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

The Extermination of the European Jews, by Christian Gerlach. 2016. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and London

Atypical Justice to the “Non-Jewish Victims of the Nazis”. Holocaust-Uniqueness Misconceptions Countered

This book addresses a number of commonly-voiced premises that turn out to be incorrect. I review some of them.

NOT ONLY JEWS SUFFERED UNDER THE NAZIS: POLISH FORCED LABORERS AS SLAVES FOR NAZI GERMANY

Consider the forced laborers in the Third Reich. Author Gerlach confirms earlier Polish and German statistics of a cumulative total of 13-14 million such forced laborers since 1939. (p. 187). Of these, Soviets and Poles were the largest groups. (p. 187).

Gerlach writes, “Polish and Soviet forced laborers in particular brutal treatment in Germany. They worked long hours and had no rights. They were underfed, often exhausted, housed in barracks (Soviet civilian forced workers were interned in camps behind barbed wire), received insufficient medical treatment and were barred from public air raid shelters, a measure which by itself claimed tens of thousands of lives.” (p. 189).

Furthermore, “Estimates of the number of Polish forced workers who died in Germany range from 20,000 to 137,000 (the latter figure includes 1-6% of the POWs). (p. 191). Polish forced laborers wore the Letter “P”.

PRACTICAL VALUE OF POLISH GUERRILLA WARFARE: GERMAN GENOCIDAL STARVATION OF POLES WAS AMELIORATED

Christian Gerlach comments, “The German leadership thus succeeded in stabilizing food supplies for the German population until late 1944 by exploiting Europe’s resources, carrying out mass murder and imposing hunger on other peoples. This was one of the reasons behind popular support at home for Nazi policies, right to the end. The policy no longer to provide the urban population with bread after early 1943 could not be sustained. Although Reich authorities refused to make major concessions, the regional civil administration and the Higher SS and Police Leader in the General Government decided not to carry out the plan. As Kruger stated, TO DO OTHERWISE WOULD HAVE TURNED 2 MILLION POLES INTO THE ARMS OF THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT, and the black market that would have mushroomed could not have been controlled due to the lack of German police to crack down on it.” (p. 251; Emphasis added).

Now consider some implications of the Polokaust (Polocaust), including the claim, by some of the LEWACTWO, that Polish resistance to the Germans had been a romantic or quixotic adventure, and that it amounted to nothing but futile bloodletting. It most certainly was none of these: It had, even if nothing else, the practical effect of reducing the severity of the Nazi German depredations against Poles. In addition, as we can plainly see, the slackening of German terror against the Poles owed to practical reasons, and not the Nazis suddenly discovering some sort of greater esteem for Poles than for Jews.

NO DICHOTOMY BETWEEN NAZI GERMAN TREATMENT OF THE JEWS AND THAT OF THE SLAVIC UNTERMENSCHEN

Gerlach comments, “With about 3 million deaths out of approximately 5.7 million people (a mortality rate or more than 50%), Soviet POWs were the second largest group of victims of German rule…Many features of the treatment of Soviet POWs either resembled that of Jews, or were connected with policies against them.” (p. 223).

THE NAZIS DID NOT TARGET ALL ACCESSIBLE JEWS FOR EXTERMINATION: THEY DELIBERATELY SPARED, FOR EXAMPLE, THE JEWISH POWS OF CERTAIN NATIONS

Author Gerlach writes, “Jews among British and U. S., but also French and Yugoslav POWs, received largely the same treatment as non-Jews (despite occasional harassment)–and usually survived.” (p. 236).

As for the pop-up answer that the Germans feared retaliation against German POWs in Allied captivity, were it true, it would only go on to show that, contrary to the usual mystification of the Holocaust, the Third Reich did indeed have priorities over that concerning the destruction of Jews.

As it turns out, fear of retaliation is too simplistic. Thus, Gerlach quips, “Still, this can hardly explain the treatment of Jewish POWs from Yugoslavia, a country that did not field an army capable of taking German prisoners after April 1941. Appearing to adhere to the rule of law was apparently of so much propagandistic value for German military authorities that this consideration of foreign policy overrode murderous government policies against Jews.” (p. 236).

Evidently, then, to Hitler, “military manners” was more important than killing as many Jews as possible. That is NOT what we are usually told.

So much for the oft-repeated Holocaust misconception that the Nazis had a unique cosmic-event obsession with killing Jews, and that they would spare no effort to kill every single possible Jew, moreover regardless of any other consideration!

THE MYTH OF THE JEWS’ HOLOCAUST AS A UNIQUE EVENT THAT BROUGHT NO MATERIAL BENEFITS TO THE PERPETRATOR

We sometimes hear that genocides are normally conducted in order to provide some tangible benefit to the perpetrator, and that the Shoah is special because it was the only genocide in history that did not. To begin with, who decides when a genocide is “rational” or “irrational”, or that material gain can be the only grounds for making a genocide “rational”, or–most important of all–that an “irrational” genocide is worthy of one iota more recognition than an “rational” genocide?

Ironic to all this rational-genocide/irrational-genocide sophistry, which is irrelevant in any case, the Shoah DID in fact provide net material benefit to the Nazis. Christian Gerlach points out that, even disregarding the mobile and portable properties that the murdered Jews had left behind, “The income generated by the annihilation centers far exceeded their costs because Jews were robbed of their possessions that they brought with them…These [Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka] were not ‘enormous, costly extermination factories’ but small killing stations with a few hundred inmates each….One author estimates that the SS made a profit of 1,231 Reichsmark per prisoner in Auschwitz if one compares the value of their labor, valuables, and belongings to the incineration costs.” (pp. 273-274).

The facts are clear, the Gerlach thus concludes, “As all this indicates, the expulsion and murder of Jews produced financial gains, not losses. FINANCE WAS A FACTOR PUSHING FOR, NOT AN OBSTACLE TO, PERSECUTION. Booty collected at the extermination centers was only a fraction of the total.” (p. 275. Emphasis added).

NO SHOAH-DIVERTED TRAINS: THE MYTH OF THE JEWS’ HOLOCAUST AS A UNIQUE EVENT IN WHICH THE PERPETRATORS HARMED THEMSELVES MILITARILY

According to a popular meme, the Nazis were the only perpetrators in history to conduct a genocide that knowingly hurt themselves. Not so. Gerlach quips, “Contrary to some assertions, Jewish deportation trains did NOT have the highest priority–this was given to military transport. The Security Police repeatedly interrupted or postponed the deportation of Jews because of transportation stoppages: that is, short-term bans on non-military rail traffic. Some of these stoppages fell during periods of massive deportation from the General Government of Poland–as occurred in the second half of June, and the first half of September 1942. (These times were used to build new gas chambers in Sobibor and Treblinka, respectively. Even in late July 1942, the most intense period of deportation, Himmler had to beg the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Transport for more trains.” (p. 284; Emphasis in original). For more on the truth about railroads and the Holocaust, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2025/12/29/holocaust-self-punishment-myths-in-media/