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

Through the Eyes of a Survivor, by Colette Waddell and Nina Morecki. 2007

Includes Rarely-Provided Wartime German-Terror Context for Poles Denouncing Fugitive Jews, Refusing to Return Jewish Belongings Entrusted to Poles, etc.

Nina Gruetz-Morecki was a gentile-looking well-to-do Polish Jew from Lwow (Lvov, Lviv). Her experiences touch on several issues related to Polish-Jewish relations, namely why Poles sometimes refused to return Jewish belongings.

THE FACTS AT LAST. TRAUMATIZED AND TERRORIZED POLES SOMETIMES DENOUNCED FUGITIVE JEWS

In accordance with the standard Holocaustspeak, Poles are portrayed as “bystanders” because most of them did not help fugitive Jews. Another set of Holocaustspeak is even better. It pontificates on “Polish complicity in the Holocaust” owing to occasional acts of Poles denouncing or killing fugitive Jews–and then almost always in a contextual vacuum. The most egregious example of this is probably Jan Grabowski and his JUDENJAGD (Hunt for the Jews).

Author Gruetz-Morecki who, unlike 99% of Poland’s self-appointed moral critics, actually went through the German occupation, realizes the fact that it was very difficult for Poles to hide Jews. One of the reasons was the fact that the Germans used dogs that were trained to sniff out those in hiding. (p. 188).

Poles who denounced fugitive Jews often did so out of fear of German retribution for aiding Jews (p. 216). This included Poles who had initially hid Jews. (p. 218). For more on this, see: MICROHISTORIES OF THE HOLOCAUST:

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

POLISH GREED AND (WHAT ELSE?) ANTISEMITISM FOR REFUSING TO RETURN JEWISH BELONGINGS? HARDLY. NO JUDEOCENTRIC CONTEXTUAL VACUUM

Neo-Stalinist Jan T. Gross (as in his FEAR and GOLDEN HARVEST) has, with considerable media adulation, been going around portraying Poles a nation of thieves because Poles did not always return Jewish belongings that had been entrusted to them. This obviously creates a Poles-owe-Jews narrative that is one of the foundations of the claims of the Holocaust Industry against Poland.

Again, Holocaust survivor Gruetz-Morecki knows better. She appreciates the context of the unfortunate events. Those Poles who refused to return Jewish properties did so because “hard times bred a selfish mentality” (p. 313). It is no more complicated than that!

BEFORE WWII: POLISH ANTI-SEMITISM WAS SPORADIC AND SITUATIONAL, NOT CHRONIC

Books of this type commonly begin with Pole-accusatory leading questions, as Gruetz-Morecki recognizes: “I know that many readers will expect me to write of the anti-Semitism I experienced as a child.” (p. 53). In fact, Morecki repeatedly states that, based on her parents’ experiences as well as those of her own adult life up until about the late 1930’s, she did not experience Polish anti-Semitism (p. 9, 17, 23, 53)–something which she attributes to her assimilated state. [Adding refutation to the claim that assimilation made no difference in this regard.] Her first direct experience with anti-Semitism was verbal in nature, and then in the heat of an argument with a colleague. (p.55). Later, one of her colleagues was beaten by Polish hoodlums. (p. 74).

JEWISH PREJUDICES WERE AS REAL AS POLISH PREJUDICES

After the war, in a D.P. camp, some Jews, mistaking Nina for a gentile, faulted her husband for “marrying a Shiksa.” The author points out that Shiksa nowadays means a non-Jewish girl but, at that time, it carried the connotation of a girl who did not come from a good family. (p. 368). (It also had other derogatory connotations.)