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

Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre, by J. K. Zawodny. 1962. University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana

Katyn Details: A Mini-Encyclopedia on Katyn. Also Considers the Nazi German Occupation

Before discussing the main subject of this book, I consider some information, relevant to the Holocaust, that sheds light on Poles and Jews commonly regarded as “unequal victims”.

AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL, POLES WERE EQUAL VICTIMS WITH JEWS

Author Zawodny describes his personal experiences, “I myself lived in Warsaw during the German occupation, 1939-1944, and was captured twice on the streets. Favorable circumstances saved me from a street execution. Hundreds of thousands were less fortunate. No man who did not live through it will understand what it means to be hunted on the streets like an animal, for being a Pole or a Jew.” (pp. 79-80. Emphasis added).

Let us take this further. There are fugitive Polish Jews that reported being just as much afraid of being slain by the Germans, as Poles, as they were afraid of being slain by the Germans, as Jews. For examples, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jewish-gestapo-agents-double-collaboration-taubenschlag/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/germans-protect-jews-german-propaganda-lando/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/betrayals-jews-by-poles-not-black-and-white-zylberberg/

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KATYN DETAILS: THE CREAM OF THE POLISH NATION WAS DESTROYED IN THE KATYN MASSACRE (ARISTOCIDE, BEHEADING)

Historian Janusz K. Zawodny alludes to the nation-destroying (and therefore genocidal) character of the Katyn Massacre as he describes the victims of Soviet Communist terror, “Among the identified there were several hundred lawyers, hundreds of high school and elementary school teachers, twenty-one university professors, over 300 doctors, journalists, and even a priest.” (p. 22).

Zawodny concludes that, “The officers killed and Katyn and those who disappeared comprised the flower of Polish society. Thousands of them had been called in 1939 from the reserve. In their civilian occupations they were university professors, doctors, scientists, artists, high-school teachers–the grain and heart of Poland.” (p. 80).

For more on Katyn fulfilling the criteria of genocide, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/katyn-was-genocide-szonert/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/12/17/katyn-was-legally-genocide-details-szonert/