Holocaust Indoctrination Via Intense Americanization Reynolds

Postcards from Auschwitz – Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance, by Daniel P. Reynolds. 2018

Beyond Holocaust Preeminence: The Holocaust Now a Top All-American Institution. Jewish and Polish Ways Fundamentally Incompatible. Canned Polonophobic Memes

Most of this book repeats old information. I focus on some issues that are especially relevant at the time this book was published (2018):

VICTIMHOOD COMPETITION CONTINUES

Author Reynolds candidly writes, “The variety among Holocaust memorial sites also raises the very politically charged issue of whom to include among its victims, since the persecution of other groups, such as the Roma people or the mentally and physically disabled, were no less abhorrent than the murder of Jews.” (p. 15).

THE HOLOCAUST HAS ACQUIRED A PRIVILEGED POSITION ALONGSIDE THE MOST VENERABLE ALL-AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS IN WASHINGTON, D. C.

The Holocaust now enjoys a status far beyond simply the King of the Genocides and the Americanization of the Holocaust (a European event). With reference to the USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) in the U. S. Capital, Washington, D. C., Reynolds comments, “There is no denying that the USHMM is firmly embedded in Washington’s tourist industry, which otherwise focuses on America’s founding beliefs, institutions, people, and the events that have shaped the canon of American history. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is one of Washington’s most heavily visited attractions, with nearly two million visitors annually, outnumbering many of the Smithsonian museums on the Mall and making it as popular with tourists as the National Zoo.” (p. 207).

FRENCH PRESIDENT CHARLES DEGAULLE CRITICIZED THE JEWS, AND THEN THE FIREWORKS BEGAN

Author Reynolds writes, “De Gaulle characterized Israel and the Jewish people as ‘domineering’ at a press conference in November 1967, causing an international outcry (Jewish Telegraphic Agency 1967).” (p. 278). Imagine an international outcry whenever Poles are criticized!

NOT JUST COMPETING NARRATIVES: JEWISH WAYS AND POLISH WAYS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY INCOMPATIBLE

Daniel P. Reynolds comments, “The narratives of rebirth that pervade the tourist landscape in Warsaw, reinforced by Polish Catholicism and the Christian narrative of resurrection and redemption, are poor frameworks for facing the destruction of Jewish life.” (p. 140).

ANOTHER SWIPE AT POLAND’S “HEROIC NARRATIVE”, AND BLAMING POLAND FOR THE OTHERIZATION OF THE JEW

Author Reynolds knocks the PiS Government, and then adds, “The current rhetoric of Polish national resistance to subjugation has not yet found a way to adequately acknowledge the fact that Jewish culture was as much part of Poland’s history as Slavic Christianity was.” (p. 130).

This flies in the face of basic historical facts. Jewish culture was part of Poland’s history all right, but only in the sense of a separate organism living within the organism of Poland. Until fairly recent times, and then only partly, Jews generally emphasized their separatism and particularism, and, with few exceptions, did not identify with Poland. So, for seven centuries, Jews had been IN Poland but not OF Poland.

The attitudes of the Jews can be contrasted with those of the Armenians and Muslims (Tatars) that also arrived in Poland many centuries ago. They promptly identified with Poland and became part of her fabric, despite commonly retaining their respective religious and cultural differences from ethnic Poles.

OLD POLONOPHOBIC MEMES YET AGAIN

This book repeats some canned Polonophobic accusations, such as the one about Poles failing to organize “sufficient aid” to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. (p. 117). To make matters even more superficial, Reynolds does not bother to support his accusations by informing the reader how much aid would have been “sufficient”, and who is supposed to be the arbiter of this “sufficiency”.

But wait, it gets even better. Reynolds comments, “Some in Poland still see Holocaust memorialization as an effort to impugn their country as a perpetrator nation, in opposition to the preferred nationalist narrative of Poland as a victim of Nazi aggression and Soviet perfidy. The present resurgence of nationalist politics in Poland (and increasingly throughout the West) leaves little space for the kind of ambiguity that acknowledges the complicity of some Poles in Judeocide while acknowledging the resistance of others.” (p. 90).

So Reynolds faults Poles for pointing out the obvious fact that they are being impugned as a perpetrator nation. In doing so, Reynolds HIMSELF impugns the Poles–with his totally vague insinuations about “Polish complicity”. The irony is delicious! And how is “Polish complicity in the Holocaust”, whatever that is intended to mean, supposed to overturn the much more important facts of Nazi aggression and Soviet perfidy (not to mention Polonocide)?