Posts Tagged ‘warsaw district’

On the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the world once again failed to recognize the Polish victims of the Nazi concentration camps. Instead, frequent remarks about “Polish concentration camps” once again reminded us of the extent of distortions and bias against the Polish cause in World War II that appears to be ever present in the English speaking world.  Accordingly, some remarks on the legacy of Auschwitz are in order.

Created pursuant to the 1933 decree on the protection of the German State, the first concentration camps were built in Pre-war Germany.  After the September 1939 invasion of Poland, most of the new concentration camps were built on the conquered Polish territory for the explicit purposes of exterminating undesirable population.  In addition to the well-known Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, at least seven other hub-like concentration camps were built in Poland, each one with a wide network of sub-camps.  Thus, the Germans set up Treblinka Concentration Camp for the Warsaw district, Majdanek Concentration Camp in central Poland for the Zamość region targeted for Arian colonization, and the Stutthof Concentration Camp with over forty auxiliary camps in northern Poland “to serve the needs of the Polish population in Pomerania,” as the German documents phrased it. (more…)

Slowly, but surely a new face of Slavic Village is born. All you have to do is look around. So many restored buildings, with the best example being the Polish American Cultural Center. It is so nice to look at it without shame, and hear someone say: “Unbelievable, such a nice place in the Warsaw district?” However, more beautiful does not necessarily mean safer, but …that will change too, just as the surroundings have changed. Not long ago an acquaintance told me that he is buying a house. His answer to the typical question “where?” was, “You will laugh, but in the Warsaw district.” Maybe this sounds strange, but “He’s not stupid – I thought – he has no children, the prices are lower here than anywhere else, taxes too, and the place is becoming more attractive, and everything is so close.” One can say that there are only positives here.

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