We are experiencing a period of increased interest in the issue of the extermination of Jews during the Second World War and the intensified accusation of Poles for participating in this extermination. These slanders are based on concealing the differences between the German occupation in Poland and the German occupation in other countries.

THE POLISH STATE

1. Only Poland never capitulated; never surrendered to the invaders and was fighting from the first to the last day of the war.

2. Only Poland has never formed a collaborative government, as was the case in other German-occupied countries.

3. Only in Poland there have never been any armed troops collaborating with Germany that were created in all other European countries - also those not occupied by Germany and even fighting against Germany.

4. Only in Poland the underground state was created - a phenomenon on a worldwide and historical scale.

5. The Poles alone, in spite of the occupation of their territory, set up an entirely voluntary 650,000 army - 400,000 AK and 250,000 alongside the Allies in the West; armies in other countries were recruited mainly from compulsory conscription.

GERMAN POLICY TOWARDS THE POLES

6. Only in Poland did the Germans carry out the plan to completely murder the Polish intelligentsia.

7. Only in Poland did street round-ups take place - hunting with a chase on people - and the captured were sent to slave labour or death camps.

8. Only in Poland, street executions were carried out to terrorize the population.

9. Only in Poland the Germans murdered more Poles (3 million) than Jews living in Poland (2.7 million).

10. Only in Poland, as a result of the German occupation, 22.2% of Poles lost their lives and thus Poland suffered the greatest population losses of all the countries of the world; for comparison, 0.8% of Belgians, 1.5% of French, 0.8% of Englishmen died.

11. Only in Poland did the Germans plan and to a large extent implemented the idea to wipe the capital of the country off the face of the earth.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE UNDERGROUND STATE TOWARDS THE JEWS

12. Only in Poland no institution of the Polish state took part in the extermination of the Jews.

13. Only in Poland, an institution of the underground state providing help to Jews was established - Żegota.

14. Only in Poland did the underground state prepare a report documenting German persecution of Jews.

15. Only the government of the Republic of Poland appealed to the Allies for help for the Jews in order to protect them from the extermination, which it itself could not prevent.

16. Only in occupied Poland did the Germans introduce the death penalty for every little help offered to a Jew to a helper and his whole family.

17. Only in Poland did the underground state impose the death penalty for a denunciation of the hiding Jews.

Prof. Piotr Witakowski

Tłum. K.J.