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

Muranowska 7: Warsaw Ghetto Rising, by Chaim Lazar Litai. 1970

Jewish Servility: Jewish Nazi Collaboration Bred Polish Betrayals of Jews. So Did the Draconian German Terror

The author provides background to the Betar movement, and praises Ze’ev Jabotinsky. He thinks that religious and ethical issues had stood in the way of earlier Jewish armed resistance against the Nazis (pp. 121-122), and faults the ZOB for taking an unwarranted amount of credit for the Uprising. (p. 8).

BEYOND GERMANOPHILIA: JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION, IRONICALLY, ENCOURAGED POLISH DENUNCIATIONS OF JEWS!

Lazar Litai devotes much attention to Jewish Gestapo agents (pp. 178-184), and calls the role of the Jewish Ghetto police in the AKTION “tragic and shameful”. (p. 108). He even suggests that Judenrat-Nazi collaboration had bred Polish denunciation of fugitive Jews: “They [Judenrat] failed to realize that it was this total submission to and blind compliance with the Germans’ orders that rendered their work of annihilation so much the easier. Moreover, it made the Poles all the more contemptuous of the Jews, so that they regarded every Jew they happened to come across in the ‘Aryan sector’ as fair game, to be hunted down, sold out to the Germans, and dispossessed of his belongings.” (p. 117)

[The fact of Jewish subservience to Germans being excessive confirms the findings of Polish scholar Ewa Kurek.]

SUBSTANTIAL POLISH AID TO THE WARSAW GHETTO INSURGENTS

This work provides considerable detail on Polish aid to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It went far beyond the significant arming of the Jewish combatants. Note, for instance, “…the well-camouflaged apartment where members of the organization were trained three or four times a week by a Polish instructor called Kasik in the use of weapons, hand-grenade throwing, street-to-street fighting, and barricade defense.” (pp. 158-159). Wladyslaw Zaidler-Zarski confirmed the authenticity of “Bystry” (Iwanski)(pp. 221-224), as, of course, did Lazar Litai himself. Simcha Korengold described Polish AK (Home Army) members, some mentioned by name, who surveyed the labyrinthine sewer canals so that they could be used for various combat purposes. (e. g., p. 218, 293-296). In an immediate-postwar deposition, Stroop admitted to constant Polish re-supply of ammunition through a tunnel. (p. 238; see also pp. 136-137, 143, 150, etc.).

IN SAYING THESE THINGS, THE AUTHOR IS NOT TRYING TO MAKE THE POLES LOOK GOOD

Lazar Litai’s accounts of Polish help couldn’t possibly have arisen from some kind of sycophantic attitude towards Poles. In fact, he repeats several Polonophobic Holocaust myths that have since found their way into innumerable Holocaust materials. There is, for instance, mention of Poles celebrating Easter (p. 362), implying Polish disrespect of Jewish suffering. (When Poles held Masses during their own Warsaw Uprising of 1944, who were they disrespecting?) We hear that Poles were more upset about the destruction of property than about the destruction of the Jews. (p. 362). I’ve read many Jewish survivor accounts, and that’s a new one to me!

FEAR OF GERMAN TERROR ADMITTEDLY DROVE POLISH DENUNCATIONS OF FUGITIVE JEWS

Life-and-death issues reigned constantly. Jews who had fled to the Aryan side after the Uprising were sometimes betrayed by Poles fearful of the fact that the Germans would otherwise shoot masses of Poles in retaliation for the killings of Germans by Jews. (p. 297).