From: Jan Mokrzycki (jan-mokrzycki@lineone.net)
Date: Fri Apr 12 2002 - 08:01:59 PDT
----- Original Message ----- From: Jan Mokrzycki To: timewitness@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 2:13 PM Subject: Loss of life in Poland in WW II Dear Lisa, you asked for figures of loss of life in Poland during World War II. Professor A. Bullock in his book "Hitler and Stalin" estimates these as: Total loss of life 6123 000 people which was 17.2% of the population, of these 123 000 were military personell, the rest civilians. Of the civilians approximately half were Polish citizen of Jewish faith and the rest obviously Christians. Unlike the western countries, in pre war Poland most Jews were orthodox and easily distinguishable from their other compatriots in apperance, many of them also spoke little Polish, using Yiddish as their everyday language. This meant that they were unfortunately easily picked out by the occupying Germans. Moreover, the penalty for hiding a Jew was instant death at the hands of the Gestapo or SS, for the whole family of the person who gave the refuge. Poland was the only country in Europe where this draconian punishment was applied, yet inspite of it many Jews were hidden, and more Poles are honoured in Israel for doing the hiding than any other nation. It is not known how many Christian Poles lost their lives for doing the hiding. As the title of Prof. Bullock's book shows, Poland was invaded by and Poles murdered by both Germans and the Soviets. War brings out the best and the worst in human beings. There were a few Polish Christian and other scum who gave away their Jewish neighbours to the Germans, just as there were a few Polish Jewish and other scum who gave away some of their neighbours to the Soviet NKWD (their equivalent of Gestapo). The Home Army (Polish resistance movement) where possible brought these awful traitors to secret trial and punished them by execution. I hope this answers your question fully. Magdalena Mokrzycka. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/orkH0C/n97DAA/ySSFAA/r1FolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: timewitnesses-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/