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

To Die With Honor: The Uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, by Leonard Tushnet. 1965

Jewish Collaboration With the Nazis. Substantial Polish Aid Recognized. Rescued Jews Denounced Polish Rescuers 

This book touches on several issues that are relevant to Polish-Jewish relations, and I discuss some of them:

CAPTURED JEWS DENOUNCED POLISH RESCUERS, CAUSING THEIR DEATHS. POLES WERE FORCED TO PROTECT THEMSELVES

The standard narrative of Poles denouncing or killing fugitive Jews has been publicized by the likes of Jan Grabowski in his JUDENJAGD (Hunt for the Jews). Important information had conveniently been left out, some of which I describe in the next paragraph.

Leonard Tushnet quoted this warning from the Voice of Poland, the Armia Krajowa paper, “It happens that, as isolated Jews escape from the Polish side to seek shelter in the surrounding homes, Christians react with sympathy to their luckless neighbors. They forget their former vexations with the Jews and place their own lives in jeopardy by rescuing these people. But the beau geste must be mixed with common sense. The Jews fear the Germans more than death! When they are later caught, they show, in many cases, where they spent the night. As a result, for one Jew whole Polish families are killed…” (p. 104).

For more on this, see my review of MICROHISTORIES OF THE HOLOCAUST, by Zalc (the article by Tomasz Frydel):

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jew-killing-wwii-by-poles-explained-zalc/

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION

Throughout the Holocaust, Jews faced the danger of denunciation not only from outsiders, but also from members of their own ranks (e. g., Jewish Gestapo agents: p. 61, 67). Some Jews faked ZOB (Z.O.B., or ZHOB) membership in order to make levies on other Jews “to buy arms”. (p. 46). Nazi-serving Jewish agent-provocateurs, the best-known of which formed the organization ZAGIEV (ZAGIEW) (“The Spark”), tried to incite premature uprisings. (pp. 67-68). During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising itself captured Jews, promised their lives, betrayed the location of bunkers. (p. 96, 103). Some Jewish industrialists repeated (bogus) Nazi offers of amnesty. (p. 66).

THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING WAS TAINTED WITH COMMUNISM

One factor in the reluctance of the Polish Underground to support the ZOB more substantially owed to its Communist sympathies. Indeed, these celebrated May Day, and sung the Internationale. (p. 99). Among political parties, Jewish support for Communism went far beyond membership in the Communist Party. For instance, part of the Bund, a large mainstream prewar Jewish political party, supported Communism. (p. 99).

SIGNIFICANT POLISH AID TO THE JEWS’ WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

The Revisionists or Betarim (ZZW, or Z.Z.W.), in contrast to the ZOB, the ZZW got significant training, and arming, from Polish Underground forces, going back long before the Uprising. (pp. 45-46. Typo: should be Dec. 1942, not Dec. 1943). The Polish AK (A. K.)(ARMIA KRAJOWA) helped by attacking German posts (p. 81), and by attempting to blast a hole in the ghetto wall (pp. 83-84). Unidentified Poles torched railroad freight cars that were to be used to transport Jews to their deaths. (p. 88). Zhegota (Zegota) is mentioned, and credited with saving the lives of at least 20,000 Warsaw Jews. (p. 42).

Tushnet mentions some of the German acts of terror and reprisal directed against Poles during the Uprising. (p. 65, 86, 90).

ANOTHER VOLLEY OF ANTI-POLISH HOLOCAUST LORE

Unfortunately, Tushnet cheapens his work by lapsing into Polonophobic innuendo. He makes sweeping accusations about the AK being unfriendly to the Jews (p. 32), and even out to kill Jews (p. 34). Without a shred of evidence, he insinuates that the Polish Government-in-Exile was influenced by supposed elements that sympathized with the Nazi destruction of Polish Jewry. (p. 33). Tushnet also repeats the myth about the AK having plenty of weapons. (p. 43). As for veiled anti-Christian tales related to Easter commemoration by Poles, Tushnet doesn’t repeat the one about Poles annoyed by the smoke entering the church during Mass. (as shown in Jon Avnet’s UPRISING). Instead, he tells a different tall tale: That Poles leaving Easter Mass were annoyed by the fact that the smoke and ash from the burning Ghetto was spoiling their Easter finery. (p. 93). (I have read many accounts by Jews, and that’s a new one to me.)