Right back in Poland: Cultural Struggle continues

It all fits together: Poland's government puts it under penalty to designate the German concentration camp as Polish. Meanwhile, she looks away when neo-Nazis march.

Right back in Poland: Cultural Struggle continues
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  • Page 1 — Cultural struggle continues
  • Page 2 — look when newrights march
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    For years, Diepolnische government has been advocating to remove term "Polish death camp" from Demkollektiven memory. Now Parliament has adopted a corresponding law. It must still be signed by President Andrzej Duda so that it can enter into force. Those who call Nazi German concentration camps on Polish territory – such as Auschwitz and Majdanek – as "Polish extermination camp", have to reckon with high fines and up to three years in prison.

    The reaction to law was clear. The US expressed its irritation, Israeli prime Minister reacted indignantly: "The law is unsustainable. I reject it strictly, "said Benjamin Netanyahu. He and IsraelischeRegierung fear that law could be misused to deny that re were also poles involved in crimes against Jews during Holocaust.

    No one claims that it had been geleiteteVernichtungslager in Poland during Nazi period. Those who speak of "Polish concentration camps" rar use a shortened and MissverständlicheFormulierung. It conceals that se camps were built and operated by Germans. Therefore, it is quite right to insist that expression should not be used in this way.

    Every Poland should be remembered, WieUS President Barack Obama 2012 honored resistance fighter Jan Karski with words that he had infiltrated into a "Polish death camp" to save human lives. At that time, Polish Prime Minister NochDonald Tusk was named. He responded to Obama's statement indignantly and insisted on an apology. She followed promptly. Also ZDF apologized after term 2013 in a documentary used been.

    Everything "inspired by Germans"?

    But insisting on a correct formulation is one thing, penalties and laws are something else. To punish term "Polish death camp" as a crime is no more than a propaganda agent, a obfuscation tactic that is supposed to conceal fact that Polish government wants to limit freedom of speech and expression.

    There are nuances and small linguistic shifts that are part of a komplexerenVorgangs to manipulate unpleasant historical truths and make m conform to government. The law is a step in a cultural struggle, at end of which a new Poland is to stand: a patriotic, nationalist country that only knows a kind of historiography, only a perspective and truth. An awareness of historical guilt is not foreseen in this self-image, but only victim role.

    The IPN, Institute for National Memory in Poland, solllaut new law to assess possible violations and report to judiciary. Their vice-director MateuszSzpytma said that in or European countries too, false statements about second Weltkriegunter punishment – for example in Germany, Holocaust denial. He added that no one would be punished who was talking about proven atrocities perpetrated by Poland. Finally, it was not to be doubted, Szpytma said, that during Second World War, more cases, such as in Polish Jedwabne 1941, Mordevon Poland had been perpetrated on Jews. The Deputy Director, however, restricted sentence with an important addition: He said that in Jedwabne it had come to "German-inspired murders" and forgot to mention that Polish groups also operated anti-Semitic agitation.

    Can now, with law, only be spoken by Polish Massa Kern, if it gerücktwerden into a German context of creation? And would any racist assault – even today – be excused for being inspired by Germany?

    Date Of Update: 02 February 2018, 12:03
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