Poland is a remarkable county in many ways. 

The people, the history, the culture, the food, almost everything I have come to love and adore about Poland, and that is one of the reasons I am such an advocate for promoting the truthful story about this nation. 

I find that Poles are genuinely survivors, considering what they have been through. 

They have lived through nightmare occupations and overcame this.   

I believe that the survivor mindset can sometimes be detrimental or negatively impact the sharing of history.  

This, as opposed to the victim mentality. Survivors want to move on and forget. Victims dwell in the past and want everyone to dwell with them. 

That is why I feel strongly about memorializing and sharing the story of Polish heroism and suffering. Indeed, if they or someone who is not on their side doesn’t, someone else will write their story, which is exactly what has happened. Many have revised and manipulated Polish history to suit their agendas.  

Polish history is complicated and complex. If one doesn’t know the intricacies of this, they surely will make rash and incorrect judgments, as I see all of the time. 

People that don’t know the context of the era will lose perspective and insight into the situation and not comprehend what was happening. With this, they cannot grasp the situation entirely. 

In my dialogue, I come across this thinking all of the time. Unless we put ourselves into the situation, we cannot judge those living in that horror and the decisions they had to make. 

An example is the saving of a Jew.  

People are so brave and condemn people, especially Poles, for not saving more Jews, but entirely lack what could happen to them if they did help a Jew – this means giving a Jew a glass of water. 

The punishment would be the execution of your entire family and sometimes the whole village. Do you have the right to put others at risk for saving someone you probably didn’t know? 

Someone called me antisemitic for asking this question, but I don’t understand why and why everything has to be antisemitic anyways? Cannot we get past this term? 

Would a Jew save a Pole? 

We all must consider these situations before we condemn or make judgments, in my opinion. 

This issue is just something to consider.