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

Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945 (Nazi Germany and the Jews #2), by Saul Friedländer. 2007

Contrary to Holocaust-Uniqueness Contentions, the Nazis Let Some Jews Go Free. 1939 Zydokomuna Large. Eastern European Knowledge of Holocaust Not Until Late 1942 or Early 1943: Accusations of Polish Complicity Are Largely Invalid

The comprehensive nature of this work is obvious, and the author has clearly tried to examine issues from multiple angles. This book is full of interesting information.

ITALIAN FASCISM WAS FULL OF JEWS

Until as late as the end of 1938, there were thousands of Jewish members of European fascist parties, especially in Mussolini’s Italy. (p. 5). An astonishing ONE-FIFTH of Italian Jews were, at one time or another, affiliated with Mussolini’s Fascists. (p. 666).

ZIONISM AND NAZISM

The author clarifies the relationship between the Zionists and the Nazis. A splinter of the Revisionist Zionists, the “Stern group”, or LEHI, said by Friedlander to be ignorant of Nazi goals, offered the Reich, in late 1940, to fight on the German side against the British in exchange for Nazi support of a Jewish state. The Nazis never responded to this offer. (p. 735).

FOR TWO YEARS, NAZI GERMANS KILLED MANY MORE POLES THAN THEY KILLED JEWS!

On another subject, Friedlander cites the German-language work of the historian Bogdan Musial. (ref. 33, 667). Musial estimates that, during the first two years of the German occupation of Poland (1939-1941), the Germans (directly) murdered 39,500 Poles and 7,000 Jews. Only in 1942 did this trend start to reverse.

As for the Nazi extermination of the Jews, Friedlander clearly supports the functionalist interpretation. He believes that Hitler did not decide to exterminate the Jews until December 1941. (p. 731).

DOES NOT BLAME GENERIC EUROPEAN ANTISEMITISM FOR THE NAZI GERMAN HOLOCAUST

Although the author notes the Nazi use of pre-existing European anti-Semitism to help achieve their goals, he stops short of claiming that this pre-existing anti-Semitism was somehow causative of the persecution of Jews and the later Holocaust. He comments, “German policies regarding the Jews did not depend upon the level of anti-Semitism in German and European opinion.” (p. 189).

THE NAZIS WERE NOT DETERMINED TO KILL EVERY SINGLE JEWISH MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD

The author provides outstanding detail on how the Nazis came to re-define Karaites as non-Jews. (pp. 588-589). Other Jews were spared in various ways. Friedlander points out that the Nazis were always receptive to the use of Jews as hostages or exchange material, and provides several examples of this. (p. 583). This was the case even at the height of the Holocaust. For instance, certain Palestinian Jews living in Poland were exchanged for German nationals living in Palestine in the fall of 1942. During this same time, some wealthy Dutch Jews bought their freedom. In December 1942, Himmler received the approval of Hitler for individual Jews to be released for large amounts of foreign money. [These, and other examples (see “exchange Jews”, p. 184, in the index), refute the contention that, whereas non-Jews who fell into Nazi hands could sometimes be released, Jews never could.]

ZYDOKOMUNA WAS LARGE-SCALE

Now consider Jewish-Soviet collaboration (sometimes called the Zydokomuna), notably that during and after the 1939 Nazi-Soviet conquest of Poland. Friedlander quotes the work of Belorussian Jewish historian Evgeny (Eugeniusz) Rozenblat. The latter found that, despite the fact that Jews constituted only 10% of the population of the Soviet-occupied Pinsk OBLAST (district), they accounted for 49.5% of the leading administrative positions there, including 41.2% of those in the judicial and police administration. (p. 45). Considering the fact that the latter was the very instrument of raw Communist terror directed at Poles, this took on further significance in terms of the inflammation of Polish-Jewish relations.

The author repeats the familiar (and incorrect) “Jewish Communists were not really Jews” and “Jewish fear of the Nazis” exculpations. He then tacitly undercuts the latter by acknowledging that many Jews were, at the time, not particularly afraid of the Nazis. This was so much so that, after the defeat of Poland in the 1939 war, significant numbers of Jewish refugees voluntarily moved back from Soviet-occupied Poland back to German-occupied Poland! In fact, Hans Frank, in a May 1940 statement, marveled at it. (p. 46).

LATE EASTERN EUROPEAN AWARENESS OF HOLOCAUST: YOU CANNOT BE COMPLICIT IN SOMETHING YOU ARE UNAWARE OF!

Friedlander suggests that, until late 1942, or–at the latest–early 1943, eastern European gentiles did not realize that the Nazis aimed to completely destroy the Jews. (p. xxii). If so, it means that, before this time, eastern Europeans who denounced or killed Jews were not knowingly participating in the wholesale destruction of the Jews. It also means that, even if Poles were 100% guilty of the Jedwabne massacre (July 1941), they could not possibly be guilty of “complicity in the Holocaust”.

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Now some shortcomings:

The sources cited by Friedlander are numerous, but somewhat imbalanced. The author quotes the opinions of Communist Shmuel Krakowski without a glimmer of questioning, and completely ignores the detailed scholarship of historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz.

A major theme of this work is that the Church did not particularly care about the Jews. True or not, Friedlander seems to forget that, in those pre-ecumenical times, concern for non-coreligionists was not a priority for anyone. Thus, one would not expect influential Christians to be particularly solicitous over the fate of Jews any more than one would expect influential Jews to be particularly solicitous over the fate of Christians.

Friedlander details the role of Pope Pius XII and comes down on the side of those who insist that the Pope did not live up to his moral authority during the Holocaust. (p. 573). However, whatever else can be said about Pius XII’s conduct, the whole argument is ironic in view of the fact that–especially according to the Jews–there is supposed to be a separation of church and state, and Christians are not supposed to impose or impress their concept of morality on the state. [In fact, the Nazis used this very line of argument to dismiss Church objections to their policies, as do many politicians today.]

The author stresses the fact that Europeans generally saw Jews as outsiders. However, the author seems to forget that the process of exclusion had long worked both ways. So did traditional religious teachings.

Friedlander repeats the account, from Czeslaw Milosz, of the Poles enjoying themselves on a carousel while the Nazis were burning the Warsaw Ghetto. (p. 533). He forgets that participation in amusements routinely occurred within the sight of others suffering and dying during wartime (even in the death camps). It was an attempt at living a “normal” life, and was in no way an act of callousness or disrespect towards the dying and dead.

Finally, the author’s treatment of the Jedwabne massacre (pp. 223-234) is disappointingly incomplete. He does not analyze the implications of the IPN Commission study. For corrective, please see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2021/07/01/jedwabne-update-definitive-work-jedwabne-a-german-disguised-crime-long-suppressed-information-now-available-2000-2003-poles-are-guilty-ipn-commission-refuted-sommer-chodakiewicz-stankiewicz/