Numar Patru wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2024 12:57 am
Ok, I’m beginning to see some of the problem — some confusion on both my part and yours. Here’s you above:
500,000 Jews offered Soviet Citizenship in 1940 following the German / Soviet partition of Poland, with "almost all" being transported to the Soviet interior - source American Jewish Yearbook, issue 43, via Mattogno
That 500,000, per what you posted from Mattogno, is the number of Jews from other parts of Poland who arrived in the Kresy. I think at this point we’re in agreement.
The problem is that you assume that all or almost all of these Jews were subsequently deported. But that’s not true, nor does Mattogno say so. He says “almost all” of those who refused a Soviet passport were deported. What we don’t know is what percentage rejected the passport.
One thing we know for certain is how many deportees there were from the Kresy between 1939 and 1941. There were 64,000 plus 13,600 arrested and detained. This was the only major deportation that specifically targeted Jews. (See p. 190 in “Victims 1939-1941: The Soviet Repressions in Eastern Poland” by G. Hryciuk)
So that number isn’t as big as you’re saying, or at least it’s refuted by much more recent research — Hryciuk’s study is from 2007.
Your turn.
Edit: There were other deportations during the period that included Jews but did not target them specifically. I’m uncertain of the numbers so I’ve asked Otto Pohl for clarification.
Edit 2: He got back to me
It seems you've misinterpreted the argument. I'll take the responsibility for the argument not being as crystal clear as it possibly could, so i will restate it so you should have no possible way to continue to misinterpret it. That also means however, that any further misinterpretation I'll go with my better judgement that you are being strategically ideologically dishonest for obvious reasons. I'll also ask if there's any Revisionist here who has any trouble with Mattogno's logic or my presentation of it, or whether this is just your misunderstanding.
On to the argument.
The problem is that you assume that all or almost all of these Jews were subsequently deported. But that’s not true, nor does Mattogno say so.
You've completely missed the very next sentence as per Mattogno - to repeat it: "But Germany refused categorically to let these Jews return". So yes, they were refused re-entry into the Reich and subsequently sent somewhere, just "where" is what we need to try map out.
So we have 500,000 Jews caught in the German / Soviet fissure who were offered Soviet citizenship. Lets call this number J0.
Of J0, a minority accept Soviet citizenship, perhaps for ideological reasons, ie they were pro-Bolshevik. Lets call this minority J1, who were subsequently sent directly to the Russian interior, and by all accounts, never seen again. This is also one of the numbers I challenged you to find, as I will refer to again later as i flesh out my point, so please keep this challenge in mind. Its difficult, right? I posited that these were Gulaged, and lived out the remainder of their days under great misery, but that's just my opinion.
The remainder, the majority, is J2, who refused Soviet citizenship, and thusly remained in German Occupied territory, and can be called Western Jews, ie non-Soviet citizens, so thankfully it will be easier to witness their re-emergence post-war. I also don't have the full number here, but I've read "most" and "almost all". It might be 90% of the 500,000.
In either case, lets recap our accounting so far:
J1 < J2, somewhere in the ratio of 1:10 as an educated guess.
J1 = Soviet citizen, deported almost immediately never seen again.
J2 = Non-soviet, and still present in the German occupied territories.
What Mattogno posits for us, is that
some significant part of J2 will be seen emerging again post war. In June 1945 the World Jewish Congress puts the number of living and readily accountable Polish Jews in 1945 at 475,000 - 525,000 so we know we are onto something here. These Jews became accounted for relatively quickly in the 2 months post war, so either likely were accounted for in-place ie in Former German Territory, or after a short transit, maybe the border regions of the SU. To what degree this figure overlaps with J0, we also don't know, but some overlap is likely.
Over the next year, we see a further 140,000 returning
from deeper Soviet Territories. This is 1 year post war, so enough time has passed for larger migrations to begin to have happened. To what extent this 140,000 is already accounted for in the 475,000 - 525,000 is also unknown, however given these were returning from Soviet Territories as Non-Soviet citizens, and with the challenge I've laid out to you earlier in mind, you'll appreciate just how difficult it is to account for Jews behind the Iron Curtain, as these were returning from the behind the Iron Curtain and certainly
not fully accounted for by the WJC prior to their re-emergence, as the WJC likely would not have had access to Soviet census data or other records (you've already conceded this point in a previous thread that the Yearbook likely would have difficulty in getting an accurate headcount, i haven't forgotten).
Furthermore, as Mattogno correctly notes, these re-emerging Jews are far more likely to be J2 Jews than J1 Jews, as J1 Jews were Soviet Citizens, and their emigration was forbidden (and they were probably dead by now).
Additionally, we can infer a couple of things from these large movements of Jews post war. We can infer that if 140,000 returned to Poland, there must have been an origin population there, of at least 140,001 but probably much more which call this unknown origin population J3.
J3 is overwhelmingly likely to have spent the post war years, ie from '45 to '50 emigrating to an abundance of countries from the Soviet Union. We know that many Jews migrated to places like USA, Israel, back into mainland Europe etc. Poland also likely wasn't top of their destination list, for obvious reasons, so quite alot of other J3 Jews are likely to have ventured to other destinations.
So now back to the original point you made which I had such an issue with.
Your claim is that Polish Jews were resettled in the east. There is no evidence for that theory.
A significant Jewish population emerging alive, post war, is indeed evidence for that theory. To go one step further, of all the Jews who remained in German occupied territory we can map their continued existence in great numbers to post war populations to quite an extent, something that cannot be said for those Jews subsumed into the Gulag network. The ultimate irony of ironies being, Jews under Soviet sovereignty seem to have fared much much
much worse than their German co-ethnics, to the degree I have challenged you to even account for their deaths, let alone their survival.
Your turn
I've now repeated Mattogno's reasoning twice, explained it in ways that hopefully you will understand. As I said above, if you continue to misinterpret or dismiss good faith sources, I will from that point onwards only infer strategic & ideological reasons for your continued refusal to engage with the argument.
