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

In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-In-Exile and the Jews, 1939-1942, by David Engel. 1987, 2014. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London

David Engel Second-Guesses the Polish Government in Exile on Jews

This book has been reprinted. Evidently, it has some enduring value. For this reason, I review and expose it.

At times, Engel is devious and slippery. He pretends to be objective by giving “both sides” to perennial Jewish accusations against Poland. For instance, right on the very first page of the book (p. 3), he dignifies the Polonophobic trash, of Poles being partly responsible for the clearly German-made Holocaust, by mentioning it as a legitimate point of view. To be sure, he also mentions those who reject this, but the original heinous accusation remains. His “objectivity” is clearly a matter of gaslighting.

Impugning the Motives of the Polish Government-In-Exile

Using Talmudic-style sophistry, Engel goes on an elaborate discourse questioning the motives of the Polish Government in Exile when it publicized what it knew about the unfolding German-made Holocaust. Needless to say, Engel does not question the motives of the much-glorified Danish rescuers of Jews. And, most certainly, Engel never questions the motives of Poland’s Jews in those instances when Jews were doing apparent good to Poland.

Again and again, Engel, based on tenuous evidence, accuses the Polish government in exile of hesitating to publicize what it knew about Jewish Holocaust deaths out of a fear that the publicity of Jewish deaths would overshadow the publicity of Polish deaths. (e. g., p. 177, 183, 202, 209). But Jewish deaths, at the time, were not considered something special. Holocaust supremacy, which would have made such concerns very legitimate, did not appear until a few decades after WWII.

The author goes on and on about whether Poles in general, and the Polish Government in Exile in particular (e. g., p. 6, p. 203, 204), felt a genuine sense of Jews being in its “sphere of moral obligations”. No one asks this of the witnesses of any other genocide. So, once again, Jews must be special. And, needless to say, Engel never inquires as to whether or not Jews felt any genuine sense of duty to the Polish nation in which they had lived for many centuries, let alone in terms of a Jewish “sphere of moral obligations” to Poles and Poland.

Engel’s selective cynicism continues. Failing everything else, Engel tells the reader that the Polish government-in-exile publicized what it knew about the Holocaust only when it was just about to become publicized by other sources. (p. 201). Evidently, the Polish government in exile must have had powers of precognition!

Back to reality. Engel is spectacularly wrong. Any “holding back” of information by the Polish government-in-exile actually owed to British pressures, not some mythical lack of Polish appreciation of the plight of the Jews. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/warnings-by-poles-of-shoah-british-gag-imposed-fleming/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/warnings-by-poles-of-shoah-buried-definitive-work-plesch/

BLAMING THE POLES FOR HISTORIC JEWISH SEPARATISM

Contrary to its title, this book is not just about the Polish Government in Exile and the Jews. It is an overall bashing of Poland. Engel misrepresents the onetime attempted Jewish separate-nation status, as attempted by the so-called Minorities Treaty, and tries to put all the blame on those big bad Polish nationalists. Engel misrepresents the Yiddishist Noah Prylucki as saying that “Jews are Poles”. (p. 25). Evidently, Prylucki was being two-faced, wanting Jews to be considered Poles when it was convenient for them, and not be considered Poles when it was not. Elsewhere, Prylucki clearly said that Poland’s Jews were not, are not, and will never be Poles. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/like-jews-like-endeks-yiddishist-prylucki-weiser/

Nor is this just a matter of historical interest. When today’s Holocaust gatekeepers repeatedly whine about Poland daring to conflate Polish and Jewish deaths (within a broader narrative of Poland’s victimhood), they are tacitly re-affirming the onetime separate-nation status of Poland’s Jews. When today’s Holocaust Industry demands payment for onetime Jewish property that has not been owned by any Jew for 80 years, they are asserting de novo tribal rights to such onetime Jewish property. These inferred Jewish tribal rights, too, are a form of Jewish-recognized Jewish separate-nation status, this time applied retroactively.

Finally, consider everyday phraseology. For the most part, “non-Jewish Pole” (e. g, p. 127) makes about as much sense as “non-Polish Israeli”, yet we never hear the latter phrase used.