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

Am I a Murderer?, By Calel Perechodnik. 1996

No German Guilt Diffusion. Jewish Self-Criticism and Candor. Polish Anti-Semitism Exaggerated. Zydokomuna. Poles Weren’t Glad That Hitler Killed Jews

The author was a Jewish ghetto policeman at the Otwock Ghetto. His testimony is unusually fair and lucid.

THE GERMANS DID THE HOLOCAUST–NOT SOME KIND OF DEGERMANIZED NAZIS. JEWISH ATTITUDES PROVOKED THE HOLOCAUST

There is no German guilt diffusion here. Unlike the modern thinking that basically blames Christianity for the Holocaust, Perechodnik puts the blame squarely where it belongs–on the Germans. He also assigns part of the blame on the Jewish sense of superiority over others. Thus, he writes, “We are puzzled about where such hatred by Germans of Jews comes from, how much of it is the fault of the Jews. My opinion is that, setting aside inborn German sadism, the desire to murder for the enjoyment of killing, and the lust for gold, I ascribe the entire blame to the Jewish religion. One cannot enjoy the hospitality of other peoples and consider oneself a chosen people, better and wiser...Yes, the Jewish religion had divided us from other people with a Chinese wall, had inculcated in us a psychology of distinctness…” (pp. 171-172; see also p. 151).

POLISH ANTI-SEMITISM HAD BEEN WAY OVERBLOWN

Before WWII, Perechodnik wasn’t admitted to a Polish university, yet he concluded: “Besides, I want it clearly understood that I personally did not come in contact with anti-Semitism.” (p. xxii). This adds to the refutation of the claim that prewar Polish anti-Semitism had been an inevitable and constant companion of Polish Jews, and that assimilated Polish Jews suffered from anti-Semitism as much as the unassimilated Jewish majority.

ZYDOKOMUNA: JEWISH-SOVIET COLLABORATION

The author provides eyewitness comments on the 1939 war, while in eastern Poland: “I don’t deny that there were Jews–old-time Communists–who disarmed Polish detachments, but can one blame this on all the Jews? I believe that the number of Jews who fell with arms in hand while defending Poland was larger than the number of Jews disarming Polish detachments.” (p. 2). [Probably true, but any such comparison is disingenuous (e. g, like: During WWII, Jews killed more mosquitos than they did flies. That’s because flies are faster.) Thus, military service to Poland was compulsory, but performing the disarming of Polish soldiers, on behalf of the invading Soviets, usually was not.]

THE MYTH OF POLISH REJOICING AT THE GERMAN-MADE HOLOCAUST

Calel Perechodnik believed that the 1939 war had brought Poles and Jews close together (p. 1), although this cooled somewhat in the following year or so (with Polish denunciations of Jews being “scattered incidents”: p. 5). And, despite his later bitterness towards Poles, he recorded observations that don’t support the modern notion of Poles habitually delighting in Jewish sufferings (e. g, the scene in SCHINDLER’S LIST where the Polish girl gives a sarcastic farewell (Goodbye Jews!) to the soon-to-be-murdered Jews). Poles in trains passing the Ghetto lowered their heads, made the sign of the cross, and prayed: “May they rest in peace.” (p. 41). On another occasion, Poles stood silently as they saw the blood marks, of murdered Jews, on the pavement. (p. 55).

POLES STEAL FROM JEWS–TELLING THE SELDOM-TOLD TRUTH

Perechodnik cuts the Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa) some slack in their thefts from Jews by recognizing the fact that the wages they were paid were non-livable. (p. 31). He doesn’t go far enough. Poles themselves lived in crushing poverty under German occupation, and this fact readily explains their eagerness to acquire Jewish properties. In fact, Poles who stole from Jews said that: Jews were already doomed by the Germans; Jewish wealth had originated from Polish soil, and, were Poles not to take Jewish property, it would be taken anyway–by the Germans. (p. 6, 57, 72, 99). Of course, stealing is virtually universal in wartime, and even the Jewish ghetto policemen frequently stole from each other–a fact underlined by Perechodnik. (p. 88). [This was not a choiceless choice].

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION: NO STRAIGHTFORWARD EXCULPATION

The Ukrainian police was vicious. They often shot Jews in the Ghetto, at close range, for sport. (pp. 33-35, 44, 105). As for Perechodnik’s own Nazi collaboration, which included the dispatching of his relatives to their deaths at Treblinka, he wrote of having a stony heart (p. 104), of believing that he would outlast the Nazis (p. 106), and asking the question of the memoir’s title. (p. 54). He then fled the Ghetto and was aided by a succession of Polish benefactors (e. g., p. 101, 159-167, 182-183) before his eventual reputed suicide.