WARSAW (Reuters) - The United Nations has accepted Poland's request to rename the Auschwitz death camp on its list of World Heritage sites to make clear it was run by Germans not Poles, the Polish government announced on Wednesday.
Auschwitz and the linked Birkenau camp in Poland would be known as "Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German Concentration and Death Camp," Culture Minister Kazimierz Ujazdowski told a news conference in Warsaw.
But a spokesman for the Paris-based U.N. education and culture arm UNESCO said he could not confirm the news. Last year, Poland announced prematurely that the change had been made.
"UNESCO has made a decision as a result of Poland's request to change the name of Auschwitz Birkenau to reflect the historical truth," Ujazdowski said, with the Israeli ambassador at his side. "This is a victory for truth."
More than a million Jews from across Europe were killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz and Birkenau in occupied Poland during World War Two. Many Poles worry that the world is forgetting the camps were set up by the Germans.
Warsaw points to references to "Polish gas chambers" or the "Polish concentration camps" in world media as evidence Poles are wrongly portrayed as collaborators with the Nazis in killing Jews.
Last year, Poland formally asked UNESCO to change the camp's name. Jewish organizations and Israel backed the plan after initial reservations. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee has been meeting in New Zealand this week.
German forces occupying Poland set up Auschwitz in southern Poland in 1940 as a labor camp for Polish prisoners, gradually expanding it into a vast labor and death camp that became the centerpiece of their plans to kill all European Jews.
Between 1.2 and 1.5 million people died there, most of them Jews. Polish political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, homosexuals, people with disabilities and prisoners of conscience or religious faith were also killed.
Poland has long battled accusations by some Jewish and Western commentators that Poles were willing Nazi helpers during the war -- accusations driven by documented incidents of Polish anti-Semitism and complicity in the Holocaust.
Poles argue that such cases were isolated and point out that 3 million of their ethnic kin perished during the bloody German occupation. Some were killed for trying to save their Jewish compatriots.
I believe the American and European media owes an apology to the Polish people for printing an articles in which the authors refers to them as anti-Semitic.
Such a books and articles contribute even more to the ever-present anti-Polonism in the American and European media.
Did any of those so-called American historians ever investigate any attacks on the non-Jewish population?
Poles were the victims of such cruel acts on an almost daily basis. This fact is kept from American and European readers. Instead, the massacre, which was known in Poland, the files were not hidden but open for everyone to investigate, had to be "discovered" by a fame-seeking author.
The fact that Mr. Gross left Poland in 1968 tells me that a touch of revenge may be the motive for his search. The investigation will only be in Poland's favor.
In the past, Kosinski's alleged autobiographical books were proven to be hoaxes.
There are files of documents that Mr. Gross somehow ignored in his research, rather concentrating on the testimony of one witness. To understand the base of that attack, we must know the history of Poland and in my opinion, based on the observation of an average American person, we know nothing.
It is too difficult to understand without being provided with wider information, truthful publications by OTHER than American and Jewish historians.
Unfortunately, when a country is attacked, in Poland's case, by two great powers, chaos occurs.
The double standards are evident by calling an event, such as the one in Jedwabne, an act of anti-Semitism, while in the US, burning a synagogue in Worcester, Mass was called "an act of vandalism", a shooting in the Jewish Children Center in California -"an act of a mad man". If such acts took place in Poland, they would have been called anti-Semitic. American patriotism applied to Poles transfers into nationalism.
For 1000 years, Poland was the spiritual and religious center of Jewish Diaspora and produced one of the greatest world centers of Talmudic studies. 300 papers in Hebrew were published in Warsaw alone. Jews, unlike Blacks in America, were not forced to settle in Poland, prospered, attended colleges and universities, owned factories, etc.
So in 1264, King Boleslav of Poland granted a charter inviting the Jews there. The charter was an amazing document, granting Jews unprecedented rights and privileges. For example, it stated that:
"The testimony of the Christian alone may not be admitted in a matter which concerns the money or property of a Jew. In every such incidence there must be the testimony of both a Christian and a Jew. If a Christian injures a Jew in any which way, the accused shall pay a fine to the royal treasury."
"If a Christian desecrates or defiles a Jewish cemetery in any which way, it is our wish that he be punished severely as demanded by law."
"If a Christian should attack a Jew, the Christian shall be punished as required by the laws of this land. We absolutely forbid anyone to accuse the Jews in our domain of using the blood of human beings."
"We affirm that if any Jew cries out in the night as a result of violence done to him, and if his Christian neighbors fail to respond to his cries and do not bring the necessary help, they shall be fined."
"We also affirm that Jews are free to buy and sell all manner of things just as Christians, and if anyone hampers them, he shall pay a fine."
Polish King Kazimierz was favorably disposed toward Jews. On October 9, 1334, he confirmed the privileges granted to Jewish Poles in 1264 by Boleslaus V. Under penalty of death, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries.
Although Jews had lived in Poland since before the reign of King Kazimierz, he allowed them to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king.
Another Polish king, Sigismund II Augustus, issued another invitation. Here is an excerpt from his edict, granting the Jews permission to open a yeshiva at Lublin, dated August 23, 1567:
"As a result of the efforts of our advisors and in keeping with the request of the Jews of Lublin we do hereby grant permission to erect a yeshiva and to outfit said yeshiva with all that is required to advance learning. All the learned men and rabbis of Lublin shall come together for among their number they shall choose one to serve as the head of the yeshiva. Let their choice be a man who will magnify Torah and bring it glory."
GOLDEN AGE OF POLISH JEWRY
In Poland, the Jews were allowed to have their own governing body called the Va'ad Arba Artzot, which was composed of various rabbis who oversaw the affairs of the Jews in Eastern Europe. The Poles did not interfere with Jewish life and scholarship flourished.
Some important personalities of this period, which a student of Jewish history should remember, were:
Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1525-1572), from Krakow, also known as the Rema. After the Sephardi rabbi Joseph Karo wrote the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish Law, Rabbi Isserles annotated it to fill in the rabbinic decisions from Eastern Europe. His commentary was, and continues to be, critically important in daily Jewish life.
Rabbi Ya'akov Pollack (1455-1530), from Krakow. He opened the first yeshivah in Poland and was later named the chief rabbi of Poland. He developed a method of learning Talmud called pilpul, meaning "fine distinctions." This was a type of dialectical reasoning that became very popular, whereby contradictory facts or ideas were systematically weighed with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions.
Rabbi Yehudah Loewe, (1526-1609), not from Poland but important to Eastern European Jewry. He was known as the Maharal of Prague and was one of the great mystical scholars of his time. He has been credited with having created the golem, a Frankenstein figure, a living being without soul.
Along with the growth in Torah scholarship came population growth. In 1500 there were about 50,000 Jews living in Poland. By 1650 there were 500,000 Jews. This means that by the mid 17th century about majority of the Jewish population of the world was living in Poland!
Where did these Jews settle within Poland?
Jews were generally urban people as they were historically not allowed to own land in most of the places they lived. However, they also created their own farm communities called shtetls. Although we tend to think of the shtetl today as a poor farming village (like in Fiddler on the Roof), during the Golden Age of Polish Jewry, many of these communities were actually quite prosperous. And there were thousands of them.
The Jews in these independent communities spoke their own language called Yiddish. Original Yiddish was written in Hebrew letters and was a mixture of Hebrew, Slavic, and German. (Note that Yiddish underwent constant development and "modern" Yiddish is not like the "old" Yiddish which first appeared in the 13th century, nor "middle" Yiddish of this period of time.) Overall, the Jews did well, but working alongside Polish and Ukrainian Christians
How many African Americans till the 20th century were able to do so?
Jews came to Poland on their own will, to the country of great opportunity, found shelter from the hostilities of Western Europe, stayed and prospered, had representatives in the Polish parliament, and had the freedom of expressing their religion and customs. In some towns of Eastern Poland, Jews accounted for more than 50% of the occupants. They were respected citizens, how could this be possible if the country was, as it is widely presented on the Jan Tomasz Gross book as anti-Semitic?
Polish Jews enjoyed equal rights and full protection of the law under the Polish government. The laws changed under the rule of Prussia, Russia, and Austria.
Keep in mind that it also affected Poles as well. Their situation improved after WWI when the Polish government was reestablished.
Why, between wars, was the Jewish population growing 6 times faster than Christian population, if the alleged anti-Semitism took place?
The only prejudice that you can accuse Polish people of is to be anti-Communist.
Marek Edelman, the last leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, who still lives in Poland, said: "It is not a Jew who is the enemy; it is an enemy who is Jewish." I'm sorry to destroy the beautiful image of the peaceful and innocent Jewish people but at the time of the massacre it was well known that there were "informers," "observers," "advisors," or in plain English "Soviet collaborators" among Jews then and through the war and post.
Those did not see the wrong they were doing, the comfort came from accepting a different way of thinking. They considered themselves Poles or Polish Jews before the war, now comfortably became only Jews, so there were no ties of loyalty to Poland or to the Polish people. Collaborators gave out Poles and Jews as well (Jakub Berman as an example).
But this would be too difficult to understand for us who for decades were fed on anti-Polish propaganda. The same propaganda that Nazis used and later Soviets and now is being repeated with a nauseating consistency by the American press.
The public does not know that Poland and Israel have a very good relationship.
It is the backwardness of American Jews to prefer the stereotype. I was hoping that with the raising of the Iron Curtain, the flow of information about Poland would be available to the average American reader and TV viewer.
That did not happen, rather we prefer to publish such articles. Also by hiding from public Polish accomplishments, only adds to the image of the Poles as some primitive tribe.
The fact that Poland's economy is the one of fastest growing in Europe is a thorn in the eye for some. The anti-Polish sentiment spreads to minimize their success. We already forgot who first faced the Soviet power and fought Communism.
Some are even lining up to collect money.
The difference between Holocaust victims in the US and Poland is that in Poland, Jews and Christians believe that there is no price on human despair, I guess American Jews found the price tag and the Holocaust became a good business.
Poles never asked to recompense their losses and they did not receive any help from the Marshal Plan either.
We must not forget that Poland was not only a victim during WWII but only recently freed herself from under Soviet occupation. We should remember that Communism in Poland was FORCED upon its people, that Soviets placed Jews on high positions, which triggered atrocities. There is no perfect nation, there are honorable citizens and there is scum in all of them. But it seems that we only find the bad in Poles and all the good in Jews. For a well-balanced story, the authors should mention what Soviet Jews did to Poles (Koniuchy massacre) and the fact that, from 34 countries, the Poles are those who have the most trees at Yad Vashem.
Poland lost almost 20% of its population; 6 million Poles were killed.
It was the only country in all of Nazi-occupied Europe with the death penalty for sheltering Jews. Germans knew how sympathetic Poles were to Polish Jews and that way, they could get rid of them both. Entire families, sometimes whole towns were murdered for sheltering Jews. 75% spoke only Yiddish, which later became a problem for those who wanted to be saved and pass as Poles. I guess American Jews don't rush to reveal some other information to the American public like: what were the Judenrat and the Jewish Police doing in the ghettos? Who took over the houses of Polish officers and their families when they were taken to Siberia?
In the American consciousness the Holocaust has become synonymous with Jewish history. Historical literature of the Holocaust has focused on the six million Jewish victims to the exclusion of the sixteen to twenty million Gentile victims.
Do we inform that Poland's government was the only one in Nazi-occupied Europe to sponsor the organization to help Jews escaping the ghettos?
What did American Jews do to help their dying brothers?
We allow speculation on almost every aspect of Polish-Jewish relationship never asking: "why don't we speculate how many Jews would save Poles if the roles were reversed?"
For me to have a different opinion is to risk being called an anti-Semite. An intelligent but objective Jewish person is called a "self-hating Jew". A "bystander" is someone who chose not to give his and his family's life for a stranger, Jewish person.
Good things are happening in Poland .We don't rush to tell about the annual Jewish Festival in Krakow or about the opening of yet another Jewish school in Warsaw. Or even about the commemorating of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. We don't rush to tell about the "Fiddler on the Roof" in Yiddish at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. Instead we publish misleading stories about a music concert in Auschwitz (!?) and killings in Jedwabne. Why is that? American historians should stop wasting their ink only writing about alleged Polish anti-Semitism. Any atrocities toward Jews either occurred during Nazi or Soviet occupation or were triggered by revenge and greed not to be mistaken with anti-Semitism. Also to suggest that all Polish Jews are long gone is wrong, many prospered and became famous: actors (Holoubek, Zapasiewicz, Himilsbach, Rudzki), movie critics (Waldorf), writers (Tuwim), philosophers and editors (Michnik), politicians (Mazowiecki, Suchocka), musicians (Szpilman, Zimmerman), heart surgeons (Marek Edelman), athletes (Kirszenstein a.k.a. Szewinska), singers (Szmeterling a.k.a. Jantar). Some Polish Jews just recently became interested in their religion; Jewish schools are reopening, while the synagogues, museums, and Jewish cultural institutes were always present in Poland's cultural life. Positive Jewish characters are in every Polish classic, there are streets named after Jewish heroes; monuments accommodate their heroism and their tragedy. All this does not seem like an anti-Semitic country does it? But it stays in the American media, as long as we allow it to.
Przegląd prasy
Jerzy Robert Nowak
Oszczerczy atak na kard. Sapiehę
W żydowskim miesięczniku „Midrasz”, który „wsławił się” oszczerczą napaścią dr Aliny Całej na słynną pisarkę katolicką Zofię Kossak – kolejna oszczercza napaść. Tym razem na jedną z największych postaci Kościoła katolickiego w XX wieku – księcia kard. Adama Sapiehę.
Napaść ta znalazła miejsce w tekście znanego niegdyś ze skrajnie dogmatycznych komunistycznych poglądów, a od wielu lat skrajnego siewcy jadowitego antypolonizmu – prof. Jerzego Tomaszewskiego. W majowym numerze „Midrasza” Tomaszewski przytoczył, z wyraźną aprobatą, godzące w kard. Sapiehę twierdzenia z artykułu Jana T. Grossa, opublikowanego w tomie „Zagłada Żydów. Studia i materiały. Pismo Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów”, IFiS PAN, nr 2, Warszawa 2006. Nagłośnione przez Tomaszewskiego oszczercze stwierdzenie Grossa akcentowało: „Nawet szczególnie szanowany po wojnie za postawę wobec władz okupacyjnych kard. Adam Sapieha nie oprotestował u gubernatora Franka nazistowskiej akcji mordowania Żydów (...). I nie da się tego zasłonić żadnym listkiem figowym, wyliczając garść nazwisk księży i sióstr zakonnych, którzy ratowali Żydów”.
Nagłośnione przez Tomaszewskiego w „Midraszu” oszczerstwo, godzące zarazem w dobre imię kard. Sapiehy i w Kościół katolicki w Polsce, jest wyjątkowo bezczelne. Książę Adam Sapieha jako metropolita krakowski już w 1940 r. na prośbę rabinów interweniował u gubernatora Franka w ich obronie, by zapobiec ich wysiedleniu. Wspomina o tym m.in. znany lekarz żydowski, dyrektor żydowskiego szpitala zakaźnego w getcie krakowskim Aleksander Biberstein w książce „Zagłada Żydów w Krakowie” (Kraków 1985, s. 223). Niestety, interwencja polskiego hierarchy katolickiego przyniosła odwrotny skutek – niemiecką zemstę na krakowskich rabinach, którzy zwrócili się o pomoc do abp. Sapiehy (S. Kornitzerze, S. Rappaporcie i M. Friedrichu). Jak pisał Biberstein i jak akcentuje autorka najnowszego opracowania na ten temat Krystyna Samsonowska, interwencja abp. Sapiehy „nie dość, że nie przyniosła oczekiwanego efektu, to niestety skończyła się wysłaniem rabinów do obozu w Oświęcimiu. Wszyscy zginęli” (cyt. za tekstem K. Samsonowskiej: „Pomoc dla Żydów krakowskich w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej”, „Polacy i Żydzi pod okupacją niemiecką 1939-1945. Studia i materiały”, pod red. Andrzeja Żbikowskiego, IPN, Warszawa 2006, s. 846). Jak z tego wynika, interweniowanie u władz niemieckich w obronie Żydów ze strony polskich hierarchów nie miało żadnych szans na pozytywne skutki.
Oczerniony przez Grossa i Tomaszewskiego arcybiskup Sapieha był faktycznie głównym organizatorem tajnej, jakże niebezpiecznej, akcji ratowania Żydów w Małopolsce. O jego zasługach w tym względzie pisał m.in. dr hab. Jan Żaryn w swej najnowszej pracy opublikowanej w książce „Wokół pogromu kieleckiego” (IPN, Warszawa 2006, s. 82): „Arcybiskup krakowski wbrew zakazom niemieckim zezwalał swoim kapłanom na potajemne udzielanie chrztu Żydom i fałszowanie metryk oraz interweniował osobiście w sprawie żydowskich katolików”.
Szokującym kłamstwem jest nagłośnione przez Tomaszewskiego twierdzenie Grossa, że tylko „garść” księży i sióstr zakonnych pomagała Żydom. Wspomniany już historyk IPN Jan Żaryn w książce „Polacy i Żydzi pod okupacją niemiecką 1939-1945” (op. cit., s. 388) pisał: „Lista kapłanów, a także sióstr zakonnych, którzy ratowali dzieci żydowskie, jest bardzo długa”. Niektóre osoby spośród tych duchownych zapłaciły własnym życiem za pomoc prześladowanym Żydom.
Warto zapytać, jak długo polski minister spraw wewnętrznych i administracji będzie dotował żydowskie czasopismo „Midrasz”, wyraźnie specjalizujące się w oszczerczych antypolskich i antykatolickich treściach?
Ich głównym wrogiem – Kościół
W „Dzienniku” z 21 maja – tekst Bogumiła Łozińskiego pt. „Pojedynek na parady i hasła”, wymownie ilustrujący nastroje wśród homoseksualistów i lesbijek uczestniczących w warszawskiej Paradzie Równości. W tekście czytamy m.in.: „(...) uczestnicy pochodu nieśli tęczowe transparenty i tablice z hasłami «Homofobia stop», i skandowali: «Polska wolna od faszystów». Nad ich głowami krążył policyjny helikopter.
Organizatorzy imprezy nie ukrywali, że ich głównym wrogiem jest Kościół, stąd jej hasło: «Kochaj bliźniego swego» przekornie nawiązywało do najważniejszego przykazania chrześcijaństwa, a nad manifestantami powiewała flaga antyklerykalnej partii Racja i transparent z napisem: «Polska kolonią Watykanu». Nie zabrakło też karykatur polityków prawicy. Rozdawano m.in. ulotki przedstawiające posła Prawicy RP Mariana Piłkę, trzymającego mechaniczną piłę, z podpisem: «Chrześcijańska masakra Piłką»”.
Przeciw bezkarności urzędników
W „Naszym Dzienniku” z 21 maja – godny polecenia tekst Wojciecha Wybranowskiego: „Prawo pozwala na urzędniczą patologię”. Autor pisze m.in.: „Mnogość obowiązujących w Polsce przepisów prawa regulujących działalność gospodarczą pozwala na bezkarność urzędników nawet w przypadku, gdy ich działania doprowadzają do upadku sprawnie funkcjonującego przedsiębiorstwa. Zdaniem Romana Kluski, niedawne upadłości «Bestcomu», «JTT Computer» i wielu innych polskich firm to reguła wskazująca na złe stosowanie prawa przez urzędników, a także na działanie nomenklaturowych «lóż interesów», wykorzystujących prawo do niszczenia konkurencji. Posłowie z sejmowej Komisji Gospodarki są zgodni: trzeba uprościć prawo i w sprawach gospodarczych wyeliminować uznaniowość urzędników, sędziów i prokuratorów. (...) Zdaniem Kluski, jedynym rozwiązaniem jest «wycięcie» z polskiego prawa wszystkich przepisów pozwalających urzędnikom na uznaniowość i dowolność podejmowania decyzji”.
W tymże numerze „Naszego Dziennika” zamieszczony jest ponadto interesujący wywiad W. Wybranowskiego z R. Kluską pt. „Nie ma innej drogi. Trzeba zlikwidować bariery”. Według Kluski – „Od około piętnastu lat z roku na rok inicjatywa obywatela jest ograniczana dużą liczbą aktów prawnych. Jest ich w sumie obecnie ok. 30 tysięcy stron. Żaden obywatel nie jest w stanie się z nimi zapoznać, a jeżeli nie jest się w stanie poznać prawa, to bardzo trudno jest go przestrzegać. Jednym z największych problemów przedsiębiorców dzisiaj jest stres, że jest jakieś prawo, o którym nie wiedzą, i za chwilę pojawi się urzędnik, mówiąc: «nie przestrzega pan tego czy owego»”.
Ruch obrony starej nomenklatury
W mediach – sprzeczne komentarze wokół zainicjowanego przez lewicę „Ruchu na rzecz Demokracji” i wspólnego wystąpienia Aleksandra Kwaśniewskiego, Lecha Wałęsy i Andrzeja Olechowskiego przeciw rzekomym zagrożeniom demokracji w Polsce. Wystąpienie to zostało gorąco przywitane na łamach „Gazety Wyborczej”, konsekwentnie sprzeciwiającej się radykalnym zmianom w kierunku IV Rzeczypospolitej. „Gazeta Wyborcza” z 18 maja poświęca aż 5 różnych tekstów wspomnianemu wspólnemu wystąpieniu. Teksty te otwiera publikowany na pierwszej kolumnie numeru artykuł Pawła Wrońskiego i Wojciecha Załuski: „Prezydenci i obywatele. Polskę stać na demokrację pierwszej jakości”, szczególnie radośnie anonsujący współpracę Kwaśniewskiego i Wałęsy. Wyraźnie na drugim biegunie poglądów sytuują się stanowiska redaktorów prawicowej „Naszej Polski”. W numerze z 15 maja czytamy bardzo wnikliwą krytykę głównych postaci „Ruchu na rzecz Demokracji”: „Poputczicy Kwaśniewskiego”, która wyszła spod pióra Pawła Siergiejczyka. W kolejnym numerze „Naszej Polski” (z 22 maja) – tekst naczelnego tego tygodnika Piotra Jakuckiego „Zlot upiorów”. Pisząc o spotkaniu na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim z udziałem Wałęsy, Kwaśniewskiego i Olechowskiego, Jakucki stwierdza: „Na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim spotkali się «obrońcy demokracji» spod znaku agentury, afer gospodarczych i politycznych oraz «salonu Michnika i okolic». Ich cel to zahamowanie zmian w kraju, odsunięcie PiS i powrót Polski do czasów oligarchii mafijnej
SERIALS FROM PAST ISSUES
THE TRUTH ABOUT KIELCE
Copyright 1996 - Iwo Pogonowski and AngloPol Corporation -- Distributed by the Polonia Media Network
PROMOTING GOODWILL BETWEEN JEWISH AND POLISH PEOPLE:
THE OBSTACLE OF THE KIELCE POGROM OF JULY 4, 1946
A Study by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
Pogonowski is a renowned author of books and articles about Poland and is particularly knowledgeable about the history of Jews in Poland. As reference material for this writing he has referred extensively to "Poland, Communism, Nationalism, Anti-Semitism" by Michael Checinski, "Poles, Jews, Communism-- The Anatomy of Half-Truth 1939-1968" by Krystyna Kersten and "Pogrom of Jews in Kielce, July 4, 1946" by Bozena Szaynok. He also credits the Information Services of the Canadian Polish Congress for special materials and help.
Part 2 of 5
GERMAN OCCUPATION OF POLAND AND CONTROL OF JEWS
By mid-1941, Germany gained control of all of Poland and the Germans continued the establishment of Jewish ghettos that the Germans had started in 1939. Germans formed the Jewish ghettos by evicting hundreds of thousands of gentiles from their homes and then crowding many more Jewish families there than the space could reasonably accommodate. There were no Jewish ghettos in Poland before Germany started creating them in 1939. It is ironic that some people not well acquainted with the history of the ghettos have mistakenly thought that the ghettos were formed by a bigoted Polish population who spitefully wanted to segregate the Jewish population to selected areas. Instead, the real truth is that Polish people were unwillingly removed from their homes by the Germans to form the ghettos, and then the Polish people illegally aided the Jews by bringing them substantial amounts of food and other supplies.
In terms of living conditions, the ghettos formed by the Germans bore a haunting similarity to the concentration camps that the Germans had been organizing since 1933. The Polish Armed Resistance reported that 500,000 Jews were crowded into the Warsaw Ghetto: 600 people per acre. Hunger, and unspeakably poor hygienic and sanitary conditions resulted in the spreading of tuberculosis and other contagious diseases. The Central Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Polish People reported: "The isolated ghetto is restricted to internal trade, consisting of people's private property, clothing, and household goods which are sold at low prices for extremely expensive food ... There is no heating fuel in the ghetto ... The health and sanitary conditions are beyond description--there is a monstrous hunger and poverty ... Overcrowded streets are full of aimless, pale, and starving people ... People die in the streets ... An orphanage is being overcrowded with daily arrivals of newborn babies ... The Germans' plunder of once-affluent Jews continues ... as well as the treatment of Jews in an exceptionally brutal manner ..."
Each ghetto had its own Jewish Council [Judenrat] which oversaw day-to-day affairs and a Jewish police force which carried out German orders to supply laborers and, as pointed out by Jewish historians such as Isaiah Trunk and Hannah Arendt, to round up Jews for deportation to death camps. Thus, relatively few Germans were needed for such "Aktions," or official actions by the German government against the Jewish people. Nor did their success involve any type of cooperation from Polish gentiles. Because the system set up by the Germans did not rely on Polish police, even the opportunity for the Polish police to aid the German roundup of the Jews was marginal or non-existent, as pointed out by Raul Hilberg, the foremost Holocaust historian, in his important work, "Victims, Perpetrators, Bystanders." Conditions in the Bransk ghetto have been described in Isaiah Trunk's "Judenrat" (New York: Macmillan, 1972) and in "Bransk: Book of Memories" (New York: Shoulson Press, 1948).
Polish gentiles certainly were not the masterminds who formed the ghettos nor collaborators with the Germans on the brutal treatment of the Jews. To the contrary, Polish gentiles sabotaged German plans for the starvation of ghetto inmates. The Polish gentiles made illegal deliveries of food to the ghettos--including about 250 tons of flour per day. Jozef Dabrowski and others were shot by the Germans for making such deliveries. By then the daily food ration in Warsaw was 184 calories for a Jew, 669 for a Polish gentile, and 2,613 for a German. Eighty percent of the food consumed in the ghetto was smuggled in by Polish gentiles. The supply of raw materials into the ghetto was forty times greater than that officially permitted by the Germans, according to the records of the Jewish Council of the Warsaw Ghetto. (I.C. Pogonowski, "Jews in Poland: A Documentary History, pp. 106-107.")
After Germany's invasion of Russia, Adolf Hitler verbally ordered the "Final Solution of the Jewish question," namely the extermination of eleven million European Jews. To work out and communicate the details of implementing the "Final Solution," the Wannsee Conference was held in Berlin on January 20, 1942. At the conference, the leaders of the German civil service established the specific means by which the genocide was to be conducted. As a direct result of the conference, the Berlin government announced an invitation for bids from German industry to purchase equipment for an industrial process to exterminate eleven million European Jews.
According to plans developed at the Conference, terrorized Jewish personnel were to be used in the extermination process. Also, the plans further directed that the extermination camps were to be isolated from the Polish population for maximum secrecy. For this reason, the camp guards were recruited from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine. Despite German terror and German attempts to keep Poles in the dark about the Germans' actions, radio broadcasts made by the Polish resistance regularly informed the West of German atrocities in Poland. (I.C. Pogonowski, "Jews in
Poland: A Documentary History, New York: Hippocrene Books Inc., 1993, pp. 110, 119, 120, 121, 124, 125).
Massive deportations from the Warsaw ghetto in the summer of 1942 (to the Treblinka death camp) were not carried out with the assistance of any Polish agency. Indeed, in German-occupied Poland, there was not even a vestige of a Polish government at that time. Instead, the deportations were organized by the Jewish police in coordination with the Judenrat and the occupying German forces. Horrifying descriptions of this Aktion are found in the diaries of Emanuel Ringelblum, the chronicler of the Warsaw ghetto, and elsewhere. These sad events are only a part, but a significant part, of the eventual roundup and execution by the Germans of a large proportion of Poland's Jews in what later came to be referred to as the Holocaust.
On April 19, 1943, a Jewish uprising began in the Warsaw Ghetto as Germans started the final liquidation of the Jews there. The massacre ended on May 8, 1943. Professor Marian Fuks later wrote: "It is absolutely certain fact that without help and active participation of the Polish resistance movement it would have not been possible at all to bring about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto." ("The Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland," July-December 1989, p. 44).
It should go without saying that the German occupation and brutal control of Poland was not welcomed by the Polish people. Unfortunately, neither could the Polish people find solace in the eventual Soviet re-entry into Poland and their consequent program of brutal control. Upon Soviet re-entry into Poland in 1944, the Soviet terror apparatus was systematically liquidating the remnants of the Polish Home Army and any perceived Polish opponents of a Soviet takeover and control of Poland. It is an undeniable fact that many Jews, usually communist functionaries, were collaborating with the Soviets in denouncing, jailing, and executing Poles. (See for example, "Karta," no. 15; Oswald Rufeisen's account in Nechama Tec's "In the Lion's Den"; Wanda Lisowska's 1946 account on conditions in Ejszyszki found in "Zeszyty Historyczne," no. 36.) Poles suspected of having either collaborated with the Germans or of being anti-Semitic could be, and were, executed with impunity. For example, in Drohiczyn, nine Polish gentiles were murdered by local Jews because they were falsely suspected of killing a Jew, a crime in fact perpetrated by the Soviets (Warszawa: Archiwum Polski Podziemnej, Dokumenty, 1994).
Tens of thousands of Polish gentiles were executed in repressions that affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Polish gentiles. The foregoing are not invented facts: Both Simon Wiesenthal and Stanislaw Krajewski, vice-chairperson of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, among others, have publicly admitted their shame on this account. Under these types of wartime circumstances, where Jews were successfully encouraged to betray Polish gentiles to the Soviet authorities, animosities toward Jews in the general population were not a matter of anti-Semitism, but simply a matter of survival. Active Jewish collaboration and popular support for Soviet forces invading Poland occurred from the beginning of the War. In the book "Poles, Jew, Socialists--The Failure of an Ideal," edited by Antony Polonsky, et al. (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1996), Dov Levin writes "The Red Army entered Wilno [Poland] early on the morning of Tuesday, 19 September 1939, to an enthusiastic welcome by Wilno's Jewish residents, in sharp contrast to the Polish population's reserve and even hostility. Particular ardor was displayed by leftist groups and their youthful members, who converged on the Red Army tank columns bearing sincere greetings and flowers."
Despite these enormous obstacles, and the fact that Polish gentiles also were undergoing their own Holocaust which consumed several million victims, hundreds of thousands of Polish gentiles risked their lives to help Jews. In Warsaw alone, before the uprising of 1944, which resulted in its total destruction, some 15,000 Jews were being sheltered. Emanuel Ringelblum estimated that as many as 60,000 out of the city's 700,000 Christian residents were involved in the rescue efforts. Assistance has been documented at more than 600 Catholic churches, monasteries, convents, and church-run orphanages throughout Poland. Poles form the largest group recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Gentiles," as many as 40% of all those recognized. Yad Vashem is a Jewish organization devoted to honoring those who saved Jews from the Holocaust.
Just as there were some Jewish collaborators during World War II, small numbers of Polish gentiles also collaborated with the Germans. There is no justification or excuse for their actions, and neither was this conduct condoned or tolerated. With the active support of Polish public opinion, the Polish Underground passed and carried out many death sentences against anyone found collaborating with the Germans. It is regrettably true that collaborators, whether with the Nazis or the Soviets, whether Polish Jews or gentiles, were an effective force to contend with. But at the same time, they were tiny, marginal and unrepresentative groups in their respective communities.
Simon Wiesenthal has advocated the following wise and balanced assessment of that tragic period which consumed millions of Jewish and Polish lives: "Then the war came. It is at times like these that the lower elements in society surface--the blackmailers who would betray Jews ... On the other hand, the 30,000 or 40,000 Jews who survived, survived thanks to the help of the Poles. This I know." During the five years of German occupation most of the efforts to shelter Jews ended tragically for the Jewish victims and their Christian friends.
What do the leading Holocaust historians have to say about alleged Polish complicity in the Holocaust? Yisrael Gutman, director of research at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem and editor in chief of "The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust" (1990), has stated authoritatively: "All accusations against the Poles that they were responsible for the Final Solution are not even worth mentioning. Secondly, there is no validity at all in the contention that Polish attitudes were the reason for the siting [sic] of the death camps in Poland." And again: "I want to be unequivocal about this. When it is said that Poles supposedly took part in the extermination of the Jews on the side of the Germans, that is not true. It has no foundation in fact. There was no such thing as Poles taking part in the extermination of the Jewish population." Professor Gutman stated that the percentage of Poles who collaborated with the Germans was "infinitesimally small." He said this in a conversation with Polish Ambassador Dowgiallo (Harvey Sarner, "From Science to Diplomacy: A Pole's Experience in Israel," Brunswick Press, 1995). Richard Pipes of Harvard University, wrote in the introduction to I.C. Pogonowski's book, "Jews in Poland," published on the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: "It must never be mistakenly believed that the Holocaust was perpetrated by the Poles. Nor must it be ignored that three million Poles perished at German hands." Szymon Datner, longtime director of Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute, has been equally blunt: "Poles are not responsible for the crimes of the Holocaust."
EVENTS FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II
Only Soviet-trained intelligence agents were trusted by the Soviet government among Polish prewar Communists. Among those "the Jews ... were ... considered less susceptible to the lures of Polish nationalism, to which even impeccable Polish communists were not thought immune" (Checinski, p. 71). During 1945, the Soviets recruited to the Office of State Security a very large number of Jews. Mostly Jews, including Holocaust survivors, were assigned to carry out the Soviet policy of de-Nazification in the former German territories which Poland was to annex on the basis of the Potsdam Agreement in compensation for provinces lost to the Soviet Union in 1939.
After the War, over 1,200 former Nazi camps were used to hold German nationals, 99% of whom were noncombatants. Under the guise of de-Nazification, members of the pro-Western Polish resistance and their families were processed together with the Germans. In a brief period of time between 60,000 and 80,000 people died in the de-Nazification camps. Starvation diets, typhoid fever, and mistreatment caused the high death rate. Torture was commonplace. Jewish officers of the UB [Urzad Bezpieczenstwa, Office of State Security], including those who themselves survived unimaginable suffering at German hands, were now used by the Soviets to inflict the same on others. Again, to quote Simon Wiesenthal, "I always say that I know what kind of role Jewish communists played in Poland after the war. And just as I, as a Jew, do not want to shoulder responsibility for the Jewish communists, I cannot blame 36 million Poles for those thousands of blackmailers."
Polish gentiles bore the brunt of the killing force unleashed by the Soviets while they established their totalitarian hold on Poland and the Polish people. Checinski cites a study based on party and security archives that estimates 80,000 to 200,000 Polish gentiles were killed by the Soviets during their takeover, while approximately 1600 Jews were killed at the same time. (Checinski, p. 64)
John Sack, a former CBS News bureau chief in Spain and a journalist for 48 years, spent seven years doing research and conducting interviews in Poland, Germany, Israel, and the United States to document the story of Jewish actions taken directly after the end of World War II in response to the wartime atrocities. On November 21, 1993, the CBS program 60 Minutes, presented an interview with Mr. Sack and footage of interviews with the survivors who testified to torture and killings in those camps. A Polish woman, Dr. Dorota Boreczek, former inmate of the Swientochlowiche camp, testified that she was arrested and tortured together with her parents. Her father, a member of Polish Home Army, was executed. (See John Sack, "An Eye For An Eye," Basic Books, Division of Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.)
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