Solomon MorelYes. Right away. Just as soon as we give him like a million medals.

Poland is demanding the extradition from Israel of an elderly Jewish survivor of Auschwitz accused of crimes against humanity for his role in retaliatory acts against German POWs after WWII. Solomon Morel, 86, who fled to Israel from Poland in 1994 and is now hiding out in Tel Aviv, lost over 30 of his family members in the holocaust. Morel was appointed by Stalin to supervise a denazification camp at Swietochlowice.

On the first night at Swietochlowice, when the first contingent of Germans arrived, at about 10 o’clock at night he walked into one of the barracks and he said to the Germans, ‘My name is Morel. I am a Jew. My mother and father, my family, I think they’re all dead, and I swore that if I got out alive, I was going to get back at you Nazis. And now you’re going to pay for what you did.’

80,000 ethnic Germans are believed to have perished in such camps as a result of alleged torture, starvation and typhus. None however died from gassings, none died from medical experiments, none were tattooed and none were subsequently burnt in crematoria with their ashes unceremoniously and anonymously dumped like so much trash.

The Israeli Justice Ministry said that it was in the process of examining the extradition request. If I were Poland, I wouldn’t hold my breath. You can find out more about the Morel case from such awesome, unbiased and righteously indignant Web sites like National Vanguard and Stormfront if you Google “Solomon Morel.” And no. This is not some politically incorrect ethnic joke.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

35 Comments

  • The absolute evil was done by the Germans. Most of the dirt on Morrel comes from slimeballs. The figure of 80,000 ethnic Germans is unfounded. I’ll call Poland when the sun comes up there to get the story.

  • You are treating terrible crimes rather casually, no? In fact, the people who were in Morel’s camps were not necessarily former Nazis or people implicated in murder of Jews, and many of them were women and children. The people he is accused of being responsible for their deaths did not just die of typhus; they died of torture. As I explained a few days ago on bloghead, there is a good case to be made that we MUST put this man on trial to find out exactly what happened, or we will never have the right to ask again for Nazis to be held accountable for their actions. With all the sympathy in the world, having suffered terribly does not give you the right to make others suffer terribly.

  • Yes Mirriam. I was a bit flip. Now I’ll try to be serious.

    The evidence against Morel cited by the article, basically originating in the work of John Sack in his book “An Eye for an Eye” is problematic. If I were Israel’s Ministry of Justice, I wouldn’t be so quick to extradite Morel or even put him on trial.

    First of all, the statute of limitations on his alleged crimes has passed. That may suck but that is the law. Secondly, the evidence against him needs to be studied and verified so that the nature of the crime can be understood. On its face, they seem like crimes committed by an individual under extreme circumstances. He may in fact have been temporarily insane. I don’t know for sure how I would react under the same circumstances. In any case, if he was conceivably insane then the nature of the crime changes and given the passage of time and the age of the defendant, I would have to sadly let it slide because it is unlikely Morel will get a fair trial.

    Finally there is the issue of the involvement of racists and anti-semites in calling for his extradition. They call what happenned to the Germans in Poland after WWII another Holocaust. They claim that these activities were conducted mostly by Jews. I seriously do not want to feed into all that on the basis of questionable evidence. I know the folks at the Ministry of Justice. They take their work seriously and if the extradition request was refused, I’m sure it was done for good reason.

    Whatever the case may be, I might suggest that to whatever extent Morel in fact committed any crimes, the guilt for those crimes lies squarely in the hands of the Nazis who condemned their people to the almost inevitable repercussions of genocide. You ask me who was responsible for the deaths of all those Germans? I’d say the same people who killed 6 million Jews and caused the deaths of 20-30 million Russians.

  • To add to CK’s comments, there is also the possibility that after having an international ruckus caused by the story of the slaughter of the Jews of Jedwabne, this is good payback and solid propaganda against Israel.

    Anyway, if we are going to go after Morel, shouldn’t the world go after the architects of the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo as well as the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Couldn’t you argue that those were retaliatory and vengeful actions taken when the war was essentially over and the enemy defeated?

  • So there I was, on the blvd. Saint-Laurent, one of Montreal’s hottest bar strips, when all of a sudden this bus pulls up and out come a mess of uniformed Polish soldiers. Visibly drunken Polish soldiers, obviously looking for a good time. I decided I’d chat them up a bit cuz how often is it that you see uniformed Polish soldiers? Last time I saw that was in the Golan and they seemed nice enough. So we’re talking, one of them spoke English and translated for his buddies. They asked about the bars and the women. I gave them the scoop and asked about Jedwabne. They started to say stuff when 2 minutes later they were hustled back onto their bus by an agitated looking officer… never to be seen again. Yeah. We’ll be sending ol’ man Morel over real soon. Just gotta go over the paper work.

  • Jewli, I gotta register a complaint here. I just penned the most eloquent, learned and sharp comment ever recorded by a living soul, and the goddamned machine fuckin erased it simply because I didn’t leave my email address, password and kidney-donor card. That’s WRONG! It’s just wrong…

    All I’ll resay here as I go to bed crying is that we Jews care far too much for our enemies. What they did to us is beyond compare and all forms of vengeance at that time were admissable. In fact, my only regret is that we didn’t kill more Germans. Maybe if we would have killed a nice six, seven or ten million, we wouldn’t have more and more folk continually trying to wipe us out – they’d see that there are very bad consequences for such attempts.

    So now I come off as a fanatic, without the brilliance of my earlier offerings that would have made it clear that while I am in fact a militant freak, I’m also a fuckin’ brilliant one with a few excellent points in his bag.

    And of course, the required email address and url are fake.

    mnuez

  • Mnuez, it happens to us all the time; welcome to the club. This is why we end up posting a lot of crap on Jewlicious instead of the real jewel-like posts that you should be reading.

  • Oh, and Mnuez, please come often and post often, we are seeking a replacement for CK.

  • Yeah. Seriously. But for our anti-spam measures we would have like won the Nobel prize of blogging. Or a blOgSCAR. Or sumpin. We’re working on making it better…. by the way, no one sees your email address except for me. And I also don’t collect said email addresses. But if I need to contact you for non-spam purposes, it would be nice to know a little more than Alameda, CA. But we appreciate your comments none the less. And please come often and post often. We are seeking a replacement for TM.

  • And I pay the bills and put up the pretty pictures. I’m irreplaceable too. Guess we’re stuck with each other.

  • This is why you write comments and blog posts in a word processor and then do the magical cut and paste…

  • A murderer is a murderer. Even if I could understand why he did what he did – it is still a murder. A Jew should be better then the Nazis.
    In these camps were not only soldiers, ssmen – but civils, like the Jews who were killed. They weren’t the ones who killed Jews, they shouldn’t be killed without trial – unless we want to be on same level as the nazis.

  • Geoff, that would take forethought, organization and something other than just winging it.

    I dunno about CK, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I do usually protect my posts before publishing them by command C’ing them as they post.

  • rochel: a murderer is not a murderer. what morel did pales in both scope and methodology to what the nazis did. if ever there were extenuating circumstances, well…. but seriously. don’t compare morel to any nazi.

  • Rarely has the Muffti heard ck be quite this ridiculous. What are you talking about amigo?

    You said:

    rochel: a murderer is not a murderer. what morel did pales in both scope and methodology to what the nazis did. if ever there were extenuating circumstances, wellรขโ‚ฌยฆ. but seriously. donรขโ‚ฌโ„ขt compare morel to any nazi.

    Yeesh! I mean, what Jeffrey Dahmer did paled both in scope and methodology to what the Nazis did. That is no excuse for not trying the man as a murderer. You don’t have to equal Nazi level brutality and death counts to be, well, a vengeful murderer. And I don’t see why you should be spared trial for what you did.

    what I find more disturibing is the following:

    the guilt for those crimes lies squarely in the hands of the Nazis who condemned their people to the almost inevitable repercussions of genocide

    Seriously, dude, if this is the way you think, the Muffti is rather surprised. I mean, really. If the Japanese randomly stole people’s property after their internment during the war, would you be inclined to ignore what they did and blame the canadian government for interning them? Should we never prosecute african americans because they were the victims of a 300 year policy of deculturalization, slavery and murder?

    And Mnuez, you are a freak. Why are freaks always convinced that they are so smart? And why are you so convinced that eloquence would sugar coat the message that its a shame we didn’t kill more germans? ck can sound a little scary sometimes but if you replace HIM, I’ll definitely a post a new proof that there is no god.

  • “donรขโ‚ฌโ„ขt compare morel to any nazi.”
    why not? He was killing for just being German – without any trial, guilt, no matter what age, gender, life-history…

    If we want justice we first need to do justice.

    And – the article is biased and full of lies. In the camps there were also Poles who were against comunist regime, and “thanks” to such individuals like mr.Morel Poles believed that the comunists’ butchers in jails/camps were in majority Jews… It even isn’t sure what Morel was doing during the war, if/how many members of his family were really killed etc.

    If you were a Polish Jew, like me, you would look on such things much different.

    We are not saints, we are not standing above the Law just because we were victims during the war. Doesn’t matter how many family members you lost- you should control yourself. And if not – at least not be proud of it.
    Morel should be deported to Poland, to show, that we are not proud of murderers among our nation.

  • A crime does not differ in quantity. If you kill one, or ten people, or six million people, you have still commited a crime and you should still be penalized for your actions.
    Excusing Morel for his crimes (there should be an investigation to see if he really commited them) is as absurd as excusing any other homicide. Why is he different? Because he killed Germans? They are people too, they deserved a trial for their crimes ( if they had commited) and they deserve justice just as much as we do.
    And mnuez, you are just a scary person. I really hope you give more value to human life. We shouldร‚ยดve never killed more people in any circumstance because we are Jews. We have values and morals and collective consciousness. Not that it always prevents us from commiting mistakes, but is sure does help.

  • Of course crime differs in quantity. That’s why people who murder more than one person often receive consecutive life sentences.

    Crime also differs in quality in the sense that extenuating circumstances may explain and justify crimes. So a woman who cuts her husband’s penis off is able to escape with minimal judicial punishment because she is able to make the claim (or prove, depending who you believe) that her husband severely and consistently abused her.

    Finally, comparing the alleged killing of Germans in a camp after a genocidal war they launched unprovoked, to the premeditated and aggressive genocidal murder of 6 million Jews and another 5 million non-Jews, seems to be a little off the mark.

  • Muffti. We discussed this on IM. You know what my opinion is and its not quite as freakish as you might think. Granted the million medals thing was a tad flip, as I have already mentioned, but at the end of the day, the idea of deporting Morel is not as simple as some would make it out to be.

    Let’s just focus on the legal issues involved. Deportation is a very serious thing. Asking one country to surrender someone in its custody to another country is a request that is never taken lightly. The implications touch upon issues of state sovereignty and public international law. If the alleged underlying crimes are not a crime in the host country then the country requesting extradition has no leg to stand on. In this case, the statute of limitations has expired. That in and of itself is enough to reject the request.

    Let’s also recall that Morel benefits from the presumption of innocence. He isn’t guilty till found guilty in a court of law. The way many of you are going on, it would seem he’s already been convicted. So far, the evidence I’ve read lacks corroboration and is of dubious veracity. It seems the Poles want to punish Morel for all the alleged crimes of Stalin.

    The matter clearly needs further study and investigation. Furthermore, it would seem that Morel has a good defense based on temporary insanity. This defense would certainly receive a sympathetic ear in Israel where the experience of the holocaust still reverberates powerfully. I am skeptical of the possibility that a Polish court would be as sympathetic.

    Justice has many requirements. Accountability is one but so is basic fairness to the accused. From a legal perspective, the case for not extraditing Morel is sound and solid. All the other stuff I said, is just obiter dicta, so don’t get all indignant muffti.

    Finally, going outside the legal realm, there is no way I would be so quick to hand the likes of Stormfront and the National Vanguard and other anti-semites clamouring for Morel’s hide an ideological victory. Even if every single allegation against Morel is true, his alleged crimes pale in comparison to those of the Nazis. Some here have already none the less made that comparison. In that respect, the scumbags have already won.

  • Even if every single allegation against Morel is true, his alleged crimes pale in comparison to those of the Nazis. Some here have already none the less made that comparison. In that respect, the scumbags have already won.

    Precisely. The Poles are doing this with a purpose in mind and Tel Aviv U’s antisemitism project has pointed out that the Poles are not going after supposed post-war “war criminals” who aren’t Jewish. The allegations stem primarily from the work of one author, who is much beloved by the Stormfront types, which should also be a cause for concern about his reliability.

  • Grandmuffti should clarify as well. The million medals was a tad flip, but whatever. What I didn’t like was the form of argument. I have no particular interest in seeing Morrel deported; but I also don’t like arguments to the effect that ‘we were victims so whatever we did afterwards we can blame on the vicimizers.’ What I hate even more, to be honest, is the idea that a crime should be treated as an ideological issue rather than as what it is, a crime. And what I hate most is comparing one guys’ crime to another guys crime, especially when it comes to numbers. Something just rings wrong about the rapist/murderer who says ‘well, I just did it a few times…not like that Bernardo guy. He was REALLY bad.’ it would be no excuse anywhere else for clemency that you weren’t as bad as the nazis.

  • Wait a minute, Muffti, I agree that murder is murder.

    However, why can’t one say that two murders are worse than one? Aren’t you snuffing out a whole other human being?

    Also, why can’t you claim that the motive or reason behind a murder may make the crime more understandable, and perhaps more forgivable, than a murder with very different motives – especially when the first murder may have caused the reaction of the second murder?

  • See Muffti, extenuating circumstances can be applied to any crime in order to reduce the nature of the crime or absolve the accused entirely. These are legal issues and are relevant in any consideration of guilt.

    The scope and methodology issue that I brought up that you took issue with, relates to the nature of the crime – ie murder vs. genocide. These are legal considerations and have nothing to do with the murder of one person vs. the murder of 17. It has to do with the legal classification of the crime. As for the whole issue of ultimate guilt – that was not a legal argument. I was just stating that there is a logical link between the original crimes of the Nazis and the subsequent alleged crimes of retribution. But for the original crime, the second would never have occured. Does that have any ultimate bearing in the legal realm? No. I just thought it was noteworthy. Your example using African Americans and Japanese really doesn’t apply as the circumstances are vastly different. Nice try though.

    Just keep in mind that ultimately this issue will be decided in a legal context. Stick to the legal arguments, which I believe you have no problem with, and try to ignore my patently silly, emotionally based statements.

  • Let’s see. Grandmuffti never said that there can’t be extenuating circumstances. Nor that more murder is worse than less murder. Nor that people can’t be temporarily insane. Nor that…All Muffti did was say that ideology shouldn’t be the issue, and that not murdering as much as the nazis did (which, to my mind, few if any have managed.) In any case, I take it that it is for a court to decide these sort of matters: all we are doing is speculating wildly.
    CK, your reasoning is totally bullshit. 1) Of course analogies invovle ‘very differnet cirucmstances’. The trick is to show why the differences are relevant. second, the so called ‘logical link’ is crap as well: look, it may even be true that if a woman hadn’t worn what she wore she wouldn’t have gotten raped. And she may even have been able to forsee it. No one, I take it, then blames the woman. So called counterfactual tests for reponsibities make responsibility to easy to establish.

    As for legal arguments, I ain’t the one that went to Canada’s best lawschool… ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Yo. I said “Stick to the legal arguments, which I believe you have no problem with, and try to ignore my patently silly, emotionally based statements.”

    Thus, I never stated that ideology is the issue. The logical link is not crap, and your silly example with the rape victim does not add credence to your argument. Rape, as any sociology undergrad knows, is not about sex. It’s about power. Yet another totally irrelevant example. Even if there was a scintilla of logical coherence in what you say, no one is blaming the victims here. I was positing moral blameworthiness upon the original perpetrators. Moral. Not legal. A better example would be the abuser who himself or herself was abused. Think about it and then tell me there isn’t a logical link.

    BTW, if I can’t make it to Mardi Gras, there’s no reason you shouldn’t go. That Michael dude needs to be taught how to drink like a man and not some hopped up grandma. How you like your pic in the about us section?

  • Grandmuffti has no time for an argument where one participant doesn’t really seem to understand how arguments by analogy work. And he can’t see why sociological facts about rape have anything to do with this really; talk about lack of relevance. The point is that being a cause, even a knowing cause, of an event doesn’t obviously make you responsible for that event’s happening. The rapist example was just that: a case where even if the victim had caused it, and even if she had cause it knowingly, we’d still blame the rapist. So, there is no relevant logical link.

    Anyhow, whatever. I really could care less at this point. Mardi gras sounds fun in any case! Boobs! Beads! No Manischewitz!

  • Here is (apparently) the final word on the grandmuffti (Montage of Sennet) vs. ck (David) battle royale:

    [01:08] David: and i was right btw
    [01:08] David: u were wrong
    [01:08] David: heh
    [01:08] Montage of Sennet: no.
    [01:08] David: yes
    [01:08] Montage of Sennet: I’m afraid
    [01:08] Montage of Sennet: you need logic classes.
    [01:09] David: i’m afraid
    [01:09] Montage of Sennet: badly.
    [01:09] Montage of Sennet: Lawyers are nice people
    [01:09] David: you need common sense classes
    [01:09] Montage of Sennet: but
    [01:09] Montage of Sennet: shit logicians.
    [01:09] Montage of Sennet: oy. I am so not arguing this anymore. I’m too embarrassed for you.
    [01:10] David: i never blamed the victims
    [01:10] Montage of Sennet: i never said you did.
    [01:10] Montage of Sennet: (this is a good example of why you need a class on arguments by analogy)
    [01:10] David: your rape victim example alluded to that
    [01:10] Montage of Sennet: the structure was key, not the irrelevant bits of what happens w/rape ro whatever.
    [01:11] Montage of Sennet: anyways, like I said, I’m not arguing this anymore
    [01:11] Montage of Sennet: 1
    [01:11] Montage of Sennet: re: embarrassed ๐Ÿ™‚
    [01:11] David: all i said was that there was a logical link
    [01:11] David: from nazi holocaust
    [01:11] Montage of Sennet: I’m not arguing this.
    [01:11] David: to subsequent victimization of germans
    [01:12] David: just like there is a logical link between nazi holocaust and reparations
    [01:12] David: cause and effect
    [01:12] Montage of Sennet: Oy.
    [01:12] Montage of Sennet: that was the point of my example
    [01:12] Montage of Sennet: cause and effect isn’t sufficient for responsibility.
    [01:13] David: i never said there was
    [01:13] Montage of Sennet: that’s why we don’t hold the chick responsible, even if she had caused the rape.
    [01:13] David: just noted the link
    [01:13] Montage of Sennet: well, then why is it relevant?
    [01:13] David: who said it was relevant. i was just venting about how the nazi’s evil continues to manifest itself long after they are gone
    [01:13] Montage of Sennet: and why amI still arguing this?
    [01:14] David: how does that not make sense/
    [01:14] David: senor grumpy
    [01:14] David: ๐Ÿ™‚
    [01:14] Montage of Sennet: I quote you:
    [01:14] Montage of Sennet: the guilt for those crimes lies squarely in the hands of the Nazis who condemned their people to the almost inevitable repercussions of genocide. You ask me who was responsible for the deaths of all those Germans? Iรขโ‚ฌโ„ขd say the same people who killed 6 million Jews and caused the deaths of 20-30 million Russians.
    [01:14] Montage of Sennet: cause -> responsibilitiy.
    [01:15] Montage of Sennet: I was claiming
    [01:15] Montage of Sennet: cause does not entail responsibility.
    [01:15] David: please try to distinguish between the sort of responsibility and guilt I was talking about there (abstract) and legal guilt where those considerations have little or no merit
    [01:16] Montage of Sennet: I don’t think causing an event is sufficient for moral or legal responsibility.
    [01:17] David: think of the cycle of violence stuff. man beats on son, son beats on wife, man is not legally responsible for wife’s beating, son is, but there is still a causal link
    [01:17] Montage of Sennet: sure
    [01:17] David: well there ya go
    [01:17] David: thats all i was really saying
    [01:17] Montage of Sennet: well, no one denied the causal link.
    [01:17] Montage of Sennet: but those are rather trivbial to establish.
    [01:17] David: then we have no problem
    [01:18] Montage of Sennet: good.
    [01:18] David: fine.
    [01:18] David: bastard
    [01:18] David: ๐Ÿ™‚
    [01:18] Montage of Sennet: can we stop arguing now?
    [01:18] David: who’s arguing?
    [01:19] Montage of Sennet: Not me1

  • with the exception of Rochel and ms here, most posters are vile hateful trolls with their blind support for a war crime and their endless whitewashing of his crimes against humanity and the hypocricsy of Israel in refusing to hand him over to Poland to face justice right after they attend a “Holocaust awareness” event. I guess creating “anti-semitism” and making it look like everyone just hate teh Jews for being Jews must be big business for lowlifes like Abe Foxman and Debbie Lipstadt,etc.
    Rest in Peace, John Sack, your courageous fight against these corrupt “jewish” elites will not be in vain and neitehr will your death. You know the reason Hitler went after the Jews was becuase certain elite Jews were flooding Germany with immoral filth and pornography. No that doesn’t at justify what Hitler did and it doesn’t at all justify what Solomon did. Just explaining that people use have a reason when they do evil things and the reasonis, not the actions, are understandable.

  • Yeah Kevy, Jews just “create antisemitism” and Abe Foxman and Debbie Lipstadt are “lowlifes.” And what Hitler “did” and what Solomon “did” are certainly to be mentioned in the same breath. Yup, you make a really compelling argument as to why you are wrong.

  • Hi, I am from Poland. I don’t care, if Morel is JEw, Pole, American… I do care he’s guilty and must be punished!