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

Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943, by Ronald Headland. 1992. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, London and Toronto

Odd Schindler Laborers: Kept Alive For Profit, and Not Out of a Love For Jews

This book surveys the German SS in the “Holocaust by Bullets”. I focus on other issues.

ODD SCHINDLER LABORERS: JEWISH LABORERS SPARED FOR MONEYMAKING PURPOSES, AND NOT OUT OF ALTRUISM

Headland writes, “To conclude this discussion of Jewish labor in the eastern territories, it must be noted that even after Himmler’s order of 21 June 1943 liquidating the ghettos of the Ostland and the setting up of concentration camps, and when, as a result, great numbers of ‘useless’ Jews were killed, the conflicts over Jewish labor remained. THE CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATION AUTHORITIES HAD NO WISH TO GIVE UP TO THE SS THE NOT INCONSIDERABLE INCOME THAT THE JEWISH WORKERS PROVIDED FOR THEIR TREASURY…In summary the need for Jewish labor by the Wehrmacht and civilian agencies and their strong advocacy of this viewpoint allowed many Jews to escape annihilation…in the long run, it also enabled thousands of Jews who otherwise would have been killed outright to survive the war.” (p. 91. Emphasis added).

Odd Schindler laborers: For more on German businesses insisting that their Jews be kept alive in order to keep making money off them, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2022/07/03/schindler-profit-jewish-forced-laborers-holocaust-survivor-testimony-unreliable-details-jewish-nazi-collaboration-browning/

JEDWABNE EVIL STAHLECKER: GERMANS INCITE LOCAL POGROMS

Author Headland extends the discussion on Walter Stahlecker’s clever policy of blaming German killings of Jews on the locals, as happened at Jedwabne. He writes, “Stahlecker’s report maintained the pogroms had the dual purpose of putting blame on the local population and disguising German participation in the killings. L-180. Pogroms were still considered a useful tactic by Himmler even months later when the extermination program had long been well entrenched.” (p. 276).

For extensive discussion on Stahlecker’s blame-shifting tactics with special relevance to Jedwabne, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2021/07/01/jedwabne-update-definitive-work-jedwabne-a-german-disguised-crime-long-suppressed-information-now-available-2000-2003-poles-are-guilty-ipn-commission-refuted-sommer-chodakiewicz-stankiewicz/

NO BLACK AND WHITE ON LOCALS’ COLLABORATION WITH NAZI GERMANY AGAINST JEWS

Headland comments, “Difficulties in inciting pogroms in the Ukraine and in Estonia were also encountered. See OSR 47 and 111. In OSR 27 Einsatzgruppe B reported that the population had to be asked to cooperate in seizing Communists and Jews. Similarly, Einsatzgruppe C reported that the inhabitants did not betray the Jews who were in hiding. See OSR 127.” (p. 259). For more on the decades-old German effort to shift the blame for the Holocaust away from Germans and unto Slavs, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2026/05/16/bombshell-german-jewish-anti-polishness-confirmed/

GERMAN “ANTI-PARTISAN WARFARE” A PRETEXT FOR DOING GENOCIDE ON BOTH JEWS AND SLAVS

Headland has a good grasp of this issue. He writes, “Even the antipartisan warfare was used as an opportunity to disguise the killing of Jews and other ‘undesirables’. As proof of this, one has only to recall Hitler’s cynical comment made in July 1941 that the partisan war was a good thing because it offered the chance to wipe out anyone who opposed the Germans. The constant destruction of whole villages by the Kommandos and the immense numbers of persons killed renders quite preposterous any claims that these operations were legal acts carried out solely in response to actions by the indigenous population.” (pp. 73-74).