Re: [timewitnesses] Poland in World War II

From: Pamela (pamelalazarus@prodigy.net)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 22:12:10 PDT


Dear Lisa,   I don't know how many Christian Poles were killed or lost - nor how many Polish
Gypsies - or homosexuals - or priests - or Polish soldiers killed  - but at least  3,000,000  Polish
non-combatant citizens, were murdered by the Nazis, often with the help of their Polish neighbors -
because they went to synagogue and prayed to the same God that Jesus worshipped - Yahwah/Jehovah.
They were Polish Jews.  They had been Polish citizens for several hundred years.

 And remember - people could not simply leave their country - The WHOLE WORLD  was at war.    Every
country - every -city - every  town - every village -  every person.    The best that could be done
to escape was hide in the woods for awhile.    Or hide in an attic somewhere and hope you would not
be turned in to the authorities by the people who knew you were there or found during the Nazi
searches for hidden people.

This went on for over six years.   More than half your life, Lisa, so far.   Imagine - it ruled
every minute of every day for over half your life.    It determined IF you could eat,  what you
could eat,  when and where and if you could sleep;  whether you had food, heat, a roof, a coat,
water to wash in.    It determined whether your mother or father or grandparents actually would come
home again, if they went out looking for bread to buy.   They might be shot by accident or on
purpose or hit by a building falling down, or killed by a bomb landing at their feet.  No one knew
if they would be alive tomorrow.  And if they woke up and found themselves alive - then they must
again try to find some food - to buy it, trade jewels (a diamond ring might  buy a loaf of bread)
or furniture for it, or steal it, and chance being shot as you ran away.   Children were often the
best thieves because they could run away faster than the adults and so they sometimes became the
source of food for the whole family.

It was a time when the story of Stone Soup was told.

In order to feed her hungry family, a woman told her children to go out and find some perfect, round
and beautiful stones.  They did.  They washed them, scrubbed them clean, and put them into a pot of
boiling water, with a little salt.  Their mother told them to go play while the Stone Soup cooked.
They ran out to tell their friends that mother was making a wonderful Stone Soup and when it was
done, they would eat it and be full up.    Those children went home to tell their parents that there
was going to be a wonderful Stone Soup across the street - and could they go for some?    The mother
in one house said yes, and here, take this one potato to put in the pot.  The mother in the next
house said yes, you can go, but here, take these two carrots to put in the pot.  In another house
the mother gave her son half a cabbage to put into the pot of Stone Soup.  One family offered a bone
with a little meat on it to go into the pot.    A neighbor heard of the soup cooking and wanted to
have a plate, so offered the one precious tomato he had managed to save - it, too was added to the
soup. Someone on the street had half a cup of beans, and donated them to the Stone Soup.

Finally, the soup was done.  All the neighbors and children gathered around with their plates, and
everyone agreed that this was the best Stone Soup they had ever tasted.






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