-Caveat Lector-
Prudy, If you go to Google and enter "Jews + collaborated +
Soviets" in 10 seconds you will get 875 hits. I did not invent
this as you are implying. This is just one of the articles
selected at random but it is pretty good and note the author has
even received the ADL's award before you label him anti-Semitic.
This is a fact. And yes, the Vatican did assist in the Ratline as
did many others with the philosophy that it was better we get the
scientists than they be used against us. I find it so very strange
that people think the Pope should have sided with the Protestants
and Jews and ignored the plight of his own Catholics! And you'd
think he had an army at his command and could have actually done
something. In Holland where some of the most outspoken (against
the Nazis) were, the result was worse treatment for the Jews. But
note the criteria this author suggests is required now for anything
to be published on this subject, too, for therein lies the
problems.
{{ There is a mountain of documentation which shows that in this
area, occupied by the Soviets during 1939-1941, a significant
number of Jews collaborated with the Soviets in the arrest,
deportation and death of thousands of Poles. Jedwabne Jews were no
exception. Complete article below. Amelia}}
Jedwabne and the
Selling of the Holocaust
by Dr. Richard C. Lukas
SPECIAL TO THE POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL
Editor's note: Dr. Richard Lukas is a retired professor of history.
He taught at universities in Ohio, Florida and Tennessee and is the
author of seven books. "The Forgotten Holocaust" went through
several editions, including a Polish one, and is now considered a
classic. "Did the Children Cry," which sold out in hardback, was
published in paperback in June. It won the Janusz Korczak Literary
award, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League and the Kosciuszko
Foundation.
This article was first published in the May 2001 edition.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
Selling the Holocaust is a gigantic enterprise that has less to do
with preserving the memory of Jewish victims than exploiting the
Holocaust for political, ideological and economic purposes. The
consequence is that history has become a major casualty. In the
absence of any quality control on the type of books that are
published, Holocaust historiography is subject to a kind of
Gresham's Law where bad history drives out good history, making it
difficult for even professional historians to determine where
sensationalism, propaganda and martyrology ends and history begins.
To have a book published by a major American publisher on the
Holocaust, the author must meet only a few criteria: Does the book
depict Jewish victimization in pristine terms (i.e., nothing
negative or compromising about Jewish behavior)? Even if the book
tangentially deals with Christian victims of the Nazis, does the
author drown these Christians sufficiently in antiSemitism to
compromise their victimhood and emphasize their role as victimizers
in order to maintain the sovereign wartime experience of the Jews?
Better yet, does the author depict nonJewish groups, especially
Catholic Poles, as either Nazi collaborators or accomplices or
perpetrators of atrocities?
If these criteria are met, then it is extraordinarily easy for an
author to garner notoriety for his book in leading American
newspapers and news magazines, which are notoriously unsympathetic
with the Polish dimension of PolishJewish relations.
This is what has happened to Professor Jan T. Gross, a Jew who
emigrated to the West from Poland in 1968. His book, "Neighbors,"
published last year under its Polish title, Sadiedzi , was recently
released in the United States by Princeton University Press. Gross
is not a professional historian, but a sociologist, an important
point in, analyzing the merit of his book.
Gross's thesis is that Christian Poles were solely responsible for
killing 1600 Jews in the village of Jedwabne in northeastern Poland
in July, 1941. As he puts it, "Half of the population ... murdered
the other half." His explanation for the atrocity is that
antiSemitism made the Poles do it.
Why in Jedwabne, where Polish-Jewish relations had been good before
the war, would the Poles suddenly decide to kill their Jewish
neighbors? Gross presents the tableau of hundreds of Poles
mindlessly slaughtering Jews because now, quite suddenly, they
despised them and lusted after their property. Is this, scenario
really credible? What had changed in Polish-Jewish relations? Gross
dismisses a critical fact-Jewish treason in eastern Poland, where
Jedwabne is located, during the Soviet occupation.
Eastern Poland was inhabited by Poles, Jews, Belorussians,
Ukrainians and others who fought, brutalized and betrayed each
other in one of the worst places in wartime Europe. In June, 1941,
the Nazis broke their nonaggression pact with the Soviets, who had
occupied eastern Poland since September, 1939, and invaded the
area.
There is a mountain of documentation which shows that in this area,
occupied by the Soviets during 1939-1941, a significant number of
Jews collaborated with the Soviets in the arrest, deportation and
death of thousands of Poles. Jedwabne Jews were no exception.
When the Soviets reconquered the area from the Germans in
1944-1945, Jews again were prominently involved in the destruction
of the Polish Home Army and the arrest and execution of Poles loyal
to the Polish democratic government, then in exile in London. That
process of Jewish involvement in the persecution, imprisonment and
execution of Poles continued throughout the Stalinist era.
Even though in his earlier writings Gross had admitted Jewish
complicity with Poland's enemy, he now conspicuously dismisses this
aspect of Jewish behavior because to acknowledge it would depict
Jews as victimizers of Poles, a contradiction of the prevailing
Holocaust image that all Jews were victims.
Cast in the light of Jewish collaboration with the Soviets, it
should not be too surprising that some Poles may have sought out
Jewish traitors and tried to kill them. It worked the other way
too. Several hundred Poles, including women and children, were
murdered by a JewishSoviet partisan unit in Koniuchy in 1944. One
of the members of the unit was even honored by the U.S. Holocaust
Museum in Washington, D.C.
As is so often the case with sensationalist accounts of the war ,
the author raises more questions than he answers. He bases his
claims primarily on the allegations of Szmul Wasersztajn, who was
not an eyewitness to the events at Jedwabne but was in hiding some
distance away, and the testimonies elicited during the Lomza trials
in 1949 and 1953, a period when Poles underwent the brutal
Stalinization of their country.
Regarding German documentation concerning Jedwabne, Gross claims he
looked for it but "I was unable to find it." I am not entirely
convinced Gross personally investigated German and for that matter,
former Soviet archives during his research on his book. He makes
the quaint observation that he asked two scholars, both of whom
allegedly familiar with German archives, about Jedwabne and neither
of them' heard of it. Does asking two colleagues about the subject
replace the need to immerse oneself personally in critical
documents, which are absolutely essential to prove one's
allegations about what happened at Jedwabne?
Even though Gross admits the presence of the Gestapo in Jedwabne
and even acknowledges that without the Germans the massacre would
not have occurred, he insists that the Germans confined themselves
to the role of bystanders and clears them of responsibility. The
fact that in other nearby towns in the county of Bialystok-Tykocin
and Wizna-the Germans were responsible for the massacre of Jews
does not make Gross doubt his allegation that the Poles were
entirely responsible for the atrocity.
Since the publication of Gross's controversial book, new
documentary evidence has come to light which suggests that the
Germans, not the Poles, were primarily responsible for the
massacre. According to one report, the Polish role was limited to
less than 50 people, who were forced to guard Jews in the town
square prior to their execution. Even the number of murdered Jews
has been called into question. One report pointed out that a
scanning of the grave site uncovered German bullets (Poles would
not have been allowed to possess guns and rifles) and that
approximately 400, not 1600, Jews perished.
Whether 400 or 1600 lost their lives is not the point. It was an
atrocity that every decent person should deplore.
But the fundamental question of who was primarily responsible for
the massacre is still unanswered. Was it the Germans? Was it the
Poles? If the Poles were involved, what was their precise role in
the affair?
Gross's credibility is seriously compromised when he asserts his
own bizarre idea of historical methodology. He asserts that the
testimonies he read should be accepted as "fact" without first
skeptically reviewing the material and seeking independent
verification. That's quite a reversal of fundamental historical
methodology! It is astonishing that all the Holocaust experts who
have given their nihil obstat to this flawed volume completely
ignored this strange approach to establishing historical truth.
Gross seems more concerned about the alleged lack of Polish
national grief over the Jews than about determining precisely and
accurately what really happened in Jedwabne. The Washington Post
quotes him, saying, "I deeply believe that getting to know what
happened in Jedwabne will become a breakthrough in our historical
myths and will help us clean our conscience." Obviously, he is more
concerned about Polish than Jewish historical myths. Poles should
honestly face the negative aspects of their behavior toward Jews.
But what about Jews candidly facing their collaborationist past
with Poland's enemies? Gross is silent on this point.
It is testimony to the power of the "Holocaust Industry," to borrow
Professor Norman Finkelstein's apt description, that an obscure
event that occurred in eastern Poland sixty years ago should be
dredged up in this slim volume that is long on sensationalism and
short on acceptable historical evidence and receive the hysterical
media acclaim that it has received. We are a long way from the
quality control Holocaust historiography desperately requires.
Now more than ever we need fair and balanced investigations of the
Holocaust and the related genocides of eastern Europeans by the
Nazis. The highly sensitive subject of Polish-Jewish relations can
no longer be painted with the broad brush of antiSemitism. The
subject needs trained professional historians to present all the
facts and who refuse to apply one standard of moral behavior to
Jews and a more severe one to Poles.
Let us hope that the research currently underway by the Polish
National Institute of Memory will give us the answers to Jedwabne
that Professor Gross failed to provide us.
Home
© 2001 Polish American Journal®
~Amelia~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Prudence L. Kuhn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2001 12:32 AM
Subject: Re: [CTRL] For the Record Pope Pius XII
-Caveat Lector-
In a message dated 08/25/2001 11:38:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< I am fully aware that the revisionists have now decided that
Pius
collaborated with the Nazis, etc. This is an article of what was
said at the time by those in a position to know that just came out
today. I personally think the new found guilt of the Vatican has
much to do with wanting even more reparations and the extortion of
huge sums of money. Maybe the Poles should do the same to the
Jews
who collaborated with the Soviets resulting in even more deaths to
the Polish people. >>
What do you mean "new"? This information came out right after
WWII. I don't
know what you're talking about when you say that the Jews
collaborated with
the Soviets. The Russians were famous for their pogroms against
the Jews.
They probably didn't like Poles either, but finding Jews still
alive in
Poland with whom to collaborate would have been a trick in itself.
Pope Pius
XII knew what was going on, and he didn't let it bother him a lot.
The
Vatican also assisted in the Ratline. I don't know the Pope's
motives in
these matters, but what happened was pretty darned clear at the
time. Prudy
<
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