July 8, 2010, - 2:27 pm
1939 All Over Again: Poland Sends Jew to Germany in Dubai HAMAS Case
It’s trite but true. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And so it goes with the Poles, who are now turning over an Israeli Jew to Germany, because he’s allegedly remotely involved in the January assassination of HAMAS terrorist and Iran arms dealer Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh a/k/a Abu Abed. The Muslim population of Poland, as small as it is, is growing . . . like it is everywhere else. And the Poles are now on the side of the New Nazis.
Some Things Never Change: Islamic Terrorist with Israeli Hostages, Munich, Germany 1972:
Polish with Israeli Hostage They’re Turning Over to Germany as Sop to Islamic Terrorists, Warsaw, Poland, 2010:
Some things never change, despite the fact that Poland makes billions of dollars off Jewish and Israeli tourism and has shamelessly built quite an industry off the Holocaust it helped perpetrate. Yet another reason to add to why my Polish Holocaust survivor grandfather, Isaac, didn’t want us to ever spend a penny in Poland (and I never will).
As many readers know, I am of 100% Polish Jewish descent. Both sides of my family are from what was known as Galicia, a region consisting mostly of Poland, where many Jews–like some of my family–were poor farmers. But none of them ever identified as Poles. That’s because anti-Semitism in Poland was always rampant, and my grandparents and great-grandparents were never treated as fellow Poles . . . because they were Jewish. Most of both sides of my family were wiped out by the Nazis because they were happily turned in by their eager Jew-hating Polish neighbors. There’s a reason “Deutschfolk”–Poles of German descent–were so welcome and comfortable in Poland and helped usher in the Nazi era.
Yes, there were some good people–righteous gentiles–who risked their lives to try to save some members of my family and other Jews from the Nazis. But they were the rare ones. Most were all too happy to turn my family and others in, simply because they hated Jews. When my grandfather, Isaac, returned home, one day, to find the house empty after the Nazis hauled his parents and siblings to the death camps, he fled to neighbors who owed his parents money.
My great-grandfather was mayor of the town and owned a hardware store. He was generous and extended poor Polish farmer neighbors extensive credit on tools and other items. So, when my grandfather sought refuge, he chose one of the many to whom his father had been generous, and was hidden in their barn and grain silos. On his second night there, he was thirsty and when it was dark out, he went to the house to ask for water. Before he opened the door, he heard the neighbors who were hiding him say that the Nazis were giving out bottles of whiskey for each Jew turned in. They wanted the whiskey and planned to turn my grandfather in for a bottle. My grandfather fled and, fortunately, he ultimately survived the Holocaust and several concentration camp “stays.”
But now the Poles are repeating their old ways. A Polish court, yesterday, approved extraditing Uri Brodsky to Germany, just like my grandparents were “extradited” to Bergen Belsen (concentration camp), Germany. Brodsky is suspected of helping obtain a fake German passport used in the Abu Abed Dubai assassination. It’s interesting to note that while Germany willingly and happily released Hezbollah terrorist and murderer Mohammad Ali Hamadi (who torture-murdered Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem) to freedom (a story I broke on this site), they seek an Israeli who is wanted in connection with his passport, which may remotely be connected to the Abu Abed assassination. Yup, Germany frees terrorist mastermind murderers, and they seek Israelis who freed the world from one of them. Who needs the Munich Massacre, when you have 2010?
The bottom line, though, is that Poland–if it had a conscience–would not do to Uri Brodsky what it did to the Jews in the late ’30s and early ’40s and turn him in to the Germans. But, yet again, Poland shows us that it merits its Rodney Dangerfield “no respect” status. It has no guts as a country. Israel asked Poland not to extradite Brodsky, and Poland ignored Israel’s requests.
And while it’s immoral to turn over Israelis to a German kangaroo court for the “crime” of helping rid the world of a mass murderer, it’s also economically stupid. Like I said, Poland makes billions off of Jewish tourism and commerce from its faux-shtetl biz. It not only makes mucho direct Holocash from tours of Auschwitz and annual Jewish “March of the Living” events there, but it has reconstructed some of the storefronts of the Jewish towns it destroyed (because they were Jewish), to entice Israeli and other Jewish tourists to spend money on cafes, restaurants, and trinkets of a Jewish community that once was, but was totally destroyed with Polish cooperation.
Israel did the world a service by removing Abu Abed from this earth. That Poland would now participate in the absurd German and world outrage over this shows me the country is no different than it was decades ago when my grandfather’s life was the Polish exchange rate for a bottle of whiskey.
Any Jew–or Christian who is against Islamic terrorism–with any self-respect should say no to Polish tourism. Uri Brodsky saw where that takes you: right back to the same old Germany.
I won’t be saying Dzien dobry (Hello) or Jak sie masz (How do you do), anytime soon. And neither should you.
Do widzenia, Poland. Buh-bye.
Tags: Abu Abed, Dubai, Galicia, Germany, Hamas, Holocaust, Israel, Jews, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, Mossad, Nazis, passport, Poland, Poles, Polish Jews, tourism, Uri Brodsky
Thanks for sharing this difficult family story.
Mary Lou Welz on July 8, 2010 at 2:58 pm