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

Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, by Ber Mark, Gershon Freidlin (Translator). 1975

Hostile Witness (Jewish Communist and Rabid Polonophobe) Gives Backhanded Credit to the Poles in the Jews’ Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

This book is revealing in a number of ways, in that it shows how scurrilous Communist propaganda has now become mainstreamed in Polonophobic Holocaust lore.

THEN THE COMMUNISTS: NOW THE HOLOCAUST ESTABLISHMENT

Ber Mark, the author, was a Stalinist who spent the war years in the Soviet Union. After the war, he was head of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (ZIH). Repeating standard Communist propaganda, Mark slurs the conservative-Catholic Polish-Underground NSZ (N.S.Z.) as fascist, supportive of the Nazis, and prone to kill Jews. (p. 14, 190). (This propaganda has now found a new home among many Jews and the LEWACTWO.)

Jewish Communist Ber Mark also attacks the centrist Polish Underground AK, (ARMIA KRAJOWA, Home Army), accusing its leader, Bor Komorowski, of being an Endek and an anti-Semite. (p. 41, 164). [In the 1950’s, Bor Komorowski won a libel lawsuit against similar Jewish accusations.]. To this day, various Jews repeat this slander of Bor Komorowski.

Mark also asserts, without a shred of evidence, that the October 19, 1942 proclamation (by General Sikorski of the Polish Government in exile, in which it condemned anti-Semitism) was merely a concession to international democratic public opinion. (pp. 107-108). [Considering the low priority western leaders gave to Jewish suffering at the time, this is most unlikely.] And if flowery statements by non-Jews are “concessions to democratic public opinion”, then why cannot the same be said of Jewish flowery statements about the goyim?

HOSTILE WITNESS BER MARK: POLISH BLUE POLICE (POLICJA GRANATOWA) DID NOT SUPPRESS THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

The Germans had 2,842 armed personnel at their disposal to suppress the Uprising. Of these, 2,138 (that is, 75%) were Germans. The remainder consisted of 337 Ukrainian and Baltic collaborationist police, and 367 Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa). (p. 13). Much of the Polish Blue police refused or avoided Ghetto duty (p. 63)–a fact which Mark attributes to cowardice. [So Ber Mark tells the truth, but cannot bring himself to give Poles any credit. But no matter. Some 10% of the POLICJA GRANATOWA was part of the Underground. So much for its cowardice.] And why were the Jews so obsequious to the Germans for so long? Why the well-known Jewish passivity? Was that cowardice too?

THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING WAS TAINTED WITH COMMUNISM

One factor in the reluctance of the Polish Underground to support the ZOB (Z.O.B.) more substantially owed to its Communist sympathies. Indeed, the ZOB celebrated May Day, and sung the Internationale. (p. 65).

HOSTILE WITNESS BER MARK AFFIRMS POLES FIGHTING AMONG THE JEWS IN THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

Since Ber Mark was a rabid Jewish Polonophobe, he cannot be suspected of making things up in order to try to make Poles look good. His statements, discussed below, are therefore instructive.

Unlike most of the modern Holocaust establishment, Ber Mark does not focus exclusively on the ZOB. He also gives proper recognition to the ZZW fighters. In this work, they are called the Farband (Yiddisher Kampfs Farband: p. 209), and defined as ZZW (p. 72), consisting of Revisionists and Betar members. (p. 9). They are credited with the fierce combat at Muranowska Street (p. 27-on), and Poles are recognized as fighting alongside them. (p. 58). Mark recognizes the AK and its attempt to blast a hole in the ghetto wall (p. 42), and elaborates on the actions of Polish fighters Wolynski (pp. 111-112) and Iwanski (pp. 9-10, 33, 58-59). In particular, Iwanski is credited with providing, in Ber Mark’s words, “much weaponry and ammunition” to the ZZW. (p. 10).