Spielberg’s ‘List’

Regarding “Grim. Black and White . . . Spielberg?,” David Gritten’s report on the making of “Schindler’s List” (May 9):

The reported comments about Polish anti-Semitism are bizarre and indeed inaccurate or misleading. The idea that a Polish woman would praise the Germans for killing Jews and call them “wonderful people” is either an outright lie or the words of a lunatic.

These “wonderful” Germans killed 3 million Christian Poles during World War II and in the 19th Century tried to eliminate Polish culture and the Polish language using the “ethnic cleansing” technique. Older Poles won’t even speak German to a German even if they know it. No Pole would ever say that Germans are wonderful.

To say Poland is an anti-Semitic place begs the question: Compared to what? Certainly greater excesses of anti-Semitism have been reported recently in Germany, Australia, the United States, France and other countries. Gritten’s quote of Polish-born cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (who thinks Poland “has an inferiority complex” and is an anti-Semitic place) demonstrates the admonition “don’t generalize.”

The article quotes a Polish broadcaster saying: “Poles take the view that no one ever wrote a book about Poles who saved Jews.” There are dozens of books on this subject in Polish and English. Also, Poland was the only country with an underground organization (Zegota) established specifically during World War II to save Jews.

I accuse Gritten and his sources of anti-Polonism.

ARTUR ZYGMONT

Polish American Cultural Network

Torrance