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

The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944, by Richard C. Lukas. 1997. Hippocrene Books, New York

Though a Bit Dated, Still an Excellent Primer on the Forgotten Holocaust of Poles [Now Known as the Polokaust]

This work, written decades ago, still serves as an excellent, comprehensive introduction to this subject. Owing to the fact that Jews have now largely co-opted the term Holocaust to refer exclusively to themselves, extending the term Holocaust to include the Poles, as Lukas does, is contra-indicated. Instead, the term Polokaust can be used, if only as a form of protest against the Jews appropriating the term Holocaust to refer exclusively to themselves.

A more recent work on the Polokaust is Wojciech Materski POLSKA 1919-1945. The number of Poles who lost their lives at the hands of the Germans is not 1.5–2.0 million, as often claimed by Holocaust museums, but 4.4 million. Total Polish losses during WWII could be as high as 8 million:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/polokaust-definitive-work-materski/

AUTHOR LUKAS IS MORE OBJECTIVE THAN MANY OF HIS CRITICS

Historian Richard Lukas consistently presents both sides of the story. For this, he has been labeled a “Polish nationalist” or “apologist” of some sort. He clearly is not. For instance, he is critical of Polish disunity in the prewar government and in the Polish Government-in-Exile. He is candid about Polish-German collaboration, and the tactical errors of the Warsaw Uprising. He is unjustifiably harsh on the Polish-Underground NSZ.

AUTHOR LUKAS DOES NOT FIT THE STANDARD NARRATIVE ON THE HOLOCAUST, SO HE IS BESET WITH FALSE ACCUSATIONS

Most amazing of all is the assertion that Lukas equates the experiences of Jews and Poles. In actuality, Lukas promotes the premise that the Nazis targeted the Jews for immediate and total annihilation. (e. g., p. 151). In contrast, the German genocide of Poles focused on the destruction of the intelligentsia, cultural genocide, etc. The total, or near-total, extermination of the Poles was to await the end of the war (pp. 4-5), with the “resettlement” provisions of GENERALPLAN OST possibly/probably being a euphemism for this extermination. [Recall that the extermination of Jews was also disguised as “resettlement”.]

NO GERMAN FAVORS TO POLES OVER JEWS

Those much-mentioned “Poles who would be Germanized” represented only 3% of the Polish population of the Reich-annexed regions. (p. 24). Furthermore, in German eyes, they were not Poles. They were Germans who had become Polonized, and would now be re-Germanized.

GERMANS TRIED, BUT FAILED, TO SECURE A POLISH QUISLING

The no-Polish-Quisling-because-the-Germans-never-wanted-one argument (e. g.,by Jan T. Gross) is fallacious. The Germans unsuccessfully approached Prince Janusz Radziwill, and others, as prospective Quislings. (pp. 111-112).

POLISH BETRAYERS OF JEWS WERE UNCOMMON

An Israeli study estimates that about 7,000 ordinary Poles collaborated with the Germans. (p. 117). [This comes out to a vanishing 1 in 4,000 ethnic Poles.]. This is corroborated by the following:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/03/25/polish-collaboration-very-rare-less-than-0-1-of-the-ethnic-polish-population-jew-killing-wwii-by-poles-induced-by-german-terror-brechtken/

As for the SZMALCOWNIKI, there were probably no more than about 1,000 in Warsaw. (pp. 250-251).

Contrary to oft-repeated accusations, the Polish Underground did systematically liquidate blackmailers of Jews, and, furthermore, was largely successful in ending their plague in some geographic areas of German-occupied Poland. (p. 119).

HOW MANY POLISH JEWS HAVE SURVIVED AS FUGITIVES?

The number of Jews who survived in German-occupied Poland is unknown. Figures of 40,000-50,000, and 100,000-120,000 (or more) have been quoted. (p. 149). Virtually all had depended on Polish help.

REBUTTING ATTEMPTS TO DISCOUNT POLISH OVERTURES TO JEWS

Lukas gingerly defends Bor Komorowski against the charge of his early Underground contacts with the Jews being postwar fabrications. (p. 173).

POLES CAN’T WIN. THEY ARE CONDEMNED WHEN THEY DO AND CONDEMNED WHEN THEY DON’T

Some (e. g. David Engel) have accused the Polish Government-in-Exile of playing down what it knew about Jewish deaths, possibly because of anti-Semitism. Ironic to this, an unnamed British official had asserted, in December 1942 [at which time most of Poland’s Jews had already been murdered], that there was “no reliable evidence” that the Germans were exterminating the Jews, and that Poles were talking TOO MUCH about Jewish deaths–in part to show that they were not anti-Semitic! (p. 160).

Go figure.

[HINT: Polonophobia is a prejudice. It is not rational.]