Between 1945 and 1987, the Holocaust was a topic that had very little public discussion within Poland. People knew it happened, and thought about it in private, however, publicly the Holocaust was not talked about anymore. In 1987, Jan Blonski published an article titled, “The Poor Pole Looks at the Ghetto” which looked at Poland’s relationship to the Holocaust. This article brought back the conversation about the Holocaust to the public attention. Blonski’s article was very effective at laying out a case for whether or not Poland should feel some responsibility and whether or not Poles did enough to help the Jews, however the argument lacks empathy, and is too broad. The issue also arises that words like “perpetrator”, “victim” and “bystanders” …show more content…
It could be implied that in Blonski’s model of the Holocaust that there really aren’t any bystanders, and that you’re either a victim or perpetrator. Getting rid of the bystander label puts people in potentially outrageous positions where either you committed the crime or you are a victim of it, both effects obviously being not good. Another implication is softer and less harsh than the first one. You can now get scenarios where people can be in multiple categories. So for example, people like those in “Canada” group in Tadeusz Borowski’s story “This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” can now potentially be both victims (as they were undesirables) and perpetrators (since they were effectively stealing from prisoners). In “Canada” however, the group wasn’t necessarily doing it out of their free will, they were of course whipped into doing it. The group also did it, because being a prisoner was far worse than being a worker, at least in their minds, and if they didn’t they would be killed sooner. This scenario doesn’t necessarily mean the second interpretation was somehow invalid, it just creates a scenario where “victim”, “bystander” and “perpetrator” are all either stripped of their meaning and watered-down, or they become