(The holiday actually started last night.)

Ever since it began to be commemorated, Yom ha Shoah, has begun at the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (the eightieth anniversary is this year). It is the most dramatic uprising of the Jews trying to save their lives from Nazi extermination (much with the cooperation of the occupied Poles).

This year I'm especially troubled because Poland is ramping up its marked turnaround about the facts of the Shoah, claiming that the Poles (historically antisemitic) played a major role in trying to save the Jews. Legally, Poland has criminalized any suggestion that Poles played a role in the murder of the Polish Jews.

More and more monuments to "heroic" Poles are being erected, in honor of their saving Jewish lives. On the contrary, throughout the Nazi occupation, Poles confiscated Jewish wealth, spearheadeding movements to loot Jewish businesses, combining profiteering efforts to extort Jewish property. (Cruelly, Poles demanded gold and other riches for even the smallest amounts of water from Jews suffocating in crowded rail-cars or other hidden closets).

Afterwards, they would reveal to Nazis hiding places of desperate Jews, "sardined" into miniscule makeshift constructions, in return for Nazi rewards for revealing these hidey holes. Polish collaborators considered these double pay-offs as one of their cleverest schemes.

Most infamous perhaps, after the Nazis finally fled, the Poles were known to murder the few surviving Jews returning to their former homes. The Poles didn't want to relinquish their stolen property.

At this point in time, history is being increasingly rewritten to represent the Poles as having been at least as victimized as the Jews, while more and more monuments are being erected to honor Poles who allegedly lost their lives protecting Jews. Any claim that Poles mistreated Jews and/or committed the crimes noted above, is being treated with dire punishment for dishonoring the "glorious" Polish nationhood.

Representing Poles as victimizing or harming Jews, was denied even though numerous Poles worked in the death camps and exploited Jews for their own profits.

This is how Remembrance Day has been twisted into a celebration of Polish war-time heroism and mourning for Polish suffering. Holocaust historians are now even being arrested and imprisoned.

Rewriting Memory in Poland