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OUR PHILOSOPHY OF LINKS

"I may disapprove of all you say - but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."

•  François Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778)

"For evil to triumph, it is enough that good men stand aside and are silent."

•  Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"Where they burn books, they will end by burning human beings."

•  Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

The right of all men and women to speak their minds without fear of reprisal is an absolute requirement of democracy.

However, freedom of speech and of writing are all that are guaranteed; and what is freedom on one side must be equally freedom on the other. The extremes of left and right, top and bottom, drive the great majority of people toward the center and therefore toward measured, orderly, and civil discourse. It is not always so, but it is always worth the risk of trying.

Furthermore, there is a huge gulf between freedom of speech and freedom of action. Obscene, hateful, and deliberately damaging speech ought to be protected, at least within the limits of sensible and restrained libel laws. But as soon as it traverses the line between words and actions, it ought to be watched closely, and as soon as the first drop of blood is threatened to be shed, it ought to be quelled and the perpetrators prosecuted as the thugs and gangsters they will have then proved themselves to be.

In several European countries - though not Poland -- it is a crime to print or sell a copy of Mein Kampf. Mein Kampf is unquestionably a hateful book. But it should never be a crime just to read, and nothing should ever be done to prevent reading or to make access to books difficult. David Irving, a British historian and acknowledged Nazi sympathizer, is now serving a prison sentence in Austria for the crime of "Holocaust denial." Irving has at times said some stupid things, and published some stupid articles. He is a on the unpleasantly far right of many discussions on many subjects, but in a well ordered world he would not be in wasting the Austrian taxpayers' money by sitting in an Austrain prison simply for having said stupid things. His crime is the equivalent of saying that the earth is flat or that water is not made up from two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. We should not forget that the Nazis, too, banned books and imprisoned people solely for their opinions. Fighting Nazism using Nazi tactics is more dangerous and damaging than many people seem to recognize.

In the spirit of the quotations listed at the top of this statement, we offer these links to those prepared to use their own intelligence and their own judgment to reach their own opinions. We have not censored any of them. We have not included just the ones we approve of. Where possible, we have balanced an opinion on the left by one on the right, and vice versa. There are so many links because we want you to browse in them, get lost in them, and eventually find your way to what you believe and don't believe in them. Whether you are reading about Radio Marya on the one hand or about Erika Steinbach on the other, keep an open mind.

We also do not tell anyone which ones please us and which ones disturb us, because that is not our purpose - we are not demagogues, propagandists or censors, and we deplore those who are. Our hope is that by revealing as many viewpoints as possible, those who are curious will come to know that the truth is rarely simple. The devil, as they say, is in the details. The truth is iridescent more often than it is irreducible. Often, it will appear differently to different people, and even to the same person at different times and in different contexts. Always be as skeptical of your own views as you are of the views of others. Never stop reevaluating.

Read carefully. Discuss deeply. And do not harm someone for being or believing differently from you. Difference and diversity are a gift. A world without difference and diversity is perpetually gray.

Disclaimer: Poznań Synagogue Project is not responsible for the content of any of the sites listed here, other than its own site. We neither condone nor criticize the sites of others. We believe the opinions expressed in them, even where hateful or wrong-minded, should, in a democracy worthy of the name, be protected by the laws of civil society, in which it has been long recognized that freedom of speech is paramount. Where governments attempt to stifle speech, they serve only the narrowest and most shortsighted of interests.

If you are aware of additional websites that you believe should be added to this site, please send a list of them to info@pozsynpro.org



For every link that has been included in this already long list, there are several more that might have been included. This, we believe, is a sign of health - though, sadly, the same willingness to debate matters is not shown in the Polish press or other mainstream media. In our choices, we have attempted to be balanced. Where one website might applaud the closure of some website or bookstore for "distributing hate," another might deplore the same closure as a loss of "free speech." We have attempted to show both sides. Not everyone will be pleased by our choices, perhaps no one will be very pleased. Of course, we do have our own views, which we make no attempt to hide - for example, we favor free speech (even when it is hateful) over political correctness and censorship, and we draw sharp distinctions between words and acts. We also generally believe that all people should be treated equally and according to the same social and legal norms, without reference of any kind to their religious beliefs, their ethnicity, their race, their cultural foundations, or their history. Every day is a new day, and the past cannot be corrected. It can, however, be learned from - and that should be the emphasis of all well-meaning people.

Poznań Synagogue Project is not responsible for the content of any of the external links listed above. It has collected them and listed them solely for the purpose of encouraging further research into, and discussion of, the many complex issues that surround the former synagogue of Poznań and the problems inherent in the management and preservation of all types of patrimony in Central Europe .

If you know of an additional website that you think should be included in this list, please send us their URLs. We will review all suggestions. If we agree with you, we will list them. Where possible, please provide more than one viewpoint for each topic.