation" of being complicit in the Holocaust, a change that has infuriated the US, Israel, and Jewish communities around the world. The anger comes from a simple fact: Poland suffered when it was occupied by the Nazis during World War II, but some Poles actively took part in the mass slaughter of their country's Jewish population, and the new law tries to erase that history. On Elsewhere, they look at how President Trump's call for a giant military parade through the streets of Washington DC is running into opposition from the military, the population of Washington, and pretty much every Republican senator that's been asked about it. Yochi remembers a profoundly unpleasant trip to Poland, Jenn busts out an elaborate elephant metaphor, and Zack mourns the end of his 20s. Referenced Workshttps://www.amazon.com/Neighbors-Destruction-Jewish-Community-Jedwabne/dp/0142002402http://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=540926https://www.amazon.com/Small-Town-Near-Auschwitz-Holocaust/dp/0199679258http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/07/trump-military-parade-ralph-peters-says-french-march-americans-fighthttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/06/polish-president-to-sign-holocaust-bill-despite-international-concerns/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-marching-orders-to-the-pentagon-plan-a-grand-military-parade/2018/02/06/9e19ca88-0b55-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/world/europe/poland-holocaust-law.html Further Readinghttps://www.vox.com/2017/5/24/15675606/bryan-stevenson-confederacy-monuments-slavery-ezra-kleinhttps://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/16/16151252/confederate-statues-white-supremacistshttps://www.vox.com/videos/2017/10/25/16545362/southern-socialites-civil-war-historyhttps://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/16/16152088/nazi-swastikas-germany-charlottesville Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Worldly, Vox's Weekly Guide to the most important stories in the world,
0:12.1	part of the Vox Media
0:13.0	Podcast Network. So Polish laws aren't the kind of thing we normally talk about,
0:17.3	but this week is different because Poland just passed a vaguely Orwellian law that
0:22.1	makes it illegal to accuse the Polish nation of
0:24.9	complicity in the Holocaust or any other horrific thing the Nazis did. The problem
0:29.4	of course is that some Polish people were very complicit in the mass murders of the Holocaust
0:34.3	at death camps like Auschwitz which were themselves located in Poland.
0:38.2	So, Zach, is this Holocaust denialism in some weird different form?
0:42.1	Is this weaponizing history.
0:44.0	What is this?
0:45.0	All of the above.
0:46.0	I mean it's important to understand that Poland had a complicated relationship with its Jews prior to World War II.
0:54.8	So it was initially, in fact, way back in the 13th century, one of the most tolerant places for
0:58.9	Jews were welcomed in as a way of improving the local economy by at the time the Duke of Poland in an
1:06.6	official decree and they were given special rights. As time went on, anti-Semitism
1:10.5	became more and more prevalent in Poland to the point where when the Nazis came in a lot of polls
1:17.7	Generally agreed with their view of Jews and while many polls resisted in fact some of the largest numbers of people of any nationality
1:25.0	who are recorded as helping Jews during the Holocaust known as the righteous, there were
1:30.4	lots and lots of collaborators too, and they often ran towns or local councils so
1:35.9	saying that you can't talk about the Polish nation as being complicit with
1:39.8	the Holocaust really is a form of Holocaust denial. It's denial about the reality of what
	...

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