Protest of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka
From Wikisource
| Protest of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka by , translated by Wikisource |
| This is a historical text from the times of the WWII and the Holocaust. |
[edit] PROTEST
In the Warsaw Ghetto, behind walls separating it from the outside world, several hundred thousand condemned are awaiting death. There is no hope for any rescue, no help comes. Streets are patrolled by executioners who fire at anyone who dares to leave his house. They also fire at anyone standing by the windows. On the pavements rot unburied human corpses.
Daily shipments as ordered by the authorities are set at 8-10 thousand victims. Jewish policemen are ordered to deliver them into the hands of the German executioners. If they fail, they will be killed. Children unable to walk by themselves are loaded on wagons. The loading process is so cruel that only a small number of them reaches the railway platform alive. Mothers witnessing this go mad. The number of those insane from despair and horror equals the number of those shot down.
There are railcars waiting at the platform. The executioners are forcibly packing over 150 captives in each one. Thick layers of lime and chlorine are put on the floor of railcars and splashed with water. The doors of the railcar are securely bolted. Trains sometimes start immediately after the load; sometimes, however, they wait one or two days on the side rails... No one cares. Of the people packed so densely that the dead cannot fall down and are standing arm to arm with the living, of the people dying of the lime and chlorine gases, without air, a drop of water, without food - no one will survive. These death-trains, whenever and wherever they arrive will bring only dead bodies.
Confronted with such suffering, quick death would be preferable. The executioners have foreseen this. All pharmacies in the ghetto have been closed to prevent the purchase of poison. There are no guns. The only solution is to jump out of a window onto the street. Thus many convicts have chosen to "escape" their executioners.
What happens in the Warsaw Ghetto, has been happening for half a year in hundreds of smaller or larger Polish towns and cities. The total number of the murdered has already exceeded one million and the number grows each day. All perish. Poor and rich, old, women, men, youngsters, infants, Catholics dying with the name of Jesus and Mary together with Jews. Their only guilt is that they were born Jewish condemned to extermination by Hitler.
The world looks on at these atrocities, more horrible than anything history has seen, and is silent. The slaughter of millions of people continues in ominous silence. The executioners are silent; they do not boast about their deeds. England is silent, so is America; even international Jewry is silent, usually so sensitive to any harm done to their people. Silent are the Poles. The Polish political allies of the Jews limit themselves to journalistic notes; the Polish opponents of Jews show no interest in a matter that is foreign to them. Dying Jews are surrounded only by Pilates washing their hands. Silence should not be tolerated any more. If for no other reason — it is contemptible. Who is silent in the face of murder - becomes a partner of the murderer. Who does not condemn - approves.
We, Catholic Poles, take a stance. Our feelings toward the Jews have not changed. We do not stop thinking about them as the political, economic and ideological enemies of Poland. Moreover we do realize that they still hate us more than the Germans, that they make us co-responsible for their misfortune. Why? On what basis? This remains the secret of the Jewish soul. Nevertheless, this is a fact that is continuously confirmed. Awareness of those feelings, doesn't relieve us from the duty to condemn the crime.
We do not want to be Pilates. We have no power to actively prevent German murders, we cannot help, we cannot save anyone, but we protest from the bottom of our hearts overwhelmed with mercy, fury and horror. We are required by God to protest, God who forbids us to kill. Our Christian consciousness demands this. Every human being has the right to be loved by his fellow man. The blood of the defenceless cries to heaven for revenge. Those who oppose our protest - are not Catholics.
Being Polish, we also protest. We do not believe that Poland can benefit from German cruelties. On the contrary. The continuing silence of international Jewry, the German propaganda that tries, even now, to place the blame for the slaughter of the Jews on Lithuanians and... Poles, we sense a plot of the enemy against us. We also know how poisoned is the fruit of the crime. The role of forced observer in the bloody spectacle taking place on Polish soil might promote indifference to pain and suffering and what is the most important, conviction that to murder your neighbour without any punishment is permisssible.
Those who do not understand this and would associate the proud and free future of Poland with contentment in the grief of his fellow man, is neither a Catholic nor a Pole.
Front of National Rebirth of Poland
