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

Pogrobowcy Kleski, by Adam Hempel. 1990

The “Polish” Police, Under the Nazi German Occupation, Was Not a Collaborationist Force. Even Though Jews Commonly Paint It as Such

The 40,000-strong (p. 23) Polish Police (hereafter PP), more accurately the German-created POLNISCHE POLIZEI, acquired the appellation Blue Police (POLICJA GRANATOWA) from the color of its uniforms. It also got its nickname from the partly-justified taint of collaborationism.

PASSIVE GERMAN GENOCIDAL TECHNIQUES AGAINST POLES

German genocidal policies against non-Jewish Poles included the allowance of only near-starvation amounts of food (p. 141), and the removal and isolation of Poles of prime-childbearing age. The former was remedied by Poles through the black market, while the latter had no remedy, encompassing 10% of the total population of the General Government by 1944 sent to the Reich for forced labor (p. 157).

“POLISH” BLUE POLICE WAS ONLY PARTLY POLISH

By mid-1943, the PP was only 70% ethnically Polish. The remainder was 20% Ukrainian and Byelorussian, and 10% Volksdeutsche (p. 133). The latter was used by the Germans in an enforcer role (p. 90).

THE POLICJA GRANATOWA WAS NOT A VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATION!

Holocaust-related presentations make it seem like the Germans were just looking for buddies to join in their killing of Jews. This was far from the case.

Let us look closely at the PP. Formed by the Germans (p. 96), and with COMPULSORY participation (Plate 18) under threat of family arrest for desertion (p. 104), the PP was a continuation of the prewar criminal police (see Table 5, p. 294). It was comparable to the ORDUNGSPOLIZEI in that it performed such duties as enforcing the curfew, patrolling the streets, etc. (p. 86).

THE POLICJA GRANATOWA, AS A WHOLE, WAS NOT A COLLABORATIONIST POLICE

Unlike the main Ukrainian police, the PP’s cooperation with the Germans was administrative, not political (p. 53). Individual PP members, however, did willfully serve the Germans for personal gain, and the Germans sometimes formed police battalions from these degenerates (p. 75, 155).

Pointedly, the PP generally resisted German efforts to bend it into a de facto collaborationist force (p. 130), though it was often forced to perform this role (p. 139, 183). Already in 1940, The German Krueger complained that the PP wasn’t dutifully counteracting the black market (p. 149). In fact, PP members often warned Poles of food confiscations, and took only token amounts of food (p. 147). During disturbances, the PP, unsure if they were faced with bandits or Polish guerillas, purposely shot at them inaccurately (p. 121).

The Germans disarmed PP members who refused to take part in the lapanki (dragnets) and, by late 1942, discontinued the use of the PP entirely for this purpose (p. 161). The Germans shot PP’s who disobeyed orders to execute Poles (p. 184) or to fight partisans (p. 191).

THE POLICJA GRANATOWA WAS IN NO SENSE ANTI-JEWISH

Before WWII, counterintuitively, the PP tended to side with the Betar (Beitar) against the ONR during pogroms, etc. (p. 170). In 1941, the German Jarke complained that the German police was forced into armed action in the ghetto because the PP remained passive (p. 171). Germans also complained that the PP was helping individual Jews evade them (p. 103, 172). During the shipping of Jews to the death camps (1942), and during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), the Germans, distrustful of the PP, relegated them to the mostly-symbolic patrolling of the ghetto outskirts (pp. 174-175). The “resettlements” were actually conducted by the Jewish ghetto police, Ukrainian and Baltic collaborationist police, etc.

Many PP’s aided Jews (pp. 262-269). Having legal entry into the ghettos, they smuggled-in guns (p. 264). They helped Jews flee the ghettos and hide (p. 266), fought szmalcowniks (extortionists), and warned denounced fugitive Jews (pp. 266-267).

The Germans perceived the PP as having strong ties with the Polish Underground (p. 8). Indeed, at very least, 10% of PP’s were involved in it (p. 203).

IN WARSAW, AT LEAST, FEW BLUE POLICE TOOK PART IN THE JUDENJAGD

In his JUDENJAGD, Jan Grabowski vel Abrahamer has alleged that the POLICJA GRANATOWA “consensually” took part in the search for fugitive Jews in Dabrowa Tarnowska County. Whatever the “freedom to act” of the police, and whatever the modest scale of their involvement in the search for fugitive Jews, their conduct should not be generalized to all of German-occupied Poland.

For example, only about 1 in 40 Warsaw PP, in 1943, took part in the search for fugitive Jews and turning them over to the Germans (p. 180). Some PP’s, and other Poles, blackmailed Jews, while Jews also did this to other Jews (p. 179). Ironically, discovered fugitive Jews who bribed PP’s for their (usual) inaction actually felt safer, knowing that these PP’s were now co-participants in their “crime” (p. 177).

THE POLISH UNDERGROUND PUNISHED POLES WHO COLLABORATED WITH THE GERMANS

What happened if a Pole fell into German hands, was broken by Gestapo tortures, and agreed to serve the Germans in exchange for relief from torture or death? It did not matter. The Polish Underground would not accept the threat of German reprisals, for Polish noncompliance, as an excuse for collaborationism (pp. 162-163). The AK shot PP collaborators (pp. 188-200, 206-208), and other PP’s who, often afflicted with alcoholism and corruption (p. 14), exploited or mistreated the people (p. 155).