The former secretary-general of the Polish Conference of Catholic Bishops made international headlines today when he made public his belief that the Holocaust--at least as the Jews understand it--was invented by Jews to garner support from the rest of the world. The Holocaust is, in his opinion, mere "propaganda."
Not much more needs to be said. We will have to see how Benedict handles this one.The article comes from the Jerusalem Post.
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'Jews exploit Holocaust as propaganda'
Jpost.com staff, THE JERUSALEM POST
The Holocaust only gets media coverage because of affluent Jews' financial backing, military might and lobbying fronts, presenting a skewed version of events to the world, a high-ranking Polish bishop told a Catholic news portal on Monday.
Tadeusz Pieronek, a Polish bishop and professor and a friend of the last pope, John Paul II, claimed that "the Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention" promoted in the press by Jews to gain support for Israel.
Pieronek told the Web site Pontifex.roma that while the Holocaust was not exclusively Jewish, Jews had monopolized it in lieu of encouraging "serious historical debate, free from prejudice and victimization."
Pieronek alleged that Jews today use the Holocaust as "a weapon of propaganda, used to obtain benefits which are often unjustified," citing as an example the unconditional support for Israel by the US.
"This promotes a certain arrogance that I find unbearable," he said, explaining that Israel was using its position of power and exploiting historical tragedies to treat the Palestinians "like animals."
The bishop said that American support for the Jews had not always been so readily given.
"What did the Jewish-American and allied forces do in [World War II] to avoid these tragedies? Little or nothing," he said.
Pieronek stressed that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians did not compare to "the shame of the concentration camps and the aberrations of Nazism," but was still a cause for concern ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, being marked on Wednesday.
"The Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention ... a day of remembrance must also be set for the many victims of Communism, persecuted Catholics and Christians and so on," he told the Web site.
Pieronek vehemently denied that his words stemmed from anti-Semitism.
"The anti-Semitic history of Poland is an invention," he said. "A joke ... offensive to our people."
Although most of the victims of the Holocaust were indeed Jews, many Poles, Italians and Catholics also died at the Nazi concentration camps, he said.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu traveled Monday night to Poland, where he will attend the ceremony Wednesday commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
