In year 2018 important issues could be dividing Poles, but Auschwitz and Poland’s treatment of Jews during World War II, around 75 years ago, should not be one of these.

Sir, I am the son of a Polish citizen who was one of the 728 prisoners that in June 1940 arrived on the first train to Auschwitz (#245 on his arm). Though I proudly carry a Polish passport, I have shamefully little knowledge of Poland. That said I am absolutely sure that if my father had heard someone defining “Auschwitz-Birkenau as a “Polish death camps”, he would have punched him. And had he heard of some few Poles not having been complicit in the pursuit of Jews, he would also have asked: “What are you smoking?”

Therefore I was very appreciative off Professor Jan Gross’ comment “Poland’s death camp law distorts history” February 6, and so I wrote to him.

But now Arkady Rzegocki’s “Poland in no way agreed to collaboration” on February 12, confuses me.

Many things could be dividing Poles in 2018, but Auschwitz and Poland’s treatment of Jews during World War II, about 75 years ago, should most definitely be one of those.

Please, for the sanity of Poland (and mine) have them both sit down and urgently resolve their differences… perhaps at an FT Lunch J

@PerKurowski

We do not believe that the Venezuelan military can contemplate sending their compatriots to the starvation ovens.

My deceased father arrived on the first train to Auschwitz in 1940 as a Polish prisoner, and had number 245 tattooed on his arm. Freed in 1945 by the Americans, in 1947 he moved to Venezuela where he lived for over 30 years, worshipping that country all his life. And now I find Andres Schipani’s “Venezuela army tightens grip as food riots grow”, July 30, coincidentally published next to an AP brief “Silent pilgrim” and that reports on a visit of Pope Francis to Auschwitz.

And so I just must say the following Sir: My father would never ever have believed, as neither do I believe, that the Venezuelan military are capable of sending their compatriots to the starvation ovens. And, in this respect, we would both firmly believe that something has to happens to put a stop to the runaway craziness of the current Venezuelan realities, more sooner than later.

@PerKurowski ©

What happens with the fighting spirit of humans, if you outsource soldiering to robot soldiers and drones?

Today FT-Magazine, published in England and not in the US, included an edited version of the following letter I sent them related to an article that did appear in the US. It is somewhat strange since my letter, as you will be able to see, was foremost directed to the US.

Like drones, robots also present challenges to the national psyche of their users (“Robot soldiers”, July 18/19) – the possibility of a diminishing human fighting spirit hiding behind drones and robots. 

I think it is hard to visualise the same type of national “good feeling”, with homecoming parades and memorials, when scientists and mechanical engineers have done the real fighting. And what will be more important for the advancement of a military career in the future: knowledge about robots or knowledge about your men? Will the traditional drill sergeant just become a figure featured in History channel documentaries? 

What keeps me coming back to these issues is that 70 years ago my father was freed from a concentration camp in Germany by courageous American boots on the ground… not by drones or robots. 

Per Kurowski 

Rockville, Maryland, US

Will drones and robot soldiers send the drill sergeants home?

Here is the short version of a letter to FT as it was published in FT Magazine on August 1, 2015

Like drones, robots also present challenges to the national psyche of their users (“Robot soldiers”, July 18/19) – the possibility of a diminishing human fighting spirit hiding behind drones and robots.

I think it is hard to visualize 
the same type of national “good feeling”, with homecoming parades and memorials, when scientists and mechanical engineers have done the real fighting. And what will be more important for the advancement of a military career in the future: knowledge about robots or knowledge about your men?

Will the traditional drill sergeant just become a figure featured in History channel documentaries?

What keeps me coming back
 to these issues is that 70 years 
ago my father was freed from a concentration camp in Germany by courageous American boots on the ground... not by drones or robots.

Per Kurowski
 Rockville, Maryland, US

Here is the original longer version of that letter:

Sir, I refer to Geoff Dyer’s interesting “Robot Soldiers”, FT Magazine July 18.

It is a comprehensive article, except for, like with drones, robots also present challenges to the national psychic of its users. I refer concretely to the possibility of a diminishing fighting spirit of the humans hiding behind drones and robots. And what about in comparison to the fighting spirit of others who cannot do so? What if these others, by for instance a cyber attack, manage to neutralize the drones and robots and it then comes down to a real man to man struggle? 

And I am not joking when I say that it is hard to visualize the same type of national good feelings with homecoming parades and memorials, when scientists and mechanical engineers have done the real fighting.

Also, when Dyer quotes Mary Cummings with “I don’t think we have enough competent people within the government to be able to set up acquisition programmes for autonomous weapons or anything robotic,” it makes one think about what will be more important for the advancement of a military career in the future, knowledge about drones and robots, or knowledge about your men… and the implications of that. Will the traditional drill sergeant just become a figure featured in History Channel documentaries?

I must confess though that what keeps me coming back to these issues is that this year 70 years ago, my father was freed from a concentration camp in Germany by courageous American boots on the ground… not by drones or robots. And the question that keeps popping up it my mind is; will American or other soldiers still have what it takes to free other future imprisoned fathers, if need be?

@PerKurowski

Would you really want to survive in a world if that requires you acts that are inhuman beyond description?

Sir, I refer to Philippe Sands review of Göran Rosenberg’s “A brief stop”, November 9.

I am not a Jew, but my father, as a polish soldier was on the first train of prisoners to Auschwitz, where he spent years having to photograph many horrors. And my father, after the war, was also able to arrive to Sweden, about or even the same day as Rosenberg’s father… and where he met my mother. And I recently read this book in Swedish, and was equally moved by it.

But for me, the most nerve-wracking part of the book is the description of how in the Polish ghettos a Jewish Council had to wrestle with the decision to elaborate or not, a list with names of thousand of children and grandparents to be delivered to the Nazis, to certain death, in order for some to have a chance to survive. In the Lodz ghetto they did that, and Rosenberg and many other survived. “Would you really want to survive in a world that can require you do that?” is a haunting question that will stay with you.