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

No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe 1939-1945, by Norman Davies. 2006. Viking Press, New York

Holocaust Supremacy vs. Genocides. WWII and the Politics of Memory. Criminality of Communism Finally Recognized

This work presents a wealth of information. Instead of repeating well-known information about WWII itself, I focus on the long-term implications of this conflict.

POLITICS OF MEMORY: THE UNITED STATES IS DOMINATED BY A JUDAIZED REMEMBRANCE OF WORLD WAR II

Historian Norman Davies reviews the many museums worldwide that commemorate WWII, and how they interpret it. What he says about America is telling, “In the USA, there is no war museum of similar size or standing that bears comparison to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum [USHMM] that was opened in Washington, DC, in 1993. For reasons that are more connected with post-war politics than with the USA’s war effort, Americans have chosen to make the Jewish tragedy the focal point of their remembrance.” (pp. 472-473).

Davies also points out that “Holocaust enforcers” not only want to eliminate Holocaust denial. They also seek to impose various Holocaust orthodoxies. (p. 364).

GERMANY DOES A LARGELY JEWISH-CENTERED REMEMBRANCE OF THE NAZI ERA

With reference to the 60^th anniversary of the end of WWII, Davies comments, “Germany’s main contribution to the anniversary consisted of a controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was unveiled in the center of Berlin in May 2005. The monument, designed by the American architect Peter Eisenman, proved controversial on various grounds, not all of them aesthetic. Its expansive labyrinth of dark, tomblike granite blocks is very large and, in the eyes of its critics, invasive. At the same time it was bound to provoke strong reactions by making no reference to the millions of the Nazis’ non-Jewish victims, or to war victims in general. For many groups are now growing impatient to see that their own tragedies are recognized.” (p. 5). It’s about time!

THE “KILLING STATIONS” HOLOCAUST SUPREMACIST FALLACY

Unfortunately, Davies buys-in to the Judeocentric talking point which asserts that there was no Soviet parallel to the Nazi German killing centers (death camps) such as Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka. (p. 362). This confuses the speed and geographic concentration of mass murder with the significance of the mass murder. (What’s the essential difference between the traditional barnyard slaughter of animals, and that which occurs in industrialized slaughterhouses?) And what’s the essential difference between stationary killing centers (death camps) and mobile killing centers (firing squads)?

Apart from this, even the technicalities of “ordinary” Nazi German concentration camps, and Nazi killing centers, cannot be dichotomized. It turns out that many “ordinary” Nazi concentration camps had mass gassing facilities, in which various targeted groups were eliminated at once. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/03/19/nazi-concentration-camps-nazi-death-camps-no-valid-dichotomy-definitive-work-holocaust-survivor-testimony-unreliable-treblinka-looting-clarified-colls/

Auschwitz Kommandant Hoess, who should be one to know, did not assign any significance to industrial genocide as compared with slower, traditional genocide. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/auschwitz-no-valid-jewish-monopolization-hoess/

CALLING THE SPADE A SPADE: SOVIET COMMUNISM WAS INHERENTLY CRIMINAL

Historians have long tended to ignore or marginalize the crimes of the Communists. Davis does not. He writes, “From what is now known about the forced-collectivization campaign, the Ukrainian terror famine [Holodomor], the purges and the GULag, it is manifestly evident that the Stalinist party state in the USSR must be classed as a criminal regime before the war began, and it continued to commit mass crimes both during and after the war.” (p. 65).

Historian Norman Davies endorses the factuality and veracity of the findings of Robert Conquest. (p. 13, 466). The latter had been criticized by Communist apologists. Stalin’s victims were definitely in the tens of millions. (p. 66, 178).

The author does not mince words. He considers Poland to have been under Soviet occupation from 1944 and 1993. (p. 293).

RECOGNIZING NAZISM AND COMMUNISM, AS EQUAL EVILS, IS A THREAT TO HOLOCAUST SUPREMACY

Davies analyzes the works of Ernst Nolte and Hannah Arendt as follows, “Needless to say, such propositions were thought anathema by leftists who believe that Fascism was an original and unparalleled evil…It raised uncomfortable questions such as the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the role of Jewish Communists.” (p. 469).

NO DOUBLE STANDARDS ON JEWISH AND NON-JEWISH COLLABORATORS

In discussing collaboration with the Nazis, Davies writes, “And, thirdly, if collaboration is to be judged fairly, it must be judged by standards that apply to all. If it was wrong for one person or group to assist in the persecution of others, it is also wrong if in parallel circumstances the persecuted do not refrain from persecuting someone else…But, if condemnation does take place, historians and others can permit themselves the luxury only if they apply the same criteria to all groups for the same sorts of offences.” (p. 378).

ARCHIVES ARE NOT NECESSARILY DEFINITIVE

Some historians treat archival information as if it automatically trumped all other information. It does not. Historian Davies comments, “Archives have enjoyed a long period of reverence among historians which they don’t always deserve. In some quarters they are thought of as repositories of truth, whose revelations are limited only by the indolence and prejudice of historians. In reality, like all human institutions, they have their strengths and a long list of inbuilt drawbacks.” (p. 458).

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

Slawomir Rawicz (1915-2004) was a 1939 veteran and captive of the Soviets, who escaped and allegedly walked 6,500 km to Calcutta. Davies defends the veracity of this story, in part because British officials in India and Afghanistan reported similar Polish arrivals. (p. 273).

Was General Wladyslaw Sikorski murdered? British intelligence files remain closed. (p. 370).

Interesting statistics are provided about WWII weaponry. Probably the most-produced single weapon in WWII (to the tune of 6 million copies) was the Soviet PPSh-41 “pepesha”, also known as the “burp gun”. (p. 223).