Polish bishop accuses Jews of using Holocaust as propaganda

[cali]

By Reuters
Tags: Israel news, Poland


A leading Polish Catholic bishop caused a stir on Monday when he was quoted as saying that Jews had "expropriated" the Holocaust as a "propaganda weapon".

The comments by Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, a former head of the Polish bishops' conference, prompted concern among Jewish leaders in both Poland and Italy after they were published on the conservative Italian Catholic website www.pontifex.roma.

Pieronek later went on Polish television to say his comments had been manipulated and he denied one phrase in which he was quoted as saying "the Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention".

He also said that he did not "authorise" the publication of the interview, which was still on the website on Monday evening.

"It is undeniable that the greatest number of dead in concentration camps were Jews but there are also Polish gypsies, Italians and Catholics on the list," he was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday some countries will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

<snip>

"It is not right to expropriate that tragedy for propaganda," Pieronek was quoted as saying, adding that memorial days should be held for the "victims of communism, for Catholics, for persecuted Christians and so on."

He continued: "But they, the Jews, enjoy good press because they have powerful financial means behind them, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States and this favors a certain arrogance that I find unbearable."

Pieronek, asked if the Holocaust had been exploited, said: "Certainly it has. It is used as a propaganda weapon to get advantages that are often unjustified."

<snip>

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145017.html

[KharmaTrain]

1. As My Grandmother Said...

She lived her first 18 years in a small town outside Warsaw...a Jewish ghetto that was constantly plundered by Russian Cossacks and her Polish "neighbors"...her line was "anti-semetism is pass along in their mother's milk". Looks like things haven't changed.

[howard112211]

2. It's a bigoted statement.

It's like saying "black people have crime in their genes"

[KharmaTrain]

3. Old World Mentality

It's all bigotted...I rejected what my grandmother said, but this points to the long held anti-semetism that still exists in Poland and every so often comes to the surface. As one who lost family in the Holocoust, I find it very offensive that someone is using this issue for political gain and gives fodder to the deniers.

[cali]

4. well it certainly points to the bigotry of the bishop. n/t

[KharmaTrain]

7. The Catholic Church Has Blood On Its Hands...

When the Nazis rolled into Polish towns, the first place they made a bee-line for was the local church who would point out the Jews and where they lived. Several years ago the church began regular prayer vigils at Consentration camps trying to "save souls" by converting them...ya know them Jews aren't worthy of going to "heaven" otherwise. And then there's their involvement in helping Nazi war criminals escape justice...but nuff said.

[howard112211]

8. True. Moreover, the christian churches have been one of the main sources of anti-semitism

throughout the ages.

[howard112211]

6. I must correct myself. I don't think it is bigoted for someone who was in the ghetto to say that.

[whistler162]

5. Some truth in the statement but a lot of B***C*** also

We, as a world, do tend to forget the other victims of the Holocaust and of the genocide that occurred in the USSR under Lenin and Stalin or the murder of the Chinese under the Japanese. But, the guy is has the same bigoted views of too many regarding why we seem to focus on the number of Jews murdered.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. At least he isn't shy about his anti-Semitism.

Others play coy with it.

[proteus_lives]

10. Why has this been unrecced?

That's mind-boggling.

[bullwinkle428]

11. Don't tell me this guy is the next nominee for sainthood!

:puke: