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

Nothing But Honour: The Story of the Warsaw Uprising, 1944, by J. K. Zawodny. 1978. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University Press, California

The Betrayal of the Poles’ Warsaw Uprising Began Long Before Teheran (1943)

The author was a veteran of the Warsaw Uprising. His work is encyclopedic in scope, featuring many sources as well as interviews with politicians and participants. I focus on a few issues, mostly those which are of lasting significance.

THE UNILATERAL APPEASEMENT OF THE COMMUNISTS LED TO THE WARSAW-UPRISING BETRAYAL AND THE SOVIET-IMPOSED COMMUNIST PUPPET GOVERNMENT

Author Janusz Zawodny hits the nail right on the hand as he details the progressive western Allies’ giveaway of Poland to Stalin, who only became more and more emboldened. First there was Teheran (1943), then there was the Warsaw Uprising (1944), and then there was Yalta (1945). Zawodny describes the events that followed, like falling dominoes, the giveaway of the Kresy, which formally took place at Teheran (1943). He comments, “The cessation of eastern Poland by Roosevelt and Churchill to the Soviet Union is relevant to the Uprising of Warsaw in that it made it plain to Stalin that he did not need to take the Polish Government [in Exile] seriously. When Roosevelt and Churchill gave away the eastern territories (an area of 70,000 square miles that encompassed millions of Polish citizens), they had given away the prestige, credibility and viability of the legal Polish Government…Stalin proceeded unhesitatingly to set up another ‘Polish’ government…The British and American action also gave the Soviet Government a free hand to destroy the opposition in ‘their‘ territory. Polish AK soldiers were ‘the opposition’ and their leadership was in Warsaw.” (p. 87; Emphasis in original).

THE SOVIET DOUBLE-CROSS OF THE WARSAW UPRISING

One common Soviet excuse, for not helping the Uprising, is that the Poles never attempted to contact the Russian authorities or the Red Army. This is patently and ludicrously false. Zawodny (pp. 201-205) tabulates dozens of such attempts. (See also pp. 110-111).

The author provides many indirect evidences of the Red Army deliberately not marching on fighting Warsaw. (pp. 69-78). A Soviet order, uncovered in 1967, does mention the original Soviet plans of taking Warsaw in August 1944. (p. 72).

None other than German general von Vormann, the one in charge of opposing any Soviet drive on Warsaw, had fully expected the Red Army to make a move on Warsaw already in August 1944. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/11/21/the-soviet-betrayed-warsaw-uprising-german-general-vormann-expected-a-red-army-move-on-warsaw-in-august-1944-sawicki/

The exculpation sometimes given is that of the Red Army being too “exhausted” to take Warsaw in August 1944. But the Red Army killed 277,000 Wehrmacht soldiers in August 1944 alone on the entire Eastern Front. Some exhaustion! See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/polokaust-why-not-worse-fritz/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/08/26/german-death-penalty-drives-betrayals-of-jews-warsaw-uprising-zagorski/

Stalin’s conduct was inexcusable. RAF Marshal Sir John Slessor strongly condemned the gross Soviet perfidy. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/warsaw-uprising-1944-soviet-betrayal-condemned-by-raf-marshal-slessor/

The long-belated Soviet-glorified “liberation” of Warsaw, in January 1945, months after the surrender of the betrayed Uprising and the ensuing almost-total destruction of Warsaw by the vindictive Germans, was nothing of the sort. The ruins of Warsaw then had a garrison of only several hundred German soldiers. (p. 76).

WHY THE HOPELESS STRUGGLE CONTINUED AS LONG AS IT DID

Zawodny considers one of the reasons for the persistence of the Uprising for 63 days. He comments, “Bor’s staff assumed, wrongly, that Churchill and Roosevelt would bring sufficient pressure on Stalin to compel Soviet troops to cross the river.” (p. 191).

THE POLISH INSURGENTS HAD VERY FEW ARMS

The Home Army, Armia Krajowa (AK), had a peak membership, in the first half of 1944, of 380,175 persons. (p. 89). As for the Warsaw Uprising itself, Zawodny comments, “The number of insurgents was estimated to be between, 36,500 and 40,000. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that at the outbreak of the Uprising only about 1,500 (or at best 2,500), or four to six percent of the insurgents, were armed.” (p. 26).

To say that the arms shortage was acute is an understatement. Over a year earlier, in the spring of 1943, at the time of the Jews’ Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the AK had even fewer arms. So much for the myth that the Polish side was “stingy” in supplying “so few” arms to the Jews’ Uprising!

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

After the surrender of the Poles’ Uprising, some 3,500 AK soldiers merged with civilians so as not to fall into German captivity. (p. 211). They continued the fight elsewhere.

LIQUIDATING POLISH COLLABORATORS, INCLUDING BETRAYERS OF JEWS

This account contradicts those Jews who accuse Poles of doing almost nothing about the denouncers of fugitive Jews. Zawodny tells us that, “Some volunteered to execute those who were condemned to death by the insurgents’ court martial, particularly SS men and German snipers, or those who had betrayed Gentiles or Jews by collaborating with the Germans.” (p. 140).

POLES WERE DAMNED IF THEY DO AND DAMNED IF THEY DON’T

Author Zawodny has these sage comments, “If Warsaw had not fought, the unsympathetic would have said that Poles did not deserve their freedom, that they had assented to or abetted Nazi tyranny, and that they had been unwilling to fight for the common cause. The Poles fought, and the unsympathetic say that they fought alone because they refused to ‘cooperate’ with the Soviet Union. This is simply misinformation. Except for a pitiful minority of Communists, Poles did not want to be absorbed by the Soviet Union or dominated by it.” (p. 209).

WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT, BOR KOMOROWSKI WOULD HAVE DONE IT AGAIN

In an interview in 1965, 21 years after the Uprising, A. K. Commander Bor Komorowski was asked if he would have launched the Uprising had he then known that Poland’s eastern half (the Kresy) had been given away to the Soviet Union, and if he had then known of the impending Soviet betrayal. He answered in the affirmative, “I would have continued the Tempest operation [OPERACJA BURZA] as long as there were Germans in our country. If not, the Communists would have suspected us of co-operating with the Germans.” (p. 215).

THE WARSAW UPRISING WAS NOT AN ACT OF FUTILE BLOODLETTING

Zawodny continues his 1965 interview of Bor Komorowski, in which the Commander assessed the long-term significance of the Uprising, “Even in the case of defeat, such a moral and physical effort will be remembered by the nation. This effort brought forth cultural and moral values the strength that could not have come from a passive attitude. We cannot know at present what influence the AK’s struggle will have on the formation of the Polish nation’s spirit and positive values…” (p. 215).

LONG-TERM LEGACY OF THE WARSAW UPRISING

Bor Komorowski continued, “The Uprising has been one of the greatest efforts of our nation in many years and has had an influence on the formation of spiritual values. This is an aspect that should also be treated.” (p. 216).

The Commander was right. In our non-Communist Poland (2020), now 76 years later, the Warsaw Uprising is not only recounted in history books, but energetically commemorated, notably in public ceremonies.

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STRANGLE THE CRYING INFANT? POLES HAD THEIR OWN CHOICELESS CHOICES TO MAKE

Holocaust materials commonly mention Jews in hiding and facing the choiceless choice of whether or not to kill a crying infant whose noise could give away the hideout to the searching Germans. The Poles were also in this unenviable situation, as when they were crawling through the sewers during the Uprising. Zawodny writes, “Another eyewitness reported that once the customary muted sounds of the gurgling sewage and the rhythmic breathing of people were pierced by the screams of a child being carried by his mother. Those in the immediate vicinity, fearful that the Germans would hear the cries, wanted to kill the child. The mother became hysterical, and the child was not touched. The shuffling line proceeded.” (p. 148).