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

The Stroop Report, by Jürgen Stroop. 1979

Nazi German Jew-Killer and Warsaw-Uprising-Butcher Juergen Stroop Gives More Credit to Polish Assistance to the Uprising Than Do Many Jewish Authors Today. For Shame

This chilling day-by-day diary recounts the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. The descriptions are methodical.

POLES FOUGHT ALONGSIDE, AND ON BEHALF OF, THE JEWS IN THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

Other than general references to bandits, Stroop frequently refers specifically to “Polish bandits” (e. g., Section I, p. 4, 8; Entries for April 22, 27, 29; May 10) and “Polish terrorists” (April 26, 27; May 10) fighting alongside the Jews. The terms are pejorative ones for partisans, and Milton acknowledges the fact that Himmler forbade the use of the word “partisan” in Germans’ reports. (Note 7). In his introduction, Andrzej Wirth confirms them as Polish guerillas. (p. iv). (Literal bandits, of course, normally prey on the defenseless, and wouldn’t be fighting the Germans in open and persistent combat!)

TWISTING INTO PRETZELS TO AVOID GIVING DUE CREDIT TO THE POLES

Unfortunately, some Jewish commentators are so Polonophobic that they cannot bring themselves to admit the fact that Polish guerillas fought alongside Jews in their Uprising. Some of them imagine, without a shred of supporting evidence, that the Poles participated against orders. Others make the even more bizarre insinuation that Stroop made up all those references to fighting Poles in his report because he couldn’t bring himself to admit that Jews could fight and–worse yet–would fight against his forces. In his commentary, Sybil Milton makes a similar amazing claim (RE: April 27, May 8; his Notes 18 and 28): “When Stroop refers to the Jewish-Polish defense unit, he probably meant the Jewish Fighting Organization…It is probable that Stroop’s confusion is deliberate, since he had to rationalize the fact that a small, underarmed Jewish force could oppose the German Army and Police for almost two weeks.” Milton must be a mind reader!

If “Jewish-Polish defense unit” only meant that the Jewish fighters consisted of Polish Jews, why on earth would Juergen Stroop feel the need to record this? Was Stroop afraid that someone might mistakenly think that the Jews fighting in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were Yemeni Jews? Or maybe Algerian Jews?

Milton’s second evasion, which invokes a group of invented Polish fighters, is equally ludicrous. Stroop repeatedly admitted in print that the fighters he captured were Jews, and that Jews alone could offer tenacious resistance (e. g., Section I, p. 10; April 20, 21, 27; May 5, 7, and 13)! Having done so, why would he suddenly turn around and feel the need to invent nonexistent Polish co-combatants in order to deny the fact that the combatants were Jews, or to hide the worthiness of Jews as combat opponents? Or maybe Stroop was some kind of dyslexic who had forgotten what he had written a sentence or two earlier. Then again, perhaps Stroop was seeing the ghosts of German-murdered Poles, and mistaking them for real-live Polish guerrillas fighting alongside the Jews. [Just demonstrating absurdity by being absurd.]

JEWISH INGRATITUDE FOR POLISH AID TO THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING IS RATHER CHRONIC

Editor Milton is not the only one with the problem. Virtually all Holocaust films and educational materials fail to convey the extent of Polish aid to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, if they do so at all. Weapons magically become available to the Jews out of nowhere, or a Pole is shown selling one measly rusty gun for a hefty price, etc. Few readers imagine, let alone realize, the fact that Polish guerillas fought alongside the Jews in this Uprising. Stroop elaborates on all this. See the detailed Peczkis review of Moczarski’s Conversations with an Executioner:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/warsaw-ghetto-uprising-nazi-credits-poles-moczarski/