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

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Tadeusz Borowski, Barbara Vedder (Editor/Translator), Jan Kott (Introduction), Michael Kandel (Translator). 1959, 1992

Attempted Entertainment Under Horrible Conditions: Repudiates Anti-Polish Accusations About Poles Enjoying Themselves on a Carousel (Made Famous by Czeslaw Milosz in His CAMPO DEI FIORI) While the Germans Were Burning the Jews

Accusations have been leveled against author Tadeusz Borowski for being calloused towards Jewish deaths at Auschwitz. In actuality, he sympathetically describes the human scenes of suffering, such as the dead and trampled infants in the death trains, the sick being shot and dumped into the pyres, entire transports of Jews going up in smoke, etc. However, he does call a spade a spade. He mentions the Jewish kapos as Jewish Nazi collaborators.

JEWISH PASSIVITY AND JEWISH MILITANCY

The author has sometimes been accused of dwelling on Jewish passivity in the face of impending death. This is untrue. In fact, Borowski discusses the Sonderkommando revolt in a positive manner (p. 77), and otherwise devotes a fair amount of detail to a Jewish woman who threw gravel into the eyes of an SS man (Schillinger), grabbed his dropped revolver, and mortally wounded him. (pp. 123-126).

AN INADVERTENT REBUTTAL TO THE POLONOPHOBIC MEME ABOUT THE CAROUSEL AT KRASINSKI SQUARE

The author also elaborates on some of the experiences of non-Jewish inmates at the camp. One attempt at normalcy at the camp was the playing of soccer. Borowski comments: “Between two throw-ins a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death.” (p. 64). Obviously, this attempt at normal living should not be construed as a form of disrespect for the dying and dead. In like manner, the oft-mentioned carousel, enjoyed by Poles while the Germans were burning the Warsaw Ghetto, was an attempt at normalcy, and in no way a form of disrespect towards Jewish sufferings, though it is usually portrayed as such.