“Dr. Ann Drillich is probably the only Jewish woman in the world who owns a church – at least on paper, that is. Drillich, born in Australia to Holocaust survivors, repeatedly won a lawsuit against the church, which she launched to recover the family property. The Nazis dispossessed her family but after the war Drillich’s mother inherited the family’s estate, and then again, an individual Pole stole it from the family.”
“Polish courts ruled time after time that the land, in the city of Tarnów, near Krakow, belongs to her family; in 2016, a final decision upheld that the church took control of it in bad faith. As a result, says Drillich, the church has no legal right to the property. However, the Roman Catholic Church refuses to recognize the Jewish owner, and is waging a legal war of attrition against Drillich that has resulted in anti-Semitic attacks. The church recently recruited a particularly heavy gun: the state. The Polish Justice Ministry used the authority it gained under the right-wing ruling party’s controversial reforms to order the unusual step of reopening the case.”
“How do I feel? How would you feel if a religious institution whose teachings helped to create the fertile conditions for the Holocaust stole your mother’s land, which was her legacy after the Holocaust?”
This is what I mean when I say the Christianity was built on the expulsion and murder of the Jewish people, and continues to benefit from it to this day. They have literally been expelling, murdering, and stealing from Jews to create their empire since the fourth century, and have learnt absolutely nothing.
@antifamoshe I know we never talked but this seems right up your alley (and to prove Poland sucks)
Hey, polish person here!
i know its easy to just tell that poland sucks and it used jewis people and all.
But its not always that black and white.
Im in no way a nationalist, fuck no!
But people tend to forget about the fact that polish people actually helped jewish poles during holocaust. Many lost their lives because of that.
And yes, this entire case with a woman fighting to get her homeland back, its fucked up.
It should never happen.
And now its a problem, because jewish families, who lost their land, want to rightfully take it back. And there are poles who live on that land because thanks to war it was assumed to be no ones land. Both sides get angery, its hard to disscuss it!
And thats a very concerning problem, that you cant solve so easily by telling “HEY POLAND BAD”
But let me tell you something
Dont ever tell me that my country helped in Holocaust. Dont insult us that way.
We know there were traitors. We know that there were people who turned blind eye on that. We know we had our conlicts before.
But so many helped. So many hide them in their homes.
We didn’t want them to die. Those were people, polish people.
tur#im no historian but i know my country history
I’m terribly sorry, but you actually don’t know your country’s history at all. You have been lied to by your government, which has done everything in its power to whitewash the past and present a false narrative that erases Poland’s involvement in the Holocaust.
Let’s address a few of your points:
But people tend to forget about the fact that polish people actually helped jewish poles during holocaust. Many lost their lives because of that.
You have no doubt been taught that most Poles were heroes who helped the Jews, at great personal risk. This is a lie. There were a few Poles who did help their Jewish neighbours, but it was a very, very small fraction of the population. I always make this point as an illustration:
In 1938, Poland had a population of 34,849,000. This included a Jewish population of roughly 3,310,000. Official counts estimate that somewhere between 1.8 to 2 million non-Jewish Ethnic Poles died in the Holocaust.So if we take the entire Polish population of 34,849,000 and subtract both the number of Jews (3,310,000) and the estimated number of Ethnic Poles who perished due to the Holocaust (2,000,000), we get 29,539,000.Official statistics show that 6,532 Non-Jewish Poles have been recognised for rescuing Jews, but let’s be generous and say it was actually close to 1 million people, because these things can be difficult to quantify.1,000,000 ÷ 29,539,000 = 0.03383.38% of the Polish population helped made efforts to protect Jews in this equation.If you only factor in the officially recognised Poles who rescued Jews during the war, that lowers the figure all the way down to 0.00022, or 0.022%.Either way, we’re talking about a tiny portion of the Polish population here. That means an overwhelming majority of Poles were complicit in the murder of their Jewish neighbours.
To quote Lakav Harkov: “Half of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, about 3 million, were Polish. Over 90% of Poland’s Jewish population was slaughtered in the Holocaust. You don’t get to numbers like that without cooperation.”
As you can see, the story you were taught is actually statistically impossible. The story that Poles were heroes who helped Jews is just that: A story. The truth is far darker, and Poland is so hellbent on denying it that they’ve actually made it illegal to say within their borders.
Now, onto the next thing:
And there are poles who live on that land because thanks to war it was assumed to be no ones land.
Again, this is not true. Poles didn’t just wander into empty homes and go “Well, I guess no one lives here! War is hell, huh?” More often than not, they actually helped the Germans in capturing their own Jewish neighbours just so they could appropriate their property once they were taken away. As noted in this article:
“Polish-Jewish historian Szymon Datner estimated Polish people directly caused the murder of 200,000 Jews during the Holocaust by handing them over to Nazis, informing authorities where they were hiding, and straight up murdering them. Datner, who himself survived the Holocaust, published the study in 1970.”
Musician Leela Corman once recounted that when the Nazis invaded Poland, her grandmother’s friend pushed her to the ground and said, “Give me your sewing machine, soon you won’t need it.” That was attitude of most Poles at the time; they actively collaborated with their worst enemies just because they hated Jews that much. Of course, the worst example of this is Jedwabne, where Poles locked 340 of their Jewish neighbours in a barn, set it on fire, and then stole their property after they’d all perished.
Not only that, but Poles often attacked or even murdered Jews who survived the war and tried to reclaim their property. In Kielce, up to 42 Holocaust survivors were murdered by Poles, many of whom resented Jews for trying to reclaim their property.
Innocent people squatting in empty houses don’t kill the owners when they turn up alive. Only people who were complicit in their oppression, often to the point of turning them in, react that way.
Dont ever tell me that my country helped in Holocaust. Dont insult us that way.
I’m sorry, but it did. It absolutely, unequivocally did. Because Poles hated Jews more than they hated the Nazis. It’s not an insult to tell the truth. Most Poles were collaborators and you have been lied to.
We didn’t want them to die. Those were people, polish people.
Please, please read the accounts of Polish Holocaust survivors. They were not considered Polish by most Poles. Even before the Holocaust, many were often harassed and told to “go back to Palestine where [they] came from.” I had a relative by marriage from Gorlice who was so traumatised by Polish antisemitism that he refused to refer to his place of origin as anything but the “Austro-Hungarian Empire.” He couldn’t even say Poland, that’s how bad it was.
Moreover, even some people I’ve argued with here on Tumblr have outright said they don’t consider Polish Jews to be Polish. One person defended the Kielce pogrom, saying: “those Jews killed after war? they were suspecting they’re keeping polish children. they were scared of the next generation of our people who could recreate the country we were.” Basically insinuating that Poles killed Jews because they were worried Jews, who weren’t Polish, were interfering with the future leaders of Poland (which, of course, they weren’t to begin with). They person also yelled at me and other Jews, saying “we were the only country who wouldn’t burn your people alive…we let you develop your culture on OUR territory and we made you feel at home.” Again, outright saying that Jews weren’t Polish, just people living in Polish territory (and ignoring the fact that, as I noted above, you literally did burn us alive).
Poland was complicit in the Holocaust and you have been lied to. If you would like to learn more about the truth, theselinksarea good place to start.
I guess ive been lied to.
I sorry for my stand on that case. I will try to find out more about it.
I will apologise for my opinion as it was based on a opinion i was taught from the very begining of my life.
I got caught in emotions and i think thats what most of people of my country do when a discussion about history appears.
I dont want to excuse myself with misinformation, i should have made a bigger attempt at learning my country history from a diffrent angle.
I am dearly sorry for anyone who was hurt by my response to the post.
Your apology is deeply appreciated, thank you so much for listening!
The largest nonprofit hospital system in Memphis, Tenn., is erasing the debts owed by more than 6,500 patients it sued for unpaid hospital bills. Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare had come under fire for its practice of aggressively pursuing medical debt from poor patients, in a city where nearly 1 in 4 residents lives below the poverty line. The move to forgive outstanding bills comes amid an overhaul of its debt collection processes announced in late July.
The dramatic shift was prompted by an investigation from nonprofit news organizations MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and ProPublica that revealed that Methodist filed more than 8,300 debt lawsuits from 2014 through 2018, including against its own employees. Methodist had doggedly pursued low-income defendants who had little ability to pay, often garnishing their meager paychecks.
The single-page “case satisfied” notices filed by Methodist are coming into the Shelby County General Sessions Court faster than staff can process them. A court administrator estimated a backlog of about 4,500 Methodist notices are waiting to be entered into the court’s system.
From July 30 through Tuesday, the court had logged more than 2,300 notices submitted by the hospital system that wiped away patients’ debts. That’s more than nine times the number of notices filed by Methodist in the first six months of 2019.
For now, it appears that Methodist is no longer using the courts as a collection agency, a practice that was roundly criticized by health care experts, some elected officials and members of the United Methodist Church, with which the hospital is affiliated. Since July 3, Methodist has not filed any new debt collection lawsuits or garnishment attempts.
Methodist’s turnaround elated defendants and consumer advocates.
Among the defendants who no longer owe is Carrie Barrett, a part-time Kroger employee featured in one of the MLK50-ProPublica articles. Barrett’s case began in July 2007, when a two-night stay at Methodist Bonheur Healthcare, where doctors performed a heart catheterization, left her with a $12,019 bill. In 2010, Methodist sued her for more than $16,000, one-third of which was attorney’s fees.
Over the years, thanks to interest and court costs, Barrett’s debt climbed to more than $33,000. If she had paid $100 per month as ordered by the court, she would have been 90 by the time she paid it off.
Photo: Andrea Morales for MLK50 Caption: Carrie Barrett, a former defendant in a suit brought by Methodist Hospital, testifies during service at Apostolic Fellowship Church in Memphis, Tenn., on Sept. 15. Her debt to the hospital was cleared following an MLK50 and ProPublica investigation into the debt collection practices.
This article was produced in partnership with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
This you can even make with a cereal box, pop bottles, a craft or box cutter knife, and some duct tape. For those who are trying to beat the heat and don’t have an AC unit, or are trying to save money on their electricity bill.
To make your own, please follow the following steps for a window strip:
Materials: Cardboard (i used a cereal box), Duct tape (in the colour of your choice), pop bottles or water bottles (just the tops as you can see how they were cut), some cutting device to cut cardboard and/or tape, and a marker, or marking device of your choice that will mark onto cardboard
Step 1) Cut off your pop or water off at the widest point so it makes kind of a funnel shape
Step 2) you can make these bigger, but I made mine into a strip. Cut the cardboard into how big you want your panel or strip. Trace the base of your cap and mark the centre of where the lid goes with an X (thats where the opening will go. In the picture, I made mine just a bit wider than the pop bottle tops
Step 3) Cut the X where you marked it, and make it so it’s cut big enough to push the smallest part of your bottle through the X
Step 4) Secure all the spout parts with Duct tape (in the colour of your choice. Mine’s purple.) You do not have to do step 4, but it is advised so the pop bottle tops dont pop out of the openings you made.
Step 5) Place your strip or panel with the biggest part facing the screen or opening of your window, and have the smallest part facing the inside of the building.
The science: as the air blows into the wider part of the pop bottle cone, it compresses the air and cools it down as it goes through the smaller part, hence cooling the air around you without having to use any electricity to make this work.
“In 1984, when Ruth Coker Burks was 25 and a young mother living in Arkansas, she would often visit a hospital to care for a friend with cancer.
During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.
On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.
In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, “Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”
Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a “sinner” and already dead to her, and that she wouldn’t even claim his body when he died.
“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, “Oh, momma. I knew you’d come”, and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, “I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.
Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him
and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.
After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family’s large plot.
After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.
Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, “They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here’d come the money. That’s how we’d buy medicine, that’s how we’d pay rent. If it hadn’t been for the drag queens, I don’t know what we would have done”, Ruth said.
Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family’s plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.
For this, Ruth has been nicknamed the ‘Cemetery Angel’.”— by Ra-Ey Saley
She’s 60 now, she’s still doing activist and advocacy work, and working on a memoir.
