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

The Destruction of the Polish Elite: Operation AB–Katyn, by Pawel Kosinski et al (eds.) 2009. Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (IPN), Warszawa

Himmler Exterminate Poles. Not Only Jews: Poles, Too, Were to Be Totally Destroyed

In the Foreword, Professor Janusz Kurtyka, then the Head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), wrote:

“On 15 March 1940, in German-occupied Poznan, at a meeting of commanders of detention camps, SS Commander Heinrich Himmler said: ‘All the professionals of Polish descent should be used in our defence industry. Later, all Poles will disappear from the world. … It is therefore necessary that the great German nation saw its main task in destructing all Poles’.” (p. 8).

ANALYSIS OF THE GENOCIDE

This short book (87 pages) centers on the destruction of educated Poles, done by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union acting in unison. It is full of photos.

However, the elimination of Poland’s intelligentsia, and the reduction of the remaining Poles to slaves, was not an end in itself. The end was physical extermination, as with the Jews. Note that Himmler’s exterminate-Poles statements came almost two years before Wannsee. Just because the destruction of Poles was of a phased nature (intelligentsia first), and was long-term in character, does not make it any less real.

The Germans lost the war. They ran out of time.