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

Inferno of Choices: Poles and the Holocaust, 2^nd ed., by Sebastian Rejak and Elzbieta Frister (eds). 2012. Oficyna Wydawnicza RYTM, Warszawa

Unappreciated German Brutalities Governed Polish Actions Towards Jews. Treblinka Looting Contextualized 

This book, first of all, contains a selection of documents, and I quote from some of them:

GERMAN DOCUMENT (IMPLICATIONS FOR JEDWABNE): June 29, 1941, Warsaw – Order No. 1 of Reinhard Heydrich to the Einsatzgruppen Commanders…

“No impediments should be made to self-cleansing aspirations occurring in anti-Communist and anti-Jewish circles in the newly seized territories. On the contrary, they should be triggered without leaving a trace, encouraged where necessary…” (p. 21. Emphasis added).

We can plainly see that Jedwabne was a German crime, disguised as a Polish crime. Today’s Jews have taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker.

JEWS REPEAT NAZI PROPAGANDA. POLISH UNDERGROUND DOCUMENT: March 6, 1941, Warsaw. Ban on joining auxiliary force assigned to guard barracks in labour camps for Jews…

“The Government of the Republic of Poland in Exile already called on Poles last year to refrain from any collaboration, even if only ostensible, in the German organized anti-Jewish operation: The German enemy will use this auxiliary force to show to the whole world that we are cooperating with them in destroying the Jews and will attempt to compromise us in the eyes of other countries…” (pp. 23-24).

Note the irony: The Nazis were using any kind of Polish service to “prove” that Poles were complicit in the German-made Holocaust, and now the Jews are doing exactly the same thing! Today’s Jews are repeating Nazi propaganda. For shame.

AUGUST 1942 WARSAW PROTEST! – an Appeal by the underground Front for the Rebirth of Poland [Front Odrodzenia Polski], by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka

“Let us, Polish Catholics, speak up. Our feelings towards the Jews have not changed. We still consider them to be political, economic and ideological enemies of Poland. What’s more, we are aware that they hate us more than they do the Germans, that they hold us responsible for their tragedy. Why and on what grounds? – this remains the secret of the Jewish soul, yet this is a fact continuously borne out by evidence. Still, being aware of these sentiments does not exonerate us from the duty to condemn crime…In the stubborn silence of international Jewry, in the endeavors of German propaganda which is already seeking to put the odium of the slaughter of Jews on the Lithuanians and…on the Poles…” (p. 36).

Over 75 years have now passed, and nothing has changed. Jews generally hate Poles more than they hate Germans, and hold Poles more responsible, for the Shoah, than they do the Germans.

POLISH GOVERNMENT-IN EXILE: DECEMBER 10^th, 1942: The Mass Extermination of Jews in German-Occupied Poland

“It is not possible to estimate the exact numbers of Jews who have been exterminated in Poland since the occupation of the country by the armed forces of the German Reich. But all the reports agree that the total number of killed runs into many hundreds of thousands of innocent victims – men, women and children – and that of the 3,130,000 Jews in Poland before the outbreak of war, over a third have perished during the last three years.” (p. 45).

DEALING WITH BETRAYERS: May 6, 1943, Warsaw. “Preying on Greatest Tragedies” an article published by Rzeczpospolita Polska, the underground paper…

“It is a known fact that where there is a war, hyenas prevail…Generally, various go-betweens hover around the families of people arrested by the Gestapo, offering (obviously, for a generous fee) to help get the arrested out of prison or camp, or to make their prison life easier. Of these intermediaries, only a small fraction can render genuinely important, valuable services; the rest are typical wartime hyenas in the business of shamelessly tricking money out of people…Both categories of wartime hyena – those who swindle money out of the families of political prisoners and those who blackmail the ill-fated Jews – should be treated with condemnation and contempt by the society. Their names should be put on special records and they ought to be brought up before special courts for severe punishment.” (pp. 51-52).

Clearly, the szmalcowniki (extortionists) not only blackmailed Jews, but also did effectively the same to other Poles. But we never hear about that: It does not fit the Jews-are-victims standard narrative.

WHY LIMITED POLISH ARMED AID TO JEWS: August 5, 1943, Warsaw. Wire message No. 1321 from Home Army Commander General Tadeusz Komorowski “Lawina” to Commander-in-Chief ‘s Staff in London

“Too-expansive aid for the Jews would be ill-advised, for the following reasons: a) At home the Jews are regarded as an alien element and on many occasions hostile to Poland, as evidenced by their conduct during the Soviet occupation and frequently also here. b) There are many Jews in the armed bands of plunderers and Communists which are a plague at home. The Jewish members of these bands stand out for their special cruelty to Polish people; c) Public opinion and the underground community would take a negative view of any major provision for the Jews; such support would be seen as cutting into our own resources contrary to Poland’s direct interests.” (pp. 54-55).

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The remainder of this work consists of articles by various authors. I discuss the most relevant ones.

THE STANDARD JUDEOCENTRIC NARRATIVE MAKES POLISH SUFFERING ALMOST INVISIBLE

Historian Grzegorz Berendt writes, “Most authors who write about the Holocaust disregard the overall economic situation of the civilian population in the German-occupied territories.” (p. 116). That’s putting it mildly.

In other words, according to most conventional thinking, Jews were the only relevant victims, and Poles were just “spectators”, “bystanders”, or worse. Not only are the Poles’ own sufferings disregarded for their own sake, but they are also disregarded insofar as they could help us objectively understand the Polish conduct towards Jews.

THE GERMAN-MADE HUNGER GENOCIDE FACING THE POLES

Even though the German rations allotted to Poles were nominally higher than those allotted to Jews, the difference was academic, as they were none the less unlivable rations, and becoming more so. Berendt comments, “In 1940, the daily coupon rations for the non-German Aryan population in the GG were equivalent to only 736 calories. A year later they declined to 668 calories and in the second quarter of the year, to only 400 calories. Also, often shops did not have enough food to meet the coupon rations.” (p.122).

Berendt adds that, “By mid-1941, the prices of the various commodity groups had risen 30 to 50 times (sic!) from their prewar levels.” (p. 118). He adds that, “With the costs of living rising steeply, official earnings became meaningless as the basic source of supplying the family with food.” (p. 119).

Moreover, the German conquerors and occupants confiscated more and more from the Poles. Berendt comments, “Each year, the Germans’ demands for compulsory deliveries were increasingly damaging to local peasants and larger landowners. The quantities to be delivered under mandatory quotas were being steadily increased.” (p. 124).

The Germans also grew increasingly more brutal in the face of non-compliance. Berendt informs us that, “In the spring of 1943, punitive expeditions, combined with requisitioning and with the burning of farms in arrears of mandatory deliveries, came to be a widespread form of repression… the degree of terrorization of the Polish countryside communities.” (p. 125).

POLISH INGENUITY PARTLY THWARTED THE ATTEMPTED GERMAN STARVATION GENOCIDE

Berendt writes, “These informal – or outright illegal – sources of livelihood explain, at least partly, how a majority of the Aryan population of the GG could exist at all. Judging strictly by the official earnings, paltry food rations available at regulated prices, and the free-market prices of food, a large proportion of them should have rapidly starved to death.” (p. 119).

However, these Polish successes must be kept in perspective. Berendt writes, “Despite various tactical ploys which enabled the over twenty-million exploited non-German Aryans to survive, an underground analyst noted as early as in mid-1941 that a majority of the population was starving.” (p. 221).

STARVATION OF POLES PREVENTED MOST POLES FROM HELPING JEWS. WHY PAID RESCUERS

Berendt notes that, “The situation presented here supports a thesis that already by 1941-1942 a major part of the society, in particular urban dwellers and people with no food surpluses, could not afford to provide gratuitous, long-term aid to Jews who, faced with the genocidal action, were escaping to the Aryan side in larger numbers than in previous years. Therefore, the real necessity to take money from the rescuees and to increase the amount in line with increasing prices.” (p. 129).

INCREASINGLY DESPERATE CONDITIONS FACING POLES, AND NOT (WHAT ELSE?) ANTISEMITISM, DROVE POLISH DENUNCIATION OF FUGITIVE JEWS

Berendt perceptively notes that, “There is a striking concurrence of reports about peasant hunts for Jews in hiding in 1943-1944 – that is, at a time of an even steeper increase in prices, a fundamental decrease in peasant incomes, and a new wave of pauperization and common banditry across the countryside.” (p. 126).

WARTIME DEMORALIZATION DROVE POLISH ACQUISITIONS OF JEWISH PROPERTY

The taking of “abandoned” property is an unremarkable feature of war. Within a few months of Poland’s 1939 defeat, local Poles were wearing uniforms and other items taken from the battlefields. (Berendt, p. 131). Obviously, this could not have been caused by antisemitism.

The occupation got worse. The increasing privations drove Poles to accept German rewards for denouncing Jews. Berendt writes, “‘People are breaking down morally and physically,’ an underground analyst wrote in March 1943. ‘The chase for money with which to avoid death by starvation is becoming more and more ruthless and unceremonious.'” (p. 131).

LOOTING OF TREBLINKA SITE IN THE CONTEXT OF WAR-RELATED LOOTING IN GENERAL

Jan T. Gross, writing in a total contextual vacuum and with an anti-Polish bias, has portrayed Poles as Jew-exploiting villains because they searched the postwar Treblinka site for valuables. Really?

In actuality, looting was so widespread, after the war, that author Marcin Zaremba has an entire chapter on it. He comments, “In the summer of 1945 Poles were totally absorbed by Szaber” (p. 364). He defines this term, “According to all modern dictionaries of the Polish language szaber denotes: ‘appropriation of unsupervised property abandoned or deserted by its owner, usually in the course of warfare or a natural disaster'”. (p. 365).

He adds that, “Szaber was a form of folk reaction to crisis, sometimes to a permanent state of want and poverty.” (p. 367). Zaremba then includes discussion of the looting of Jewish remains, at Treblinka, in this light. (pp. 399-400).