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

A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust, by Mary Fulbrook. 2012

Nazis Saw Jews and Poles Similarly, and Showed It In Their Actions. Jewish Nazi Collaboration Once Treated Just Like Any Others’ Collaboration

This work centers on the Jews of Bedzin (Bendzin). It touches on pre-WWII Polish-Jewish relations, the early years of Nazi German rule (this area had been annexed directly into the Third Reich), the Holocaust proper, and some postwar Jewish experiences.

NAZISM AND RELIGION

Author Fulbrook examines wartime events through the eyes of Udo Klausa, an “ordinary German”. Klausa’s superior was put off by Klausa’s devout Catholicism. (p. 14). However, Klausa obviously dichotomized his private faith and his public conduct, and suffered no obvious repercussions because of his religious convictions. (p. 195).

POLAND WAS HARDLY A BAD PLACE FOR THE JEWS

Before WWII, the Bedzin Jews were generally better off than the Poles. (pp. 28-2). Anti-Semitic incidents tended to be sporadic, mostly verbal in nature, and largely limited to the 1930’s. (pp. 39-45).

In fact, in all of Poland in general, Jews were usually better off than the Poles. See, for example:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/average-jew-better-off-than-average-pole-marcus/

NO VALID DUALISM BETWEEN THE SUFFERINGS OF JEWS AND POLES

The author consistently goes beyond the purely Judeocentric approach that typifies Holocaust studies in general. She provides details on how Poles suffered under the Nazi German occupation as well as Jews. Both Poles and Jews experienced humiliation, forced labor, expropriation of property, mass forced relocation, destruction of cultural treasures, and mass murder at the hands of the German occupants. Udo Klausa realizes that these things happened, “`since Poles and Jews had no rights.'” (p. 93).

NO SELF-CONSISTENT NAZI POLICY ON THE PERSECUTION OF EITHER JEWS OR POLES

The common meme, propounded as part of Holocaust supremacism, that Jews and non-Jews can be polarized in terms of how the Nazis treated them, falls apart in the face of basic evidence.

Although Poles were “unequal victims” with Jews, in some but not all respects, the differences were relative, not absolute. Fulbrook notes that, “Ration cards were distributed according to ‘racial’ categories. Poles received more than Jews; but even so the allotted rations for Poles were well below standards required for health and maintenance of weight and labor productivity–the latter being of most concern to the Germans.” (p. 167). So both Poles and Jews received starvation rations.

The Nazis did not treat all Jews the same. Whereas the Jews in the ghettoes of Lodz and Warsaw experienced massive starvation, those in the labor camps of the Bedzin area were fed well enough for at least quasi-productive labor. (p. 168).

WHY NAZIS DID NOT FORCE ALL POLES TO WEAR THE LETTER “P””

Some of the differences, in the ways that the Nazis treated Poles and Jews, owed to tactical motives. For instance, throughout the Reich and Reich-occupied territories, Jews were forced to wear the Star in some locations but not others, and Poles were forced to wear the “P” (POLEN) in some locations but not others. Udo Klausa suggested that Poles in the Bedzin area should probably not have to wear the “P” (petka), because this may increase solidarity between Poles, and may indirectly enhance Polish sympathy for, and solidarity with, Jews. (pp. 272-273).

THE SHOAH ITSELF

Soon after the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland, the Germans burned Bedzin’s synagogue, along with surrounding Jewish homes. One or more Polish priests gave refuge to fleeing Jews within a nearby church. (pp. 52-53). But that was not yet the Holocaust.

Fulbrook describes the exterminatory function of Auschwitz, beginning in 1942. The odor of burning flesh, from the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau, could sometimes be smelled as far as Katowice (Kattowitz), some 20 miles away. (p. 230). Some of the Bedzin-area Jews survived by being in labor camps, while others survived by hiding among Poles.

THE GERMAN-IMPOSED DEATH PENALTY WAS DECISIVE. POLES CONSISTENTLY DREADED IT

Neo-Stalinists such as Jan T. Gross have advanced the argument that Poles were so accustomed to the German-imposed death penalty (as in black market dealings) that they had no real fear of it. Therefore–according to their argument–the fear of death could not have been what motivated Poles to avoid aiding Jews more substantively. It had to be (what else?) anti-Semitism. Their argument is ridiculous. Poles caught in such capital offenses as black market dealing, or unauthorized slaughter of animals, were so afraid that some of them committed suicide. (p. 174). In addition, the Germans did not consistently impose the death penalty for black market dealings or unauthorized slaughter of livestock. (p. 112). [In addition, of course, it is much less risky to conceal contraband goods than it is to hide a contraband person.]

AT ONE TIME JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION AND POLISH NAZI COLLABORATION WERE TREATED THE SAME

The author is relatively even-handed in describing Jews as well as Poles who collaborated with the Germans. Consider, for instance, Hirsch Barenblat, commander of the Jewish militia at Bedzin (Bendzin), and his role in the round up of Jews for their deaths. He was tried in Poland after WWII, and again in Israel in the early 1960’s, after a survivor recognized him. A Tel Aviv District Court convicted him of collaboration, but the Israeli Supreme Court subsequently overturned this decision. (p. 224).

For more on the Nazi collaboration of Hirsch Barenblat, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/12/13/jewish-collaboration-once-punished-by-israel-porat/