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

Surviving Hitler in Poland: One Jew’s Story, by George J. Rynecki. 2006

Zydokomuna. Primal Polonophobia. Jewish Germanophilia and Its Consequences

This awkwardly-titled memoir consists of a rather unorganized set of notes written down, often decades after the events, by an emigre Polish Jew. The notes were located and published after his death.

THE ZYDOKOMUNA: AUTHOR SPEAKS OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH

Rynecki complains of Poles seeing Jews as pro-Communist, yet he speaks of Leon Trotsky in glowing terms. Recounting his 9 year-old self’s eyewitness experiences, he acknowledges Jewish-Communist affinity, doing so within a framework of transparent Communist ideation: “It must have been late summer during the Polish-Bolshevik war when the Red Armies advanced deep into Poland up to the River Vistula…The Russians have taken Siedlce and were very friendly to the Jews. Trotsky, a Jew himself, was in command of the whole Russian Western front…Trotsky came to town himself and…talked surrounded by all these people; Jews, peasants, and laborers. The landowners, businessmen, and middle class people were in hiding or out of town–refugees.” (pp. 46-47)

JEWISH GERMANOPHILIA CAUSES LATE JEWISH AWARENESS OF THE HOLOCAUST

Many Jewish writers speak of the pro-German orientation of Polish Jews, as does Rynecki: “My father…was displaced in 1940 and deported to Majdanek, near Lublin, in 1943, where most probably he was executed by the Germans in a gas chamber. He believed to the end that no matter what, the Germans were of too high a culture to do the things they did. He represented, in a way, the mind of the Jewish people. They all believed the Germans. They all have made that massive mistake.” (p. 63)

THE AUTHOR’S PRIMAL POLONOPHOBIA

Rynecki makes some particularly offensive remarks (pp. 67-68), and I hope that no Polish extremist reads them lest his hatred of Jews becomes reinforced. Rynecki actually says that the 1939 Polish defeat proves that Polish history and patriotism mean nothing, and that Polish officers lacked intelligence. (Might not the 5:1 weapons asymmetry favoring the Germans have something to do with it?). To pour on the insults, Rynecki says that the Poles got what they deserved–the heavy Russian boot. (How is that different from saying that the Jews deserved the Holocaust because of their long-term pro-German orientation, often at Polish expense?)

REVEALING JEWISH THINKING: FORGIVING THE GERMANS BUT NOT FORGIVING THE POLES

Rynecki even says that, while he may forgive the Germans, he would never forgive the Poles (For what? Wasn’t it the Germans who had killed the 5-6 million Jews? Or was it the Poles after all?) Amazingly, he categorically says that NO Pole would help a Jew out of benevolence and excoriates Poles for requiring payment (He owes his life to such a Pole). He has no problem with the Danes (whom he glorifies) having taken hefty fees to ship Jews to Sweden, and disregards the fact that the Poles, very unlike the Danes, lived under German-imposed near-starvation conditions, and couldn’t readily provide food for free. Go figure. Then again, when Polonophobia is involved, especially Jewish Polonophobia, the reader should not expect rational thinking.

POLES AND NOT ONLY JEWS WERE ALONE IN DEATH: THE HOLOCAUST AND THE POLOCAUST

Let’s end on a positive note. For once, Rynecki recognizes the shared fate of Jews and Poles: “[Hitler]…committed genocide on the Jewish, Polish, Russian people…The Jews were alone. So were the Poles.” (p. 66). For once, Rynecki gets it right!