Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Holocaust and the Historians, by Lucy S. Dawidowicz. 1981

No Polish Death Camps. Holocaust Survivor Testimony Unreliable. Jewish Nazi Collaboration a Legitimate Issue (But To Be Postponed For Another Generation!)

THE POLISH DEATH CAMP CANARD REPUDIATED

Lucy Dawidowicz comments, (quote) The Germans used Poland as their gigantic laboratory for mass murder, not (as has sometimes been wrongly charged) because the Nazis counted on Polish anti-Semitism, but because that was where most of Europe’s Jews were concentrated and where the Germans expected to settle for a long time. (unquote). (pp. 92-93).

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR TESTIMONY IS UNRELIABLE

Davidowicz is frank as she addresses this subject, (quote) Many thousands of oral histories by survivors recounting their experiences exist in libraries and archives around the world. Their quality and usefulness vary significantly according to the informant’s memory, grasp of events, insights, and of course accuracy…The longer the time elapsed, the less likely that the informant has retained freshness of recollection or can offer new information. The transcribed testimonies I have examined have been full of errors in dates, names of participants, and places, and there are evident misunderstandings of the events themselves. (unquote). (pp. 176-177).

Lucy Dawidowicz’s cautionary statements are especially relevant today. Neo-Stalinist authors such as Jan T. Gross, Jan Grabowski vel Abrahamer, and Barbara Engelking, have openly stated that Jewish Holocaust testimonies be accepted automatically as valid, because, after all, they are the voices of victims. In contrast, Dawidowicz, notwithstanding her anti-Polish bias, realizes that no one’s testimony is privileged, and that the normal processes of historical scrutiny of information must always be in force.

For more on the fact that Holocaust survivor testimony is not inherently reliable, see my reviews of:

Christopher R. Browning’s COLLECTED MEMORIES:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/bad-pole-holocaust-survivor-testimony-unreliable-browning/

Annette Wieviorka’s ERA OF THE WITNESS:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/bad-pole-holocaust-survivor-testimony-unreliable-wieviorka/

Bettina Stangneth’s EICHMANN BEFORE JERUSALEM:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/german-contrition-dubious-stangneth/

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION–A VALID ISSUE THAT IS NOT BEING ADDRESSED

The author discusses the Judenrat controversy. Although she tries to belittle Hannah Arendt and her conclusion in EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM, Dawidowicz tacitly admits that the role of the Judenrat and the Jewish ghetto police are legitimate issues, (quote) Perhaps in another generation, when the suppurating wounds which the Holocaust inflicted on all Jews will have closed, it will be possible for Jews to confront Holocaust history. (unquote). (p. 139).

HOLOCAUST SELF-IMPORTANCE AGAIN–THIS TIME TAKEN TO EXTREMES

The author goes beyond the usual attempt to portray the Holocaust as something qualitatively different from, and above, all other genocides. She repeatedly tries to depreciate Polish suffering under the Nazis (e. g, p. 10, 13, 103, 119). This is clearly Polokaust negationism.

FALSIFICATIONS OF HOLOCAUST HISTORY

Dawidowicz has a chapter on the treatment of the Holocaust in Communist-ruled Poland. She realizes that Jewish Communist author Bernard Mark falsified history, in order to glorify the Communists. (pp. 101-102, 106, 170).