Memory

In 1941, Nazi Germany suddenly turned against its erstwhile Soviet Communist ally. This provided an opportunity for the Poles, deported in the wake of the 1939 Nazi-Communist conquest of Poland, to be freed. This work details the many difficulties and obstructions placed, upon the freed Poles, to assemble and to leave the Soviet Union. >>more...

Shraga Bielawski grew up in Wegrow, which is located well north of Warsaw. At Wegrow, 75% of the businesses were owned by Jews before WWII. (p. 3). Interestingly, for all the bad rap Jews got for usury, Bielawski's father did not charge interest on his loans, and was well liked by Poles. (p. 5). The family was very wealthy. During the Great Depression, Bielawski converted most of his assets into gold, worth a then-considerable $4,000. (p. 14). >>more...

My review is based on the original (1961) edition. Kitty Hart was a Polish Jew who had lived in Bielsko (Bielitz) in then SW Poland. During the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland, she observed German fifth column activity. Germans shot at Poles from rooftops, rioted in the streets, etc. (p. 14). In common with countless eyewitnesses, Hart reported Luftwaffe planes strafing columns of defenseless refugees. (p. 15). >>more...

Halina Zawadzka described her pre-WWII life as one in which her parents were atheists, hostile to religion, including Judaism. (p.122). She never observed any of the Jewish holidays. (p. 108) >>more...

The 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War was commemorated in Gdańsk, where German battleship Schlezwig-Holstein on a “goodwill visit” on September 1, 1939 at 4.45 a.m. fired the first shots of the war with its 16 inch guns aiming at Polish military base on the peninsula of Westerplatte in the free city of Gdansk. On September 1, 2009 European heads of governments gathered on Westerplatte, to commemorate and honor the anniversary of WWII. >>more...

The story of Rafal Gan-Ganowicz, a Polish anti-communist fighter who fought the communists in many countries during the Cold War and helped prevent genocide in places like the Congo.
>>more...

25. Hungary, the Crime within a Crime The destruction of Hungarian Jewry is one of the most tragic chapters in the Holocaust. When the Germans finally occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944, the leaders of the Jewish community knew what to expect from the Nazis, as Hungary had been a refuge for thousands of Polish and Slovakian Jews, and they had been warned by the Bratislava working group that Wisliceny had promised that Hungary’s 700,000 Jews would eventually be deported. >>more...

Who lies? Across of our spectrum; presidents, senators representatives of every   branch of government, employees, of municipal, or other institutions, parents, children, grand-parents, wife’s, husbands, cardinals…  other religious leaders WE LIE MORE THAN WE THINK. Without exaggeration everybody and anybody, and some times we are not aware of it.  We can distinguish and have so many different kind of lies, some so called “honest mistakes”, but this politically correct expression is only an euphemism to cloud and justify some legal, moral, or societal psychological repercussions and consequences.
It’s difficult to classify our  so caled "honest mistakes" according to certain keys. But for the  >>more...

"What we have to fear is fear itself". "Do not fear". Two famous expressions from two famous persons, of totally different backgrounds. But they spell out the essence and sometimes the ultimate cause of our everyday action, and constant human conduct interacting with others. We should be not afraid of a fear as an ultimate sentiment to self-preservation. Fear as on emotion is integral part of our personality for self conduct of our very existence. In view of that and because of it, fear is an essential part of our personal behavior manifesting interdependence on the personal, social, governmental levels. >>more...