Radio Sputnik has discussed this issue with the author of the book Our People, Dr Efraim Zuroff, a Holocaust historian, chief Nazi-hunter, and the director of the Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
Sputnik: What is your take on the idea to build a memorial dedicated only to Polish victims of Nazi troops?
Dr Efraim Zuroff: Well, to be quite honest, I am frankly quite surprised by this initiative. It is very problematic from any way you look at it, and it might be because of some political interests, but it is not clear to me exactly why this is being done.
Sputnik: Why, in your view, did this idea emerge? Is there a need for a separate memorial?
There were other people singled out and, if I am not mistaken, there is a monument for the Roma and, perhaps, also for homosexuals. Having said that, far more Poles were murdered than either one of these two groups, gipsies or homosexuals.
So there might be some basis for it, but those Poles were murdered, in essence, for the same reasons that Russians were murdered, for example, and other peoples of Eastern Europe. So this is a bit problematic.
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Sputnik: How would this memorial be different from a similar memorial to the victims of the Holocaust?
Dr Efraim Zuroff: First of all, the story is different. In other words, the Nazis murdered approximately 3 million non-Jewish Poles, but there was never any attempt to wipe the Polish people off the face of the Earth, as there was with what they call the "Final Solution", the plan to totally annihilate World Jewry.
Dr Efraim Zuroff: I think with great scepticism.
Sputnik: Do you think Israeli authorities would issue some response?
Dr Efraim Zuroff: Hard to say. Listen, our government is not excelled in responding to these historical issues all over, which relate to the Holocaust, and there are many examples I could quote.
But as we have seen, in the case of Poland, for example, in the wake of the Polish law regarding the Holocaust, which would criminalise any mention of the involvement of the Polish state in Holocaust crimes, the government's response was very lacking because they basically gave into the Polish demands to create some sort of false reality in which Polish efforts to save Jews were equivalent to the participation of Poles in the murder of Jews, which was certainly not the case, just to cite one example.
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Sputnik: Do you think that the public in Germany knows enough about Germany's role in the Second World War?
Dr Efraim Zuroff: Listen, I think Germany has done an enormous amount to educate the public and to create strong democratic institutions. Having said that, I am certain that certainly, the new arrivals in Germany have no clue what happened in the Holocaust, but I don't know if you are asking about them or about the regular German population.
Sputnik: The regular German population, yes.
Dr Efraim Zuroff: I think many of them, listen… Not every person is knowledgeable, but certainly, a serious effort has been made and I would say that certainly, a majority of the German populace have some understanding of what happened in World War II, to which I would say an accurate understanding of what happened in World War II.
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Sputnik: There has been a rise in hate crimes in Germany in recent years, particularly since the refugee crisis erupted in Europe. Are you concerned by this?
Dr Efraim Zuroff: I am very concerned by it, and for good reason. There is no question that the rise in anti-Semitic vandalism and anti-Semitic incidents are a direct result of this influx of people from North Africa and the Middle East.
People who come from countries with deep anti-Semitism and almost no knowledge of the history of Jews, and certainly not of the Holocaust, and they have been fed on all sorts of lies, including Holocaust denial. That is one of the reasons, by the way, why we think that the trials that have been held in Germany of Nazi war criminals are extremely important.
Views and opinions, expressed in the article are those of Dr Efraim Zuroff and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik