The TRUTH about POLES and JEWS during WW2! 

ADVICE for JEWS coming to POLAND: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Vse50j4b-KM.htmlsi=_8KygfqsHcYNf_uI

I talked ones with an older Jewish woman from Poland (Jewish father, Polish Catholic mother). She as a child survived the Warsaw ghetto. I was curious about her point of view. She was very measured in her stories, she told me "I saw all kind of situations: Jews betraying other Jews, Poles betraying Jews, Jews betraying Poles. Everyone tried to survive this inhuman situation and everyone was hungry." She survived thanks to the Catholic nuns who produced birth certificate and baptism certificate for her and hid her in their orphanage. Her father died in the ghetto and her mother went insane and was locked in a mental institution after the war.

Thank you Michael, for trying to present the facts. My father was in Poland during WW2 and I asked him about this question. He told me that the Poles themselves were severely and cruelly treated by the Nazis and everyone was terrified of them. Everyone was classified according to their ethnic origins. First came the Germans from Germany, next the Germans who had settled in Poland, thirdly the indigenous Poles and fourthly, the Jews, Gypsies. People were given food rations on the basis of this classification. He himself was thrown out of college and forced to work as a slave labourer on a German owned farm. I respect you for your sincerity.

I am Polish, was born in Germany and raised in Canada. My mother worked in a Jewish bakery and my father in a Jewish scrap yard. Jewish influences are deeply intertwined in my upbringing. Some additional facts about Poland in 1939: there were between 750,000 - 1M ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), about 3.2-3.5 M ethnic Ukrainians and about 1M Belarussians in Poland. When the Germans and Russians invaded in 1939 many of the ethnic Germans, Ukrainian and Belarussians supported the Germans. Was anti-Semitism passed on to me? - NO. Some Jews in Toronto were confrontational, mean and against me and stated that anti-Semitism is passed on in Poles in their mother's milk. I am living proof that this is untrue. My parents closest friends were Jewish and I remember Yiddish being spoken in the bakery. For Easter, in the Catholic grade school I went to, I brought in maca (matza) to the school when the teacher asked everyone to bring in something unique as to how we celebrate Easter. Excellent videos.

It's important to underline that Poland was one of the few countries that never had a collaboration government after being conquered by the nazis. Polish lands at that time were official an autonomous region of Germany. Polish people were not collaborating and not part of the administration during holocaust. Saying that Poland is responsible for holocaust committed by Germany is a bit like saying that Israel is responsible for Armenian holocaust committed by Turkey.

From Irena Sendler ❤: „To save one Jewish child, ten Poles and two Jews had to risk death. To betray that same child and the family that hid him required only one informer or, worse still, one blackmailer. The risk of being caught by the SS was not prison, but death- death for the entire family.”

Poland was occupied by Germans, not "mythical" nazis. Germans were bad guys and Poles were victims. These 3 mlns Jewish were Polish citizens before war. Thanks for going for truth.

one must also take into account how many Poles died while trying to help. In my family, at that time, with the help of a Jewish family, in a certain small village, I will not go into details. My family almost all died. Only the grandmother, who was 10 years old at the time, miraculously survived, she pretended to be dead in a pile of bodies that was in a pit to be buried. She tried not to move all day long, covered with the bodies of Poles and Jews who were dying in agony, if they were still breathing. She managed to escape at night and miraculously survived the war. She died in the 1990s, she always had nightmares and talked in her sleep, all her life, even while sleeping she relived this nightmare.

Absolut truth. My grandparents couldn't do anything because if they got caught the whole family would be massacred by the Nazis. They did hide 3 Jewish people in a dirt basement for a whole year - fed them, etc.. I am a Polish American who came to the US in 1966 & all I heard from my parents when I was growing up is about the war & the atrocities. Polish people they didn't have a choice or they would be dead themselves. Thank you for acknowledging this. My mothers best friend Nissenbaum managed to escape to NYC from Raczki , Suwalki, Podlasie , Poland. Thank you for this.

1:03 Hi, Michael, Situation was a little more complicated: about 15% of population were Ukrainians, 3% were Belarussians, even 2% were Germans. Poles were about 68% population of Second Poland Republic (1918-1939). I think probably for Jewish people all no Jewish people were Polish, but as you see situation was different. There were big differencies for example between Poles and Ukrainians, who cooperated with Germans (SS Galizien) because they thought Germans let them establish a country (Ukraine).

Michael, zapomniałeś dodać, że za pomoc niemcom był wydawany (i wykonywany) wyrok śmierci (przez AK). Zapomniałeś również dodać o udziale Żydów w donoszeni na innych Żydów, co tłumaczone jest obecnie jako walka o zachowanie własnego życia, ale to tłumaczenie działa tylko jeżeli donosicielem był Żyd...

MOST of the Jewish people in the pre-war period in Poland were not asymilated ones, which means majority of them didn't even speak Polish, they kept together in their local closed communities of Central and Eastern Poland. Even if you would decide to save some Jewish person, it was extremely difficult to hide and save somebody in Poland during WW2 if that person didn't "look Polish" or didn't speak Polish. For example, you could manage to obtain some fake documents with a new authenticity (Polish Christian name, etc) - but it couldn't end up well, as any policeman could just ask the person to show him his ID and once he'd open his mouth... For that reason, absolute majority of survivors were the asymilated Jews - those, who could speak fluent Polish, had Polish friends and looked Polish (bright eyes and hair colour were extremely helpful)

honestly i find it a little bit disturbing that there are people using the word betrayal and pondering over numbers whether or not enough Polish people went out of their way to save Jews, where in fact they couldn't even save themselves. We were riding on the same boat in those dark times. is there any data how many Jewish people went out of their way to save Polish people?

Polish people were not negative towards Jews at all and they are positive towards Jews now. My mom is alive only because of Polish people who saved her mom - a German Jew during Holocaust. No testimony of them because they can’t be found.

Thank you for contributing to the elimination of misunderstandings about WWII Jewish history in Poland. It should be added that Poles, as a ‘subhuman race’ in Nazi ideology were treated extremely cruelly themselves. Sometimes entire villages would be eliminated if someone saved Jews.

In sociology the rule of 10 percent says that if the percentage of a minority is 10% or over, then there will be massive friction because the 10% has enough strength in numbers to challenge the majority. They become rivals. Jews comprised at least 33% in most cities and had economic power greater than that. Most Jews in Poland didn’t even speak Polish. Given all that, I have always wondered not why there was so much animosity,but rather why wasn’t there more. Look at Northern Ireland,the Huguenot of France. The religious wars of Germany and Austria

My great grandfather sheltered two Jewish teenagers in Poland during WW2. He did not receive recognition for it. The vast majority of Polish people did nothing out of fear of capital punishment. I highly highly recommend going to the WW2 museum in Gdansk to get some perspective, although naturally incomplete/inconclusive, on the Jewish-Polish relations during the war.

Nice video, unfortunately Grabowski was cought ona many manipulations (if You want i can bring you soruces of Historians who analize his wokrs). Even if Polish "betray" that his neighbour is hidding Jews, quite possible he was saving his family (death penalty was set on thous who ware EVEN SUPECTED of knowing that somebody is helping Jews and not report it, its typical prisoner problem in game theory). Maybe you don't know but , penalties for helping Jews at the beggining wasnt so strict, its becouse of common help of Polish to Jews, Germans had to introduced dead penalties etc. Important think is , that many people think abot occupation of Poland as the same as fore example France. ITS COMPLERLY WRONG. Polish people due General Plan Ost was set to extermination but in longer term, to make Lebensraum for Germans. At the beginning Germans murdered all intellignece, proffesors, teachers, doctors, priests to destroy polish culture, than start to destroy Polish. Of cours Jews was thieir priority but Polish ware "undermenshen" too

Hi Michael, about those 32 mils of Poles: "According to historian Norman Davies the Polish census of 1931 listed the nationalities by language as Polish, 69% of the population, Ukrainian, 15%, Jews 8.5%, Belarusian, 4.70%, German, 2.2%, Russian 0.25%, Lithuanian, 0.25%, Czech 0.09%". So the Poland before the WWII was quite multiethnical country, and so for sure that's changing your calculations a little bit. For sure there was quite much antisemitism before WWII in Poland but in contrario there was the biggest diaspora of Jews in the European continent located in Poland in some reason. Even after 123 years of atrocities made by occupants, after erasing Poland from map in 1795. This is just a suggestion but the Jews didn't massively leave the Poland in those times to settle in the Western Europe for some reason. The war is the another chapter. What happen after the war during the communist rule is also a different story also connected with pogroms and subsequent forcing of people of Jewish origin to leave the country. I such myself remember how the tone of voice was in public and have to admit when as a child in kindergarten or even the primary school in breaking 80s and 90s, me and my classmates have used the phrase "Don't be such a Jew" when someone don't want to share their snacks. It was functioning as an idiom describing a person as someone greedy and I think I was the result of the communist propaganda... but I don't exclude it could have longer history. I think that nowadays such expressions are happily slowly disappearing from the language. Kind regards and good luck in Poland and on building up your YT channel!

My great grandparents adopted a Jewish baby girl as their own. After the war the remaining family was contacted and given back to them. They took the girl with them to Switzerland when they left. At least that's the story I was told and I'm proud they did this. I was told that the situation in Poland was just not great for anybody, a lot of catholic poles (like my family) left because the environment itself was negative. My great grandmother stopped eating meat because the smell of cooked meat reminded her of the smell coming from concentration camps.

While I am all for further research on the Jewish-Polish history, in particular the Holocaust history, I feel that your respect for Jan Grabowski is somewhat misplaced. And that is not only because in recent years he was proven several times to be wrong or misguiding his readers on many points. When presented with this criticism Mr Grabowski usually attributes this to persecution of his "righteous" beliefs and statements. However when faced with an actual trial in a court of law, he just could not prove that his statements were correct (as there were several families with the same name living in the region and he could not point the correct one), and was found guilty of defaming the family of Poles for alleged persecution of Jews. Second instance court overturned this decision (because it felt that it was not the courts decision to interfere in historical debates). Mr Grabowski has several times voiced his protests against events or organizations aimed at honoring those Poles who helped Jews: the monument on Plac Grzybowski or the Ulma-family Museum were, according to him ,a part of presenting a "state-sponsored version of history" - just as if there were no Poles who helped Jews. In fact I vaguely remember him saying something about that those sites should be dedicated to Jewish suffering, not Polish help. I have read "Dalej jest Noc" book (part of which was written by him and the court proceeding were in relation to this publication) and frankly I was appalled by lack of detailed explanation on what the life was like in GG under German occupation (or eastern Poland under Soviet and later German occupation). If fact the book is full of statements and phrases that simply are not correct. Not once is the German order from 31 October 1939 mentioned, that threatened a death penalty for simply calling or solicitation others to oppose and not carry out orders of German administration, police or military personnel. The fact that in Hans Frank issued in April 1941 another order making non-German workers of post office, Forrest service and even the Volunteer Fire Fighters service a part of German police as "technical auxiliary service members" is not mentioned in this book as well. From 1941 on refusing any order could have resulted in death penalty (or concentration camp sentence) and not only for a Poles that did refuse, but for their immediate family as well. Instead this book is full of talk about "polish-german administration" or "polish police" and it's supposed "cooperation with German officials or gendarmes". Even the use of "powiat" as an administrative unit presents a false picture - there were no powiats in GG, because they were abolished and replaced with Kreis or Kreishauptmannschaft. The difference is that first gives the impression that those were the same administration units of pre-war Polish state and run by the same people, the other clearly states who created the new administration on conquered territory and who run it. The same goes for Polnishe Polizei (Policja Granatowa / Blue Police) - it should be stated that it was not voluntary service or a continuation of pre-war Polish Police, but purely German creation whose officers were forced to join under penalty of death even (and less than one third of pre-war officers joined, BTW). Germans use pre-war Polish Police uniforms out of practicality - all insignia of Polish state were removed from those uniforms and Polnische Polizei was a part of German Police forces, and placed under direct supervision of German officials (even on Kreis level). Many of those men were imprisoned or killed by the Germans for sabotage, warning Jews and working with Polish underground. Some are among Righteous Among the Nations. And yes, some were cooperating with Germans (in exchange for additional numeration for their betrayal). Many of the last group were tried and executed by Polish Underground State. Which had about 3000 death sentences on collaborators passed. In comparison French Resistance had about 30 collaborators executed, even from French Vichy Police or Government (which had in total about four times as many members and gave up more than 200000 Jews, mind). Now, I have read the explanation by some of the authors of this book, that it is a scientific work meant for historians only, so there was no need to state the obvious. Honestly I can not decide if those people are just so detached from reality or just plain ignorant. The subject is potentially problematic. We live in XXI century and any information can be made available to general public extremely easy. The publication has over 800 pages in each of it's two volumes. Authors really could not add another 20 pages and explain what exactly they meant when "stating the obvious"?!? I will explain further with an example: My grandfather was accused in 1948 by a Communist Party member of collaboration with Germans, namely beating a field-hand, when he was working as manager of a large farm. There was a trial and even though the fact that the field-hand was beaten severely was established and confirmed, my grandfather was set free. Why? He "worked for the Germans and beat Poles", right? Because 49 people including the beaten man, testified that he helped as he could, has hidden food to better feed "his" workers, and during the event in question the German "owner" of the farm was reaching for his weapon, and would probably kill the farm-hand. You see pre-war my grandfather was an economy / manager on a large farm owned by Polish aristocrat. Germans took over the farm and left him and his workers working on it, expecting regular transports of food and livestock. Refusal to work meant instant imprisonment or even death. The beaten man failed to notice one of the workhorses was being sick and the animal went lame. In German eyes it was sabotage, pure and simple. So the beating my grandfather administered certainly saved the worker from worse fate. My family still has the letter signed by all those people telling that communist to stop assigning blame where there was none and "keep his nose out of decent people lives". To sum up my point: thank you for seeing the larger picture. I feel however that Mr Grabowski is more interested in attributing blame than wholly explaining what and why really happened during WWII in occupied Poland.

I've seen some Jewish people argue from incredulity: that they cannot imagine how so many Jews could be killed here without near-total complicity of every living Pole. It's good to see a more grounded perspective.

Żyd poczciwy ojczyznę jako Polak kochał. - Pisał Pan Mickiewicz.

It also important mentioning the fact that the Polish underground army-Armia Krajowa opposed giving up Jews to the Germans. Any polish person caught doing such a thing was sentenced to death.

200000 responsible for murder J? Grabowski made up this number. Mr Jakub Kumoch proved that Grabowski statement was basing on Szymon Datner's calculations. But Datner never mentioned that amounts

Interesting but to explain to people who say Poland didn’t do enough even though they fought until the very end, armed the Jews with weapons, never formed a collaborative government and didn’t create any Polish legions of the SS do you think that if Israel had a 15% Polish minority and the USA with all its military might invaded Israel to wipe out this minority and instituted death punishment for an Israeli helping a Pole the Israelis would help them meaning it meant their own death? Probably not. There wasn’t a brotherhood between poles and Jews, the Jews were invited to Poland by our king but never learned the language, assimilated, converted, married into Polish families they just lived in the background for hundreds of years peacefully. A 5 year period doesn’t change the fact that Jews enjoyed 700 years of prosperity in Poland prior with special privileges. If a Jew converted to Catholicism he would automatically become part of the Szlachta (nobility) with a right to vote for the king, meanwhile a Polish person not born into nobility could never become a noble. Just one example of the many privileges given to Jews in Poland not were not given to natives. Jews also primarily lived in cities, only a small minority of them worked in agriculture or labour roles, meaning they lived off what the natives built benefitting and not contributing.

Witam Pana. Mądrzy ludzie szukają dialogu a widzę, że jest Pan jednym z nich. Cieszę się, że szuka Pan faktów i nie daje się daje ponieść emocjom. Polscy Żydzi tworzyli wspaniałą literaturę a muzeum Polin jest niesamowite. Spotkałem na Malcie starszego pana z Izraela, który opowiadał mi o swoim dzieciństwie we Lwowie. Bardzo miły i życzliwy człowiek. Rozmawialiśmy po rosyjsku, co było bardzo ciekawym doświadczeniem. Pozdrawiam Pana serdecznie i cieszę się, że przebija się pan przez tłum krzykaczy atysemitów i antypolaków z mądrym, wyważonym przekazem :) PS. Myślę, że nie będzie łatwe szukanie obiektywnych źródeł, ale ufam Pana dobrej intencji i intuicji, której wynikiem będzie odnalezienie/przybliżenie prawdy o naszych narodach.

As a Pole I am grateful for what you are doing through this channel. One remark though. Mentioning Jan Grabowski's work on the matter of Poles involved in holocaust crimes against the Jews to my knowledge is not credible (at least not in Poland). Sure his work is easy accessible (He is a Professor at Ottava University) but there are problems with Him pointing the historical Sources. These numbers he suggests might as well be out of fantasy. Don't get me wrong there sure was a lot of crime committed by Poles on Jews during the war but many of his claims are subjected to criticism not whithout a reason. BTW You really read comments that's also great.

You have put a stick in an anthill - the defenders of Poland's good name have already spoken up, for now gently and without insults. To supplement or emphasize, because it didn't sound clear enough in the film - Poland was a unique place in Europe, because only in Poland the Germans introduced a LAW that helping Jews was punishable by the death of the helper and his family. A French or Dutch person helping Jews did not face such severe consequences. Therefore, the most common reaction to seeing a Jew in occupied Poland was to pretend not to see him, because taking him home could result in the death of the entire family, including the Jew. Moreover, in every society, (the Polish one is no exception) there are bastards who have no scruples about taking advantage of someone else's misfortune, or even at the expense of someone else's life - blackmailing Jews or Polish families helping them, extorting money or gold in exchange for false promises of help, or denunciating a Jew in exchange for a bag of sugar or a bundle of sausages at the gendarmerie station. It was a kind of business, but only possible thanks to the law introduced by the Germans in occupied Poland. The German perfidy was, that the Germans organized the killing of people on a mass scale in Poland, not in Germany. Moreover, there was no official killing, everything happened within the SS, with which only German institutions and German industry cooperated, deriving material benefits from the work of prisoners who had not yet been killed or died of exhaustion.

Hi Michael, I like your content so allow me to point out some stuff to make it more accurrate: - the title mentions "poles and jews" which strenghtens the inaccurate image as if those were separate. The 3 000 000 jews as you mentioned were polish citizens of jewish origin, not some separate people. - when you talked about numbers of people that helped jews, you forgot to add that the whole underground government worked towards helping jews and created an official organisation for this purpose (google: żegota) while also executing own citizens as exposing jews was treated as treson. Showing the numbers in the way you did creates the false impression that "barely anyone" helped the jews while actually, the whole government was involved, so it was more about "quality" rather than "quantity".

Grabowski has used so many manipulations in his book that's hard to consider him a historian. There is a research where one can see extracts from his book and the actual historical sources. For example Grabowski removed parts of sentences without marking it to put a blame on Poles. I dare to think that if a history student did something like he did, they would be refused a degree. I also read Polish historians were racking their brains where he actually took the figures from. Besides, he makes a living blackening Poles abroad. A few years ago I used to give all my students an assignment about family history. I found out that on average 3 students out of 30 (a typical class) mentioned saving Jews by their family during WWII. Many stories were truly terrifing. One student wrote about her great-grandfather starved by Germans to death and eaten by rats because he tried to save a Jew. These war stories bring tears to my eyes.

Making peace among each other is the most important thing, after all the horrifying things, which where done or are still going on... It takes courage to really look into the facts and to admit them and it takes courage to understand. Thank you very much for your work!

They proved to Grabowski that he lied about these 200,000 Poles. But he refused to apologize. If a Pole took part in harming Jews, I have no problem for apologizing. But at the same time, I would expect an apology from the Jews who harmed Poles. You will find bad people in every nation, so neither Poles nor Jews are an exception. However, returning to Grabowski, I am disgusted by such liars. He tried and still tries to accuse Poles of the crimes of the Germans. So I have no respect for him.

Lets ask Jewish how many Palestinians they will save from Gaza? They now have its own 'ghetto uprising ' in the Gaza, place not bigger then Warsaw, not?

I remember a rebbe saying,if it were the other way round,no jew would've helped a Polish catholic. 🤷‍♂️

The data is inaccurate. About 20 million Poles lived in Poland before the war, the rest were national minorities Referring to Grabowski is a very bad decision due to the fact that he has repeatedly been proven to falsify the sources he refers to, and the number of 200oooo given by him is not based on anything. The fact of the behavior of the Jewish minority under Soviet occupation during the first almost 2 years of the war and the resulting retaliation from the civilian side after the change of occupier are also omitted.

"The fact that you feel that you can pass judgement on people who are just trying to stay alive..." Exactly. We are too comfortably remote from that kind of existential horror tp have any opinion.

Thank you for the voice of reason in this interpretation. However, there is another issue that is difficult to talk about, and that is access to important context. What percentage of Jews participated (directly or indirectly) in the murder of Jews?

Żydzi byli bardzo skupieni na ocalenie siebie, stawiali Polaków w bardzo trudnej sytuacji, gdyż Żydzi wiedzieli że Polakom za pomoc Żydom groziła śmierć lub w najlepszym wysyłka do obozu koncentracyjnego mam bardzo wielkie wątpliwości czy w odwrotnej sytuacji Żydzi zachowaliby się jak Polacy , wątpię - nie, wskażcie mi żyda który uratował Polskie życie, raczej odwrotnie chociażby tereny Polski wschodniej po 17.09.1939 , po wkroczeniu sowietów

Thats only during the war. What about how the polish people allowed jews to take refuge in poland in the first place when Western Europe shunned them. How many did they save by doing that in the first place?

Very factual, and I appreciate avoiding unrealistic virtue signaling like "if I had lived back then I would have done x." As Rubenfeld hints at, the Poles themselves were being oppressed and enslaved. The Nazis wanted to exterminate most of them as well, albeit not as quickly or systematically as Jews. The first mass killings under the Germans in 1939/40 were actually of non-Jewish Poles, although eventually the Nazis shifted their psychopathic priorities to focus on wiping out the Jews primarily. Thank you for this insightful and balanced commentary!

I think that we did not stand out from other European in any good way. There were more Jews in Poland than elsewere, so more people helped and more people betrayed... The only difference might be, I assume, that in Poland so many people were religious Jew who did not have really Polish friends and did not even speak Polish well. They lived in their owned districts or towns and there was anybody non-Jewish to help them actually when Nazis came.

Good points Michael, what I would like to add - Poles not only wanted to survive, they were fighting for their freedom and independence (which Poland regained after the long time of partition - so that was the main focus and base for anything else). Thanks for all of your work!

za mało się mówi o obywatelach polskich żydowskiego pochodzenia, którzy walczyli jako żołnierze Wojska Polskiego przeciwko Niemcom - ok. 100 tys?

My great great grandfather, who was a village head during war at lands incorporated to Reich was arrested around 1944 by Germans - even though german soldiers were living in my now grandma's house since the beginning of war (they were peaceful to avoid being sent to frontline). For what? He didn't want to tell them which people from village were Jews. Luckily he survived, but I guess it must have been a horror both for him and his daughter (my great gradma, who I was lucky to meet, as she died only 5,5 years ago when I was 15), because not only her father was arrested, also her mother died around that time because of lung cancer. I was lucky that I had a chance to talk to her and listen her war stories, as she even sometimes cried when she was talking about this events. Our grandparents, great grandparents and so on were so unlucky to live at that times, but many of them survived and also rescued many Jews, so it's heartbreaking hearing from Israel politicians, that we were oppressors like Germans. We were victims, we were slaughtered and moreover after war, we fell under Soviet tyranny for more than 40 years. I'm thankful to the author for telling the truth.

Please look at Ewa Kurek books.

An excellent analysis. Where the myth of the Polish being cruel to Jews is something I never understood. The Pole was seen as a subhuman by the Nazi and hoping to survive too.

Yitzhak Shamir’s 1989 comment that “Poles imbibe anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk” As a Pole That Comment he made still bothers me till today . Thank you Michael for this video

Most non-Jewish citizens of Poland were put in a such a danger by Germans, that they just wanted to survive. You could be killed by doing basically anything. That explains the indifference to the Shoah. What could they do? Helping being expossed to such a danger is in the realm of sainthood for me. Those involved in helping Jews aren’t just good guys. They are saints.

If you think you would be a hero in the face of great danger, think again. Appreciate your video. God bless.

Z zainteresowaniem obejrzałem kilka Pana filmików i uważam, że jeszcze daleka droga przed Panem w odkrywaniu skomplikowanych relacji polsko-żydowskich, zwłaszcza gdy ma się za idoli i autorytety takich złotoustych tuzów historii jak Grabowski. Ale może kiedyś sam Pan do tego dojdzie. Powodzenia

Many Jews who left Poland and hated it were communists before the war. They were imprisoned for communism during the inter-war period. After the war, they took revenge on Poles by murdering them in UB torture chambers. They hated Poland and nation states because they dreamed of world socialism. Later they left Poland, especially after 1968. And they repeated their hateful lies. It is no secret that Jews were overrepresented in the Polish security services after the war. They were not liked for this. In Poland, the term "zydokomuna" was even coined. History is not as black and white as the West wants it to be. Another thing is that in 1939, of these 32 million, Poles constituted only 68%. Secondly, before the war, Jews themselves lived in ghettos, they created them themselves to live separately. Often they didn't even know Polish. They dressed differently. How were we supposed to help them? People who don't know Polish can't blend in with the Polish crowd. After III, there is also the case of Jews who collaborated both with the Russians (those I mentioned earlier) and those who collaborated with the Germans (e.g. Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst). So the truth about Jews and Poles during the war is extremely complicated and cannot be described in one RU-vid video. PS Grabowski in Poland is not disliked for anything, but because his research is not objective.

Antisemitism in Poland was different from other parts of Europe, due to various historical reasons and the fact that Poland had the largest Jewish minority in Europe. This was evident in the 1930s when antisemitism grew and extremely anti-Semitic parties gained significant support throughout Europe; in Poland, such parties were OUTLAWED.

You forgot to mention that Poland was attacked by two aggressors, Germany and Soviets. In first month of WWII Poland was split between them. Majority Jews went to Soviets, either by living in that part or running away from Germans. In Soviet occupation many jews collaborated with authorities and denounced Poles who worked for polish government. Former police officers, postal and local government workers was frequently executed on spot by NKWD (precursor of KGB). On territories occupatied by Germany new law forbidden any help toward Jews under punishment by death.

I really appreciate your level-headed analysis of the situation. Thank you.

Prawda jest taka że jeżeli żydzi by żyli w każdym innym kraju i który by się znalazł w sytuacji jak Polska to by byli dzisiaj tylko historią.

Thank you for this clip and for all your effort to stay objective and critical. A huge chunk of Polish-Jewish affairs is hidden due to the post-WWII left wing decline. For example the history of Betar and non socialist-related Jewish resistance movement (ŻZW). Very much is still to be discovered as the 3rd part of the Ringelblum's Archive is missing (burried somewhere in the current Chinese Embassy area in Warsaw).

In 1936, the Polish government (camp of National Unity) passed anti-Jewish laws aimed at forcing Jews to emigrate. Riots occurred from 1935-97 in western Poland killing 79 Jews and escalated in the years before WW2. Most Jews in prewar Poland had supported the former Piłsudski government due to its message of Polish-Jewish unity. So, there was rampant anti-semitism across Polish areas during the war. Many Poles saw Jews as hostile competitors and did not want Jewish neighborhoods close to theirs. Some Jewish areas were looted and seized by Poles once they were cleared by Nazis. At the same time, there were more Polish people recorded helping Jews than any other nationality due to the vast Jewish population in Poland.

After the war Jewish people didn't want to go back to Poland, too dangerous, the Poles were angry about Jewish collaboration with the Soviets, whether they were justified or not I have no idea. As to before the war this is what Wikipedia says under Second Polish Republic/Status of ethnic minorities/Jews "From the 1920s, the Polish government excluded Jews from receiving government bank loans, public sector employment, and obtaining business licenses. From the 1930s, measures were taken against Jewish shops, Jewish export firms, Shechita as well as limitations being placed on Jewish admission to the medical and legal professions, Jews in business associations and the enrollment of Jews into universities. The political movement National Democracy (Endecja, from the abbreviation "ND") often organised anti-Jewish business boycotts. Following the death of Marshal Józef Pilsudski in 1935, the Endecja intensified their efforts, which triggered violence in extreme cases in smaller towns across the country. In 1937, the National Democracy movement passed resolutions that "its main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland". The government in response organised the Camp of National Unity (OZON), which in 1938 took control of the Polish Sejm and subsequently drafted anti-Semitic legislation similar to the Anti-Jewish laws in Germany, Hungary, and Romania. OZON advocated mass emigration of Jews from Poland, numerus clausus (see also Ghetto benches), and other limitations on Jewish rights. According to William W. Hagen, by 1939, prior to the war, Polish Jews were threatened with conditions similar to those in Nazi Germany."

Cześć Michał. Poruszony przez Ciebie temat jest bardzo ważny i może w końcu Żydzi w tym i Ty moglibyście odejść od kłamstw i fałszowania historii. Mój pradziadek uratował we Lwowie 4 osobowa rodzine żydowską i nigdy, nie zgłosił tego po wojnie, ponieważ po prostu wielu ludzi uważało że to był ich obowiązek, tak często postępują katolicy. Dodatkowo gdy wojna się skończyła, mój pradziadek trafił jak setki tysięcy ludzi do więzienia i był katowany przez komunistów, wśród których było bardzo wielu Żydów, którzy nawet przez Rosjan byli traktowani jako wyjątkowo brutalni ludzie, vide Józef Golberg vel Józef Różański ( możesz sprawdzić w Wikipedii). Takich ludzi po wojnie w Polsce było tysiące, którzy byli Żydami i kolaborowali z rosyjskimi komunistami i Stalinem. Tak samo było przed wojną, elity żydowskie kolaborowały z Leninem a później Stalinem i próbowali doprowadzić w rewolucji w Polsce. Fakty są takie że kiedy w październiku 1939 roku cały Polski naród został poddany masowemu mordowaniu tak przez Niemców jak i przez Rosję, polski rząd finansował i organizował transport Żydów między innymi do Japonii. Obecnie sytuacja jest taka że Polacy doświadczają stale nienawiści ze strony Żydów i to się nie zmieni, ponieważ macie zakorzeniona nienawiść do wszystkich

Happy to see that finaly someone from the "other side" presents facts and doesn't demonize my country :)

As a Pole I think the number of Poles helping in some kind if way was much higher, while number of traitors were much lower. Poles could tell Jews from others, despite this most Poles kept their mouths shut, pretending not to notice Jews outside of ghettos etc. On the other hand there were minorities in Poland that would do a lot to get into germans favor.

Ostatnio przeczytałem książkę Ziemkiewicza " cham niezbuntowany" i muszę przyznać że dawno nie doświadczyłem takiej w miarę możliwości obiektywnej analizy nas Polaków, historycznie aż po dziś...Ziemkiewicz opisuje nasze losy oczywiście przeplatane od pewnego momentu również z żydami...po trosze wyjaśnia skąd się biorą różne nagonki i jacy jesteśmy jako społeczeństwo bo Polacy to często izraelici, Białorusini, Ukraińcy, Rosjanie czy litwini...poprostu ludzie tej ziemi którzy umieli żyć tu na tym terenie w tolerancji, a skąd brała się nietolerancja..no cóż ...myślę że warto po nią sięgnąć ...nie wydaje mi się by było angielskie wydanie dlatego życzę Tobie szybkiego przyswojenia języka byś mógł się dowiedzieć i samemu też swoje wnioski wyciągnąć....Dobra robota, dzięki za materiały!

Do you think many Canadians know what the punishment for aiding a Jew was in occupied Poland? The people hosting Anne Frank's family in the Netherlands survived the war, which would not be possible in Poland.

The history of Jews and Poles has never been one-size-fits-all. Recently I came across a Yad Vaszem video on YT where an attempt was made to answer what impact the German occupation had on the Polish society towards the Jews. I live in north-eastern Poland in a small town, where there is still the remains of a synagogue that is now a cinema. Today there are no people of Jewish origin here. But I wonder what Poland would look like today if it weren't for the Second World War

4:34 Worth to know that Poland was the only one country in Europe where for saving a Jew whole Polish family was executed if one person failed. In other countries that one person who tried to save a Jew and that Jew were executed.

The Germans learned that the majority of Jewish people could not correctly pronounce the Polish word for corn (maize), "kukurydza". Made it difficult to claim a man and his family were cousins staying on your farm if they may fail the test.

Bravo. Most Poles did not help Jews not only because they did not want to or could not. As you said, every Pole caught helping Jews was shot along with his entire family. And at the same time - as you said - in order to keep the aid secret, many people had to participate in the entire aid process (they had to know about it). What were the chances of keeping such a secret? People didn't trust each other. This is the main reason that there were only one million people actively helping Jews. Or rather, as much as a million. Besides, hardly anyone in Poland talked about "Jews" - they were Poles.

Long way to go but you are on right path. Choose wisely historians and sources, always verify because unfortunately we have issues with credibility of materials, especially created during PRL.

Just a small correction: There was 35 million polish citizents out of which only about 65% were Poles. Then you had Ukraininas, Jews, Germans, Lithuanians, Tatars, Russians, Belarussians end a bunch of other ethnic groups.

@Michael Rubenfeld Your numbers are bad even on a simple mathematical level. Polish People in Poland before the WW2 made up less than 22-23 million in the entire population of Poland. The Polish Census was conducted in 1931 according the first language spoken and religion and it was made this way to presumably made to boost up statistically the number of polish people. According to the population by faith statistic, there were only 20,5 million of catholics. That amounts to around 17-18 million of polish people in 1931. Yiddish and Hebrew speaking population was around 2,7 million in 1931, while 3,1million proclaimed to be of judaic religion. The rest was a mix germans, ukrainians, ruthenians, belarusians and etc of whom 7milion were greco catholic, orthodox and protestant. Now the amount of saved jewish persons (around 260k) gives us the better understanding of the amount of participants. Directly saving people can be at least doubled since most of them were being undercover as poles brought into polish families or orphanages. And you can count for yourself out the family size of an average family before the WW2. Indirectly we have to at least triple the previous numbers so that we can count that at least 6 polish people knew that there is one jewish person being protected by other polish people. So we would state that at least 2-3 million were involved in this operation, either active by housing or passive by being silent about it. I will use the number of 20 million of polish people since many were in siberia, six feet under or outside of Poland in the army. So active we can say that around 500k from 20 million or 2%, while passive we can say that as many as 10-15% were involved. Naturally this number is a bit obscured since some minor amount of jewish persons were resisting as partisans in the polish partisan groups. And we are not talking here about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Now how many people do we need to be on the other side? We have around 60k that were directly responsible for selling out the jewish and polish people and we know that around 30k of polish people were brought under the earth because of it. So the 60k seems even to be an overestimation, since it is obvious that one person can sell out more the one hiding person and the 30k of polish people is rather low. And since it was a dark sentence for the entire family to hide a jewish person that was done by the Gestapo, therefore this does not add up. Then we have also the polish people working for the general government, like policemen in the Warsaw Gheto or even the once delivering stuff for the camps. But to count them as german collaborators or saying that they are also responsible is more than disingenuous. So 6ok from 20 million is around 0.3%. But yes most of the people have done nothing and have seen nothing. And keep always in mind that you can save a person several times by several people, but every person will end only by one time.

Jestem jednym z wnucząt Andrzej i Marii Warchołów, ludzi, którzy podczas okupacji niemieckiej przyjęli pod swój dach żydowską rodzinę Kosińskich. Kosińscy przeżyli spokojnie wojnę, a po latach Jerzy Kosiński napisał książkę Malowany ptak, w której dla swojej korzyści opisał nas, ludzi z Dąbrowy Rzeczyckiej i okolic, ludzi, którzy dali mu szansę na przeżycie jako stado dzikich bestii... Nie mam w sobie nienawiści, ale jest głęboki żal i smutek za każdym razem, gdy słyszę wypowiedzi ludzi kultury powielających kłamliwą narrację Jerzego Kosińskiego. To łamie moje wnętrze, podcina skrzydła jak stado ptaków malowanemu odmieńcowi... Czy doczekam się uczciwości dla nas, mojej rodziny, wioski i Polski? Ciągle mam nadzieję.

One of my ancestors died in Dachau - they’ve been helping Jewish family (successfully as far as I remember). I don’t remember the exact story though, as it’s quite complex. I’m from Poland, but I don’t live there anymore, as I moved out (Poland has a lot of issues).

Polish people themselfs were victims ,killed eaither by Russians or Nazis.After war 11 mln of peopje were missing .Through out years everyone talked only of jewish people killed,nobody talked about polish people tortured sent to gulags And mirdered.On the top of that nobody appreciated that polish solgiers gave life for all Europian coutries.All this is heartbreaking how this people suffered

A big thank you for your message from Poland. Now it should be broadcasted around the world, especially in the USA and Israel. I would like to add one important fact, about why there was a death penalty for saving Jews in Poland, while in other countries there was not. In Hitler's racial theory, Poles were the "Untermensch" which translates to subhumans. People of for example Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark were not. Of course, the Jews were the most hated, and Germans wanted to murder them as soon as possible. But guess what - Poles were meant to be next - Germans wanted to "reduce our population to 20%" by sterilization and extermination. Thankfully it did not happen mostly (but ethnical, non Jewish Poles were the second largest group in concentration camps) but if all Jewish people were murdered, the gas chambers would be used mostly to kill Poles. Of course it would depend on how much of a "germanic blood" someone had in their veins... If you're more curious about this topic, please read about "Generalplan Ost", there is a very good article covering this topic on English wikipedia.

One note to start with. Pre-war Poland was a multinational country. ethnic Poles constituted approximately 63% of the population. The rest were various minorities: Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, etc. Second note: Poland was the only country where helping Jews was punishable by death not only for the person helping, but also for his or her family and neighbors. The symbol here is the Ulm family. Society was terrorized, controlled. Of course, there were also people collaborating with the occupier. However, there were very few of them. The Home Army punished those who collaborated, for example by betraying Jews, with the death penalty. There were great heroes such as Jan Karski, Irena Schendler, the Żabińskis((You have to visit the Żabiński Villas in the Warsaw ZOO), and Witold Pilecki etc. I highly recommend the Polin Museum in Warsaw. I appreciate Professor Grabowski, but his calculations are greatly exaggerated. It's estimated that there were between 60,000 and 100,000. victims of "hunting for Jews". This is still a terrifying number of victims. I'm not writing here about the attitude of the Institute of National Remembrance(IPN) or historians associated with the nationalist movement. I don't deny the facts related to the cooperation of the Blue Police with the Germans or the attitude of some village residents. It's a very complicated, multi-faceted story.

God bless you for honesty

Of those 32 million non-Jews in prewar Poland, 24 million were ethnic Poles. There were millions of other minorities. The biggest were Ukrainians, but there were also Belarusian, German, and other minorities. All of western Ukraine was part of Poland in the interbellum. In the 1931 census, only about 65 percent of Polish citizens declared Polish as their ethnicity and Roman Catholicism as their religion.

Some situations were really horrific. Imagine a small girl walking through town and seeing some people being killed by a German soldier. On a street in daylight. What would you do? There was Polish resistance ofcourse and they did what they do. But an average person tried to stay alive. Both of my grandfathers didnt speak about the war. It was traumatic. My great grandfather was ordered to do something bad by a German soldier. He didnt and almost lost his life. Unfortunately he didnt save that person. It was impossible. Many people would if they could but they were barely survivng or they weren't even surviving.

Very nice video bro. Thanks for sharing. Greetings from Rzeszow.

Oh, just to sort out the numbers a bit. The percentage of Poles in prewar Poland was ca 65% so let's say 22 million. When the Nazis and Soviets attacked, 5 million of Poles (not counting Jews, Belarusians and Ukrainians) lived in the Soviet occupied part. So that gives 17 million in the Nazi occupied part. Then Nazis took 2,5 million of men in the productive age, that is 15 and older, to slave work in Germany. That leaves 14,5 million. On top of that, 250 thousand Polish troops fought in the West, and many others were sent to the East by the Soviets (Nazis and Soviets actually did a POW swap at some point that's why all captured Polish officers ended up in Soviet camps). And quite many were sent to concentration camps throughout the war or simply died in the meantime. There were also groups of Poles living in the territories annexed to Germany proper that weren't expelled by Germans back to the General Government, that is Górals, Kashubians, and Silesians who were considered by Germans semi-German, and people from the Polish German minority. So the number of Poles living in the General Government area was ca 10 million, and most of them either women and children or the elderly. The total number of people in the General Government was 18 million but that includes the 3 million of Jews, Germans, and other minorities. That is also why the Warsaw Uprising 1944 was fought mostly by teenagers and women, simply the young healthy men were either fighting in the West, or enslaved by the Nazis and Soviets. Also, it's good to remember one thing: The ethnic division of the population of Poland didn't necessarily correspond with the ethnic division according to Germans. No Polish authorities ever asked the citizens about their race or DNA. In the Polish polls people were asked about their first tongue and/or religion. So when we say that there lived ca 3,3 million Jews in Poland, 10% of whom were assimilated, that means that 3,3 million indicated that their religion was Judaism, and 10% of those chose Polish as their first language. We don't know how well the remaining people spoke Polish. Some didn't speak it at all, some could speak fairly well, but we don't even know the proportion. We also have no idea how many Polish people were Catholic or atheist and had one or more Jewish grandparent which would make them Jewish according to Germans but Polish according to Poles. Additionally, many Jewish people who were assimilated enough to hide among Poles, changed their ID, and kept their Jewish roots hidden during the Communism era. Some people are revealing their identity to their families only now, others took the truth to their grave. What follows, we don't really know how many Jews survived the war in Poland. The 380 thousand are those who registered as surviving Jews after the war. The number must seem small compared to the Polish prewar Jewish population but is similar to the entire Jewish communities in Britain or France.

Thank You Michael for that video. The history is always more complicated than people think. To make opinion about the war sitting today in comfortable armchair is not fair. My mother happily still lives and tells me a lot of stories how Germand were cruell for polish people. She talks about huge hunger in her village that made people crazy. She remembered that in the village was one shop. The owner was jewish family and she played with their children (Icek and Rywka) ... Unfortunately they were probably killed by German bcs they not came back to that village after war... The stories like that are millions.

Great job spreading facts. I actually really curious where is that anti- Polish propagada coming from both in Israel and US. I am Polish but my ancestors from mother side were Polish Jews. I have heard from my grand father that after the war there were still large Jewish community in Poland. He told me that relations between newly established state of Israel were more than good. Polish was nearly voted as officially language of Israel over Hebrew. And from sudden very aggressive anty Jewish propaganda was started by Communist government. (Even though large amount of high figures in government were Jewish). At the same time strong anti Polish propagada started in Israel and US. Suddenly death camps were not German but Polish or Nazi camps. He thought it was actually planned to explain marshal plan and worm up attitude towards germans as they became allies. Making Poland an enemy was easiest as there were already anty communist propaganda spread since years. I do not think he had broad enough perspective as all information at the time were censored. Does anyone know what was the reason of that sudden political turn on both sides from US perspective?

Yup, it's important to realize that not everything that happened during WW2 has been written down. Some people chose to keep their stories to their families, or to just take them to the grave. In my family's case, my great grandfather successfully sheltered several Jews throughout the war, over in a village which, even nowadays, has a little over 3,000 inhabitants. His (the GG's) family was comprised entirely of working class farmers - he was, well, a nobody. Smaller stories like this, where some random average joe farmer did some good deed in a small insignificant village, would often go unrecorded. In said village, we also had a case of a Jewish girl, who had her entire family abducted and killed by Germans while she was still little. So, she had to be raised by her rural farmer neighbors instead - the "surrounding community". And, she actually spent the rest of her life in that same village, never moving anywhere, not even within Poland itself. Probably because there wasn't too much opportunity to, and also because her childhood trauma made her permanently deranged - she would often have PTSD-induced hallucinations, etc.

Wydaje mi się, że przynajmniej część z tych 96% Polaków mogła w ogóle nie mieć z żydami do czynienia. Żydów było 3 miliony na ogólnie 32 miliony obywateli. Mogło się zdarzyć, że jacyś Polacy mogli nawet nie znać żadnej osoby wyznania mojrzeszowego. Dodatkowo inne osoby, a tych wydaje mi się mogło być najwięcej, to osoby, które dbały tylko o swoją rodzinę i nie pomagały komukolwiek innem bez względu na wiarę.

4:10 prawda jest taka, że ogromna większość Polaków ani nie pomagała ani nie szkodziła Żydom, bo niemiecka okupacja była dla etnicznych Polaków bardzo ciężkim przeżyciem. Warto podkreślić, że poziom asymilacji Żydów w Polsce był nieporównywalnie niższy niż w Niemczech czy Francjj. Żyd, który nie mówił dobrze po polsku ani nie miał znajomych Polaków nie miał prawie żadnych szans, bo Polacy pomagali w pierwszej kolejności Żydów, których znali. Wiele osób wyobraża sobie, że status Żydów był taki jak np na Węgrzech, gdzie prawie wszyscy znali węgierski. Nic bardziej mylnego. 'Filip' na podstawie powieści Leopolda Tyrmanda jest chyba pierwszym polskim filmem fabularnym pokazującym, że Żydzi w warszawskim getcie mówi głównie w jidysz. U 'Ulicy granicznej' Forda oczywiście wszyscy po polsku.

is there any data how many Jewish people went out of their way to save Polish people? And also I don't think "betrayal" is the best word choice. You betray someone whom you owe loyalty to, you had an oath of allegiance to them. Poles never owed Jewish people anything. The same way Germans could think that Polish people betrayed them because they ruled and governed polish territory and established their laws forbidding helping Jews.

2009- new president of USA 2009- Nobel Peace Prize The same person Barac Obama 2012- POLISH DEATH CAMPS- Barack Obama

Good job! Very important. As a Pole would love to knows more how actually was Poland back then. With Jews around and their amazing culture as its was in this part of Europe. We all missed so much. I would love to watch more on that topic. Not only Holocaust. Don't het nie wrong.

They were perpatrators everywhere, many Jews collaborated with Germans and Soviets. After the war many Jews or people with jewish roots worked for communist terror, but calling communist system a jewish one is simply ridiculous.

As a Polisch, 40+. Thank for Your work. It is time to sit together and learn of one another. You my frend, ROCK!

Most people in Poland in that time were living in the rural area, and they never even saw any Jew because all Jews were living in the towns and cities. Thats why most of them did nothing. Some places even didint saw any soldier during whole war.

Show me just one Jew person who risk his and family life to save just one Pole .

As a Polish Jewish person I can say that this man is not educated enough in this matter to produce opinion that is relevant to the factual history of Polish Jews.

While my ancestors did actively save Jews, I have to wonder, why in the world would someone blame Poles for not doing so? What I mean is, if you knew the lives of your family would be endangered by doing something, I have to on some level sympathize with that. The blame here is solely on the Nazis, that is the only place evil lies. I don't blame people who didn't want to die or were trying to save their families. This does not apply to anyone who was actively involved in the murder of Jews, of course.

Grabowski's data is not true and is often far-fetched. He confuses Polish peasants with Ukrainian peasants who murdered not only Poles of the Jewish faith, but also Christian Poles. You're still confused. You need to know many truths to form an opinion. You will be very surprised, and more than once.

Grabowski nie powinien być dla Ciebie źródłem prawdy. Pewnie były takie przypadki ale pan Grabowski przytacza liczby na które nie ma dowód. Zmień pan źródło danych.

As a descendant of Polish Jew, thank you for your intentions but: "96% Poles did nothing" is simply wrong math. Aproximatly 69% of citizens were Polish. It's impossible to estimate how many of them fled before and during the war. Some people just couldn't save Jews like for example: - Dead, so around 2.8 milion non-Jewish Poles killed by Germans, not including those killed by Soviets, Ukrainians, Slovaks or those who died from starvation, sickness, being old etc - People displaced by Soviets to Siberia and gulags - Couldn't expected it from Children!!!!!!!!! (significant portion of population). Include also elders, sick, disabled etc. - Resistance was quite busy, although they tried - People who survived war in concentration camps or prisons - People forced to labour by Germans - Large numbers of military fought outside the country If you sum it up many either helped or didn't have opportunity to help. One can argue that those who did nothing still took some risk by doing so.

Thank you for your unbiased reporting of harsh historical facts.

I would think that most people would value ones own sons and daughters over your neighbors, that really is the easiest answer. That 7000 thousand Poles are written down as saviors in Israel just means that those 7000 valued other families lives just as much as their own, which in most cases does not make sense unless you had neighbors you somehow looked at as family. There is nothing weird in saving your own family first, its instinct. It's sad to see the state of Israel not wanting friends, which Poland should have been a logical one based on 1000 years of history, but instead they destroyed it by making shameful public accusations. They somehow expected all Polish families to give up their own childrens lives to save others, which no humans would do on a large scale ever. Humans are not wired that way. 200 000 Polish children were kidnapped because of their looks and raised as German, beat if they spoke a word Polish. Very few got back to their families after the war. This is just another drop in the ocean of evil the Germans imposed on Poland, so many stories one could sit for weeks reading it all. The Germans were and the Russians still are the incarnation of evil, and it is important to remind everyone as long as we live so it doesn't happen again.