The Wall Street Journal
New York., N.Y.
Fax: (212)416-2658, E-mail: wsjcontact@cor.dowjones.com
Letters to the Editor,
Re: Christopher Rhodes, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal article: "Deutche Bank Discloses Involvement
in the Financing of Nazi Death Camp" appeared in Wall Street Journal on. Febbruary 5th, 1999.
Dear Sir, Madame,
I feel extremely insulted after having read Mr. Christopher Rhoads article "Deutche Bank Discloses Involvement
In the Financing of Nazi Death Camp". In the article, Mr. Rhoads states that the Deutche Bank helped to finance
construction of Auschwitz - "the infamous Polish camp". From my perspective, this means that my father,
as a Polish citizen who was employed at the construction of the Auschwitz extension - Birkenau was criminally responsible
for building the camp with the help of Deutche Bank.
My father, along with thousands of his fellows slave prisoners destined for extermination, worked at the construction
of the camp until exhaustion before being put to death. Only pure coincidence saved me along my mother and brother
from the same fate.
I question very much Mr. Rhoads' motives (...a historical illiteracy?) for using the term "Polish concentration
camps".
How could Poland being under extremely brutal occupation at his time, where thousands of their citizens where put
to death daily, have its own concentration camps especially on German territory? - as was the case of Auschwitz.
This kind of inaccuracy appears as a malicious slander directed at an entire nation, and it is certainly not promoting
the understanding and compassion among people, necessary to prevent the repetition of these horrible times.
Sincerely
Romuald Odulinski
Montreal, Canada
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Re: Christopher Rhodes, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal article: "Deutche Bank Discloses Involvement
in the Financing of Nazi Death Camp" appeared in Wall Street Journal on. February 5th, 1999.
Dear Editor,
In your February 5th,1999 edition, you mentioned the phrase "Polish concentration camp". It is, delicately
speaking, ambiguous if not negatively biased and contemptuous for Poland, the Polish people and Canadians and Americans
of Polish origin. Such statement is false.
During World War II Poland was under German occupation, run by the Germans. There never existed a Polish authority,
similar to, for instance, the Vichy government in France, which would have been able to run "Polish"
concentration camps. On the territory of Poland occupied by them the Germans did, indeed, set up and run a number
of concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, which were, in fact, camps of extermination.
In those camps Germans, killed the Jewish Polish citizens, Polish Christian citizens and others. I hope that
this "polish concentration camp" phrase was just the unfortunate mistake and that according to the press
law, you will correct this false statement and publish an apology as soon as possible.
Sincerely
Mr. Leszek SOLEK
St.-Lambert (Quebec-Canada)
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March 4th 1999
Ms. Dorothy Rabinowitz
Staff Writer
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
N.Y., N.Y. 10281
Dear Mr. Rabinowitz:
In regard to your writing in WSJ, I have divided feelings. On one side, I admire your fight to clear the abominable
injustice done to the Admirault family but, on the other hand, I strongly object to your anti-Polish bias demonstrated
in some of your other writing.
Some time ago you had written an article describing your visit to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
In this article you denounced Polish anti-Semitism, demonstrated by a caption under a photograph of Hungarian Jewesses
arriving at the Auschwitz Camp.
The issue was supposedly a demeaning, derogatory term of "Jewess" used by Poles who wrote this caption.
Please find enclosed an article in a recent issue of The Economist (February 27th -March 5th,) entitled, "History
Lessons", in
which the term the "Jewess" is used as a proper term for a Jewish woman.
You should realize that the world does not end in Manhattan, N.Y. and the English language was not invented there.
In the same article you have misled WSJ readers by commenting that the fee to see the documentary movie about Auschwitz
was an outrageous 15,000 Polish Zloty. You failed to inform readers that it was equivalent just to 15 or 20 cents.
I had written to the WSJ Editor at that time, as I felt, that you in your article just jumped on the bandwagon
of popular anti-Polish sentiments. In your writing you should take a critical objective look at the mutual relations
between Jews and Catholic Poles. These two ethnic groups inhabited Poland for a few hundred years, living side
by side, with tolerance unmatched in other European nations. Your linguistic slip and the comment on the "outrageous"
price of the ticket to the documentary movie were just another indication of your anti-Polish bias.
As a child, I lived in Poland during WW II and I know the horrors that took place there.
Some of my non-Jewish relatives and friends' parents perished in Auschwitz and other Death Camps. Some of my current
Polish friends lived in constant fear with "adopted" Jewish children, which was an "offense"
punishable by death to
the whole non-Jewish family and often to their neighbors. After the war, Jewish professors educated me at the university.
Today, 55 years later,
I am flabbergasted how the American media is rewriting history about these times. If you are interested in the
pursuance of truth for the sake of your legacy as a writer, you should not limit yourself to one-sided information.
I, in your place, would also talk to the older, non-Jewish Poles, who remember the war, and the immediate post-war
situation in Poland. There were very little known "developments" in relations between these Jews who
embraced Soviet communism and Catholic Poles who opposed it, which may explain the current animosities on the Polish
side.
There must be thousands of Catholic Poles living in N.Y. remembering well these difficult times, whom you could
interview before they all die.
The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences based in N.Y. could be of help locating such people. Another source could
be in WW II Polish combatant organizations.
You are welcome to talk to me as well, even if I observed these events as a teenager, not as an active participant.
Sincerely yours,
Jan Czekajewski, Ph.D.
Hilliard, OH
e-mail:janczek@aol.com