The Polish Nazis—with swastikas tattooed in their armpits—were quiet. No one knew they existed until it was too late.
We must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happen—because so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts; because so many others stood silent. But let us also tell our children about the Righteous among the Nations. Among them was Jan Karski—a young Polish Catholic—who witnessed Jews being put on cattle cars, who saw the killings, and who told the truth, all the way to President Roosevelt himself.
President Barack Obama, announcing Jan Karski’s posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom
As a college student at Gdańsk University in the 1980s, I learned that Polish Nazis had existed, and that they bore swastikas, the symbol of their pride, tattooed in their armpits. I imagined them shaving their armpits just before the war, before Hitler invaded Poland on the first day of September 1939, and then waiting, after Germany’s defeat, for the hair to grow back to cover their worst secret. Walking the streets of Gdańsk, and passing the men of my grandfather’s generation, I wondered sometimes which ones had swastikas in their armpits. Did I know anyone who had a hidden swastika? I felt uneasy about sharing with them my language, my heritage, my culture, my music, my architecture, even the food we considered Polish. Something I don’t really believe in—a collective, tribal guilt—got its grip on me.
More here: https://popula.com/2019/02/06/nazis-and-the-layers-of-shame/
