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

The Holocaust in American Life, by Peter Novick. 2000

Jewish Influence: Tells Politically-Incorrect Truths About Holocaust Dominance and Holocaust Supremacism

This work packs some dynamite information. For example:

BEFORE JEWISH INFLUENCE: ONCE UPON A TIME, GENOCIDE-RECOGNITION EQUALITY REIGNED

Author Peter Novick rejects the notion that the belatedness of Holocaust preeminence stemmed from a trauma-induced temporary repression of the event in Jewish thinking. Ironically, at one time, it was widely believed that any preeminent position given to Jewish losses would tend to increase anti-Semitism (pp. 121-122). Now the exact opposite is argued! Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew who coined the term genocide, thought of it in terms of the extermination of Poles and Russians no less than the Jews (p.100-101). Novick cites (p. 38) a 1944 statement from an American Jewish Committee staff memorandum, which states the following: “It should always be pointed out that Nazi tyranny does not discriminate between Jews and Poles.” (sic) How ironic is this statement in the light of subsequent thinking and policy!

JEWISH INFLUENCE DRIVES THE STANDARD NARRATIVE: OTHERS ARE LEFT BEHIND

Consider the politics of memory. Whose sufferings are memorialized and whose are forgotten inescapably boils down to which group has power and influence. Novick frankly writes (p. 12): “When a high level of concern with the Holocaust became widespread in American Jewry, it was, given the important role that Jews play in American media and opinion-making elites, not only natural, but virtually inevitable that it would spread throughout the culture at large.” Conversely, Novick recognizes (p. 233) that Poles and Ukrainians: “never had the political, cultural, or financial resources to press their case”.

HOLOCAUST SUPREMACY IS CHAUVINISM, PURE AND SIMPLE. WHY VICTIMHOOD COMPETITION

Meanwhile, tokenism aside, the sufferings and deaths of millions of non-Jews in the hands of the Germans are given scant attention. Novick, a Jew himself, strongly rejects any notion of the uniqueness of Jewish deaths, and is especially critical of the notion, as he puts it (p. 9), of: “Your catastrophe, unlike ours, is ordinary; unlike ours is comprehensible; unlike ours is representable.” Elie Wiesel has vulgarly equated the notion of expanding the Holocaust (to encompass the millions of Poles murdered by the Germans) with expanding the victims of the Crucifixion to include the two thieves executed with Jesus Christ (p. 219).

THE PREEMINENCE OF THE HOLOCAUST MADE US ALL JEWISH-CENTERED

The relatively recent Judeocentric approach to WWII has completely reshaped our thinking. It is sobering to realize that, not so long ago, the question “Why didn’t Poles save more Jews?” would have made about as much sense as “Why didn’t Jews save more Poles?” [In fact, during the first 2 years of the German occupation of Poland, Germans were prone to murder Polish gentiles more frequently than Jews. In Soviet-conquered eastern Poland, many Jews, placed in high positions, were in a position to help Poles]. All things considered, Novick displays a broad-based understanding of national sufferings when he discusses the Partitions of Poland and the 1940 Katyn Massacre of tens of thousands of Polish POW officers and intellectuals.

NOW THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER FOOTS THE BILL FOR THE JEWISH-CENTERED APPROACH TO GENOCIDE

Peter Novick points out that tax money is being used to support Holocaust museums, and that emphasis on the Holocaust in American society is largely self-perpetuating, as there are thousands of full-time Holocaust professionals employed for its maintenance, transmission and dissemination. According to Novick (p.277), the closing of Holocaust institutions and the cessation of required Holocaust teaching in schools would create intolerable controversy.

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CANDOR ON THE ZYDOKOMUNA

Author Novick is candid about the very disproportionate involvement of Jews in Communism (p. 92, 302). He also cites Rabbi Eugene Borowitz (p. 109) about the fact that most Jews are agnostics, and he himself notes that Jews tend to be much less religious than Catholics and Protestants (p. 326). Funny how Polish cardinal August Hlond was (and still is) raked over the coals as an anti-Semite simply for having made such statements back in 1936.

WHY “SO FEW” POLISH JEWS SAVED

Unlike so many other Jews, Novick is not among those who complain that Poles did not do more to rescue Jews. He is straightforward about the fact that most gentiles acted exactly as one would expect them to act under the circumstances of ruthless foreign occupation: “They kept their heads down and looked out for number one”. Poles did not protest the killing of Jews by Germans because it was a nice way to get yourself and your family shot, and to get your house burned down. (p. 247). And, although he does not mention the fact that Poles rescued many more Jews than Danes, he does acknowledge the fact that the low proportion of Polish Jews saved is accounted for by the non-assimilated state of Polish Jews compared with Danish Jews and the incomparably greater German brutality over Poles than Danes.

DOES NOT THROW AROUND CHARGES OF NAZI COLLABORATION

Novick mistakenly conflates Ukrainian collaborators with the much fewer (and unorganized) Polish ones, but does acknowledge that charges of collaboration are “often much too sweeping.” (p. 223).

THE POLISH DEATH CAMP LIE REPUDIATED

Pointedly, Novick repudiates Elie Wiesel’s frankly bigoted insinuation that the German Nazi death camps had been built in German-occupied Poland because of the reputed attitude of Poles to Jews. It was simply economics: The least distance that the largest number of Jews would have to be transported to their deaths.

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How the Cambodians pushed back against Holocaust supremacism:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/victimhood-competition-cambodians-beat-jews-jinks/

Other works:

Holocaust Supremacy Slights All Non-Jewish Genocides. Victimhood Competition: Holocaust Pushback by Ukrainian Americans. Young

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: USHMM Promotes the Advantages to Jews of Monopolizing the Term Holocaust. Orwellian Fiction: Holocaustspeak Comedy. Victimhood Competition. Linenthal

Holocaust Exceptionality Claims are Political. They Drive Victimhood Competition. All Non-Jewish Genocides Marginalized. A. Dirk Moses