'#' : location.hash;window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUQuery = location.search === '' && location.href.slice(0 location.href.length - window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash.length).indexOf('?') !== -1 '?' : location.search;if (window.history && window.history.replaceState) {var ogU = location.pathname + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUQuery + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash;history.replaceState(null "\/inside-the-jewish-response-to-the-mounting-refugee-crisis-in-poland\/?__cf_chl_rt_tk=ZkMC76GzYS9Yc6rPR1DNSekDqmAPNRzgGPReZDOBEKM-1746500367-1.0.1.1-dVaWZdyu2Ue6f5VQp9iQlqtwZofvTUWvSjXz7xY0BFM" + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash);cpo.onload = function() {history.replaceState(null ogU);}}document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(cpo);}()); Holocaust survivor Joshua Gortler spoke in Seattle this week at a Holocaust remembrance event He explains there are plenty of Holocaust deniers out there But we must remember that horror in order to seed good works today Joshua Gortler was 3 years old in 1939 when the German army marched into his small hometown in southeastern Poland and changed the course of his life He told his story Tuesday at The Summit on First Hill before an audience of mostly Jewish people old enough to know something about the pain he spoke of None of us knows when our world might turn upside down but it happens to people around the world again and again And sometimes on a scale that surpasses understanding Gortler is a longtime, successful Seattle resident, and he is also a survivor of the Holocaust, the Nazi attempt to exterminate the world’s Jews. Six million European Jews were killed in a fit of racial cleansing. It is a horror the world should never forget, and yet there are people who deny it happened so this week people have been revisiting memories and considering how the lessons of that tragedy apply to the present Gortler held up a copy of a book written by the historian Deborah Lipstadt who began her career at the University of Washington in the 1970s “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory,” is one of several she wrote on the subject Gortler reminded his audience of a piece of graffiti scrawled just last month at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood The graffiti read: “The Holocaust is Fake History.” Gortler believes there are three categories of survivors and suffering people who lived through the extermination camps Tomaszow had a significant Jewish population and the Germans gathered them together and issued them yellow stars While they were being confined to one area arose one morning and said it was time for prayers He said the women needed to separate themselves from the men so he walked outside the space they were held in Later he was found hanging from a tree upside down Gortler and everyone else were loaded onto cattle cars and taken to another town father and older brother when a gentile who was a business partner of his father helped them cut the fence and escape then they made their way to the Russian lines was the only country that opened its doors to fleeing Jews Jewish refugees were loaded onto trains and transported across the country to Siberia The refugees were plagued by diseases and had so little food that they would scavenge potato peels thrown out by Russian army cooks He was 5 or 6 years old when they were moved again where they lived in a hut with a mud floor the family found that its home and business in Tomaszow had been taken over by non-Jews His father had seven siblings and they were all dead His mother had eight siblings and they were all dead The family made their way to a refugee camp in partitioned Berlin where they lived while countries debated their fate Shiploads of Jewish refugees were turned away from the United States and from British-run Palestine “No country wanted the Jews,” Gortler said Gortler said we should reflect on that cruelty when we think about our response to people who are displaced by tragic circumstances today his family received visas to come to the United States which runs two Seattle facilities for seniors the Kline Galland Home and The Summit at First Hill he retired as CEO to become chairman of the Kline Galland Foundation At Tuesday’s event, Gortler read the famous quotation from Martin Niemoller a Protestant minister who spoke out against Adolf Hitler Niemoller’s message was that if we don’t speak up for people outside our group when they are being oppressed we may eventually find ourselves in their shoes will do so knowing we have made the world better Stay secure and make sure you have the best reading experience possible by upgrading your browser Fear and loathing stalk Poland’s shale fields where a 400-day site occupation stopped a Chevron drill earlier this year we demonstrated,” said Barbara Siegienczuk one of the leaders of the local anti-shale gas protest group Green Zurawlow in south-eastern Poland “We made banners and placards and put posters up around the village Only 96 people live in Zurawlow – children and old people included – but we stopped Chevron!” farmers and their families from Zurawlow and four nearby villages blockaded a proposed Chevron shale drilling site with tractors and agricultural machinery The Zurawlow blockade influenced the UK’s anti-fracking protests at Balcombe in the summer of 2013 and similar battles have flared across Poland since the country became Europe’s front line for shale gas exploration Bordering volatile Ukraine and heavily reliant on gas from Putin’s Russia, the promise of secure domestically-produced energy made politicians sit up. A year earlier, in September 2011, the country’s then-prime minister Donald Tusk made a bold claim that the shale industry would begin commercial drilling in 2014 “After years of dependence on our large neighbour (Russia) today we can say that my generation will see the day when we will be independent in the area of natural gas and we will be setting terms,” he said “would not pose a danger to the environment.” Plans for a shale gas-fuelled economic revival appear to be evaporating as test wells have not performed as expected or have suffered regulatory delays Foreign investors have pulled out and sustained environmental protests like that in Zurawlow have hampered drilling plans Officials privately talk of the shale experiment as a ‘disaster’ “Companies’ expectations were very high and now we learn that this is a long term process,” said Pawel Mikusek a spokesman for Poland’s environment ministry “The experience of the US is that it also took a long time to reach industrial use – 10-15 years – so we need to be more patient We don’t have such high expectations as two or three years ago.” But with falling oil prices, continued supplies of cheap coal and EU pressure to increase cost-competitive renewable power generation, the shale gas industry needs positive results fast, and less controversy. 2015 will be a “pivotal” year for the Polish industry, according to industry group Shale Gas Europe Multi-billion dollar tax incentives are in the pipeline and a new law should soon speed up permitting processes that can take years. But this has already sparked an EU legal action for allowing firms to drill at depths of up to 5,000m without first assessing environmental risks citing permit delays and disappointing results Most shale activity is now being led by Poland’s state-controlled PGNiG Just 66 wells have been drilled to date – 12 involving horizontal fracking – and permits for a further 27 drills were put on hold in the southeastern Tomaszów Lubelski region last month Analysts blame regulatory hold-ups for fraying investors nerves which is home to a forest protected under Europe’s gold-standard ‘Natura 2000’ scheme and a proposed Unesco biosphere environmental protestors claim credit for throwing a pitchfork in the industry’s wheels Barbara Siegienczuk one of the leaders of the local anti-shale gas protest group Green Zurawlow Photograph: Stanislaw Wadas/DemotixPoland’s environment ministry says that shale gas is hugely popular but mobilisations against it were impressive and fuelled by claims that damage had already been done “Roads were damaged and destroyed when seismic tests were done with heavy machinery,” said Slawomir Damiluk “The fact is that people’s houses had cracks in their walls afterwards When Chevron tried to start up with their machinery villagers set up a colourful protest camp – complete with a cinema samba bands and installation art – and occupied the site around the clock “The women who lived here began learning how to cook without meat because during the protest we had agreed that nobody would go hungry,” Siegienczuk said “We opened our minds and hearts to people who looked and ate differently Dozens of activists are still facing a criminal lawsuit filed by Chevron and many more were filmed by mystery cameramen whose stills were used in subsequent court cases Siegienczuk believes that her phone was tapped I heard several people talking on the line and a male voice asked ‘are we going to tap this woman’s phone too?’ I was terrified and passed my phone to other protestors who heard the same voices Zurawlow where people successfully campaigned against drilling by Chevron America has profits.’ Photograph: Stanislaw Wadas/DemoSally Jones told the Guardian: “Chevron respects the right of individuals to express their opinions Chevron remains committed to building constructive and positive relationships with the communities where we operate.” But local people in the area covered by Chevron’s concession claim that such relationships went beyond what might be reasonably termed constructive Villagers allege that one woman whose water well became polluted at the same time that seismic tests were being conducted in the area received a building renovation paid for by Chevron and promptly stopped complaining about the issue a local protest leader dropped out of the movement and took up work as a Chevron security guard leading to accusations that he had been bought off Wojciech Zukowski Photograph: Stanislaw Wadas/DemotixWojciech Zukowski the recently re-elected mayor of Tomaszów Lubelski town said that he saw no conflict of interest in accepting private or public gifts from multinationals “I’m not trying to hide that some forms of sponsoring and support takes place here,” he told the Guardian adding that a town sports club with 250 members would benefit from corporate sponsorship Chevron declined to respond to the villagers’ claims but insisted that “we comply with laws and regulations in all counties we do business in.” The company has donated to several charities in the US and Romania where it has also invested in shale exploration it has provided charity services to villages at Christmas and offered gifts to residents’ children such as fluffy tigers carrying Chevron logos “We demonstrate our commitment to the communities where we operate by creating jobs and developing and sourcing from local suppliers,” a company statement said The Tomaszów Lubelski district has been hard-hit by unemployment and jobs have been a key persuader for the industry Close to the exploratory shale drill in nearby Susiec a 40-year-old shop worker said that the shale gas plans “are going to be good as there will be jobs for us and gas will be cheaper The town’s pro-shale mayor ran a campaign on the economic benefits that shale gas could offer the depressed town hanging a ‘Putinologists – bugger off!’ banner in the town square he was deposed in favour of a more shale-sceptic opponent in November who advanced an alternative geothermal energy-based plan a 39-year-old worker in the same store as Jacek He just promised work for everyone but there was nothing The people who have agro-tourism businesses know that it’s not beneficial as the environment will be destroyed and people won’t come here anymore.” Roe deer run across an icy field in Majdan Sopocki Photograph: Stanislaw Wadas/DemotixOn the Natura 2000 site that borders the Susiec well Narnia-style pine tree forests are frosted in ice and snow Roe deers and eagles flit in and out of the fog like phantoms the deer tracks abruptly stop and double back on themselves Fears that one of Poland’s last remaining redoubts of biodversity could be damaged have mobilised local feeling as polarisation and bitterness have spread across the Tomaszów Lubelski district Zukowski suggested that village protesters were being manipulated by dark forces “It could be said that their actions were inspired by the government of Mr Putin,” he said. “I don’t have such knowledge but [the protests] went hand in hand with the Kremlin’s intentions. Gas and oil are a useful tool for Russia to get involved in other countries’ energy security It is a proxy to pressure authorities to take certain decisions along the Kremlin’s lines Everyone knows it but no-one wants to name it.” Even the patriotic case for pressing ahead with shale gas has been dented by claims from campaigners in Pomerania that toxic waste from shale drills was dumped in a rural stream Environmentalists believe that water tainted by shale salts may have entered the Radunia river used for supplying water to Gdansk the birthplace of Poland’s Solidarity movement T-shirts and caps with anti-fracking messages at the headquarters of the Zurawlow anti-fracking movement Photograph: Stanislaw Wadas/DemotixIn November was ordered to stop processing shale effluent in a nearby water purification centre because of permitting infractions The Polish environment ministry denies that Gdansk’s drinking water was ever put at risk but such allegations undercut the energy independence case for shale gas “The people of Zurawlow might have liked shale gas investment but the issue was these were Americans,” Damiluk said “We don’t want foreign investors on a land that belongs to us.” the last of the big multinational shale investors is still holding on to its sole concession in Zwierzyniec the decision’s small print limits future drilling to a small parcel of land the company has already explored “If Chevron’s partner PGNiG wins permission to drill in Tomaszów Lubelski I hope the people there will use the same tactics to block new drills that we did,” Siegienczuk said “We are open and ready to give any support we can.” international leader in the cause of Holocaust remembrance Lerman served on the Museum’s Council for 23 years having received appointments from Presidents Carter and he was chairman through most of the Museum’s first decade Members of the Hashomer Zionist youth movement gather for a portrait Miles and Chris Lerman walk along a street in Berlin while living in the Schlachtensee displaced persons camp Miles and Chris Lerman travel to the United States aboard the SS Marine Perch in January 1947 Miles Lerman fought the Nazis and their collaborators,” said Museum Chairman Fred S he fought with equal determination to ensure that the world would never forget the Holocaust’s victims or its lessons by leading the effort to establish the Museum Miles taught his successors the meaning of memory Those of us who follow in the path he forged owe him a debt of gratitude and bear a tremendous responsibility to carry on his legacy.” “Miles often referred to those of us who worked closely with him as his ‘comrades in arms,’” says Museum Director Sara J “His boundless energy and determination were a driving force that created the Museum and made it the international institution it is today.” were actively involved in every aspect of the Museum and were exceptionally generous supporters He led the nationwide fundraising campaign to build the institution and negotiated historic international agreements that helped create the Museum’s Permanent Exhibition and its world-renowned archives the Museum established the Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance to dispel the myth that Jews did not resist the Nazis and their collaborators center) takes part in the first Days of Remembrance ceremony Participants included President Ronald Reagan Miles Lerman (far left) and fellow United States Holocaust Memorial Council members pose with two milkcans containing a Scroll of Remembrance signed by Holocaust survivors at the Museum's symbolic groundbreaking ceremony Miles Lerman (left) stands next to Elie Weisel at the official groundbreaking ceremony held on the site of the future Museum building representing the United States Holocaust Memorial Council signs an agreement with the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland at the site of Belzec Miles Lerman (left) with Founding Director Jeshajahu Weinberg (center) and Michael Berenbaum meet to discuss the transfer of artifacts Miles Lerman (far left) stands before the grand staircase in the Hall of Witness during construction of the Museum left) and members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council attend the Special Ecumenical Service at the National Cathedral in Washington and Abe Pollin (far right) gather at the Museum's Law Enforcement and Society: Lessons of the Holocaust program Miles Lerman and Sara Bloomfield speak at a United States Holocaust Memorial Council swearing-in ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance Miles Lerman (far right) gathers with Elie Wiesel (far left) and Benjamin Meed for the 2003 Days of Remembrance ceremony pose for a picture in the Museum's Hall of Witness Miles Lerman (second from left) and his wife take part in in the 2006 Days of Remembrance events with Council Vice Chairman Joel Geiderman and Chairman Fred Zeidman the Museum began to serve as a voice of conscience by establishing the Committee on 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border who regularly have their electricity cut off by Russian strikes She planned to post a request for help on Facebook and send messages to her acquaintances even if she readily admitted that "It's becoming difficult for everyone because of inflation." killed two farmers who were busy weighing corn and had seen him shortly before the tragedy "The Ukrainians are only defending themselves It's sad to see history repeating itself: The Russians also attacked the Poles in the past," she said You have 75.54% of this article left to read Lecture du Monde en cours sur un autre appareil Vous pouvez lire Le Monde sur un seul appareil à la fois Ce message s’affichera sur l’autre appareil Parce qu’une autre personne (ou vous) est en train de lire Le Monde avec ce compte sur un autre appareil Vous ne pouvez lire Le Monde que sur un seul appareil à la fois (ordinateur En cliquant sur « Continuer à lire ici » et en vous assurant que vous êtes la seule personne à consulter Le Monde avec ce compte 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Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience we could involve people who had difficulties commuting to the center of Lublin where the Polish Center for International Aid also implemented similar projects in partnership with the UNHCR’ – said Katarzyna Szumilak-Duda ‘It would not have been possible without the generosity of the local governments that gave us office spaces or the District Authorities Office from all over the Lubelskie Voivodeship’ we could register even more people than the project estimated’ – the Foundation’s employee pointed out the PCPM Foundation will also be able reach out to those who previously failed to make it to enrollment The aid grants support people from Ukraine who fled to Poland from the war after February 24 and who have not previously benefited from similar assistance We publish up-to-date information about our actions on Twitter. Instagram – @fundacjapcpm Facebook – Polish Center for International Aid(PCPM)