The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square (The Library of Holocaust Testimonies)

Jan Peczkis|Friday, April 9, 2010

Instead of repeating other reviewers, I focus mainly on barely-mentioned and unmentioned content. The story of the Jewish boys who sold cigarettes in the Polish side of Warsaw is a moving one. The Jewish boys met Polish boys who bullied them, and other Polish boys who protected them. (p. 116). The Jewish boys obtained fake identification (pp. 125-126), probably from the Zegota, a one-of-a-kind Polish organization of aid to Jews (unmatched anywhere in all of German-occupied Europe.

       
 

Polish boys were also involved in trade. (p. 115). In fact, the reader who is interested in a more broad-based analysis of the experiences of both Jewish and Polish children should read Did the Children Cry: Hitler's War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945.

Ziemian focuses on the challenges of living in the Polish side of Warsaw: "The street urchins, whose only possessions were their meager clothing, did not attract any special attention from the shmalzers [szmalcowniki](blackmailers who denounced Jews to the Germans) and were therefore in less danger than the adults." (p. 14). When the Jewish boys did experience threats of denunciation to the Germans, it was in order to try to force them to disclose the names and addresses of wealthy fugitive Jews. (pp. 52-53, 64). The fact that the Jewish boys were usually left alone by the blackmailers adds to the contention that most szmalcowniki were not hard-core Jew hunters. Instead, most of them were petty extortionists who did not actually denounce Jews to the Nazis. (See the Peczkis review of Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945).

In addition those who actually denounced Jews to the Germans were not limited to Poles. While in Aryan Warsaw, fugitive Jews often ran to each other. Ziemian comments: "Chance meetings between Jews, even among acquaintances, unless they were true friends, usually ended with the words: `Excuse me; I don't know you, you must be mistaken.' and a fast retreat in the opposite direction. Every Jew was afraid of his own shadow." (p. 14). Not mentioned is the fact, noted in other Jewish memoirs, that any "fugitive Jew" could be a Gestapo agent.

Some of the Jewish boys were later involved in the Poles' Warsaw Uprising (1944), and even performed feats of bravery. (p. 155). After the war, many of the Jewish boys, soon to be men, moved to Israel, where many of them led very successful lives.

 Comments (2) | Permalink | Most recent comment: Apr 3, 2010 6:34 AM PDT       In the Warsaw Ghetto 1940 - 1943 an Account of a Witness the Memoirs of Stanislaw Adler by Stanislaw Adler
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  Warsaw Ghetto Policies. Grave-Robbery Implications. Non-Death Motives of Extortionists. Holocaust Economics, April 1, 2010 This review is from: In the Warsaw Ghetto 1940 - 1943 an Account of a Witness the Memoirs of Stanislaw Adler (Hardcover) If you are interested in the workings of the Jewish Ghetto Police in great depth, this work is for you. Adler, a member of this Police, describes such things as its relationship with the Policja Granatowa (Polish Blue Police), and devotes considerable attention to Szerynski, the Jewish-Police commander.

Adler (p. 242) verbalizes the rather silly premise that the Roman Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage has caused vast numbers of unhappy marriages and what he calls eternal quarreling and "legions of hysterical old maids." He portrays Jews solely as scapegoats, never acknowledging the privileges most Jews enjoyed over most Polish gentiles, and never hinting at Jewish conduct that tended to alienate Jews from Poles, or foreign-rule policies that put Poles and Jews into an adversarial relationship.

One exception to the foregoing is his acknowledgement of the Litwak (Litvak) problem: "In the lands which became part of the Polish Republic, but which had been before part of the Russian Empire, the Tsarist government, using the timeless invaders' technique: DIVIDE ET EMPERA, fomented anti-Semitism, while the introduction of the so-called `Pale of Settlement' for Jews in Russia became a very important, although not the only means of intensifying hostility toward Jews in the Polish population. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, the so-called `Litwaks', were forced to settle in Poland. Far surpassing the local Jews in abilities and intelligence, they became the object of resentment on the part of the latter as well." (p. 243).

Unlike modern hard-core Polonophobes, Adler recognizes the essential difference between the German Nazis and the anti-Semitic Poles: "The Nazis did not create the anti-Semitic movement in Poland, therefore. They merely facilitated its full expression, while their terrible methods (they did not balk at any cruelty) went far beyond the most fantastic ideas of the most fanatical Polish Jew baiters." (p. 242).

Photos are sometimes shown of the pit-ridden places of Jews' mass death, such as Treblinka. Grave looters, presumably Poles, had been searching for the Jews' valuables, and this presumed mindset of Poles had been further embellished by the likes of Jan T. Gross and his FEAR. In actually, grave-looting, along with all forms of looting, is a common consequence of war and its dehumanizing tendencies. It is not limited to any nationality. For instance, the Jews themselves engaged in the grave looting of their dead in the Warsaw Ghetto. Adler writes: "The populace became familiar with death; the sight of a corpse became less appalling than before the war. The notion of the majesty of death left human consciousness. It was not surprising, therefore, that the cemetery attendants were `practicing dentistry' i. e., digging up graves and extracting gold crowns and fillings of corpses...They did not see anything reprehensible in their actions. Profanation of corpses? A ridiculous superstition!" (p. 258).

The Nazis, in order to lure Jews out of hiding, proclaimed an amnesty for fugitive Warsaw Jews for the month of November (1942). Adler comments: "The amnesty and temporary suspension of the death sentence for Jews who were on the Aryan side had the effect of encouraging informers and blackmailers. Since the amnesty diminished their inhibitions, these contemptible individuals could now increase their activities: Their consciences were clear because their victims would not be shot when denounced." (p. 292). This provides further proof that most Polish szmalcowniki were only interested in extorting money, not in causing Jewish deaths.

In time, even the highly-skilled Jewish remnant lost its standing in the eyes of the Nazis, as explained by Adler: "The dilemma of the Jews was this: How much longer could the economic advantage restrain the monster? The previously high productivity of the remaining Jewish slave laborers gradually diminished. The Jewish workers who remained alive were emaciated from chronic undernourishment and suffered permanently from anxiety...Thus, the productivity of the workshops gradually became insignificant." (p. 290). For more on the Holocaust itself as an economically-driven progressive destruction of "superfluous" Jews, see the Peczkis review of Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction.

Although Adler survived the Holocaust, he still could not bear it. He committed suicide about a year after the end of WWII.
 Comment | Permalink       I Saw Poland Betrayed An American Ambassador Reports to the American People by Arthur Bliss Lane
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  Poland Post WWII; Kielce Pogrom; Polish-Jewish Property Disputes, April 1, 2010 This review is from: I Saw Poland Betrayed An American Ambassador Reports to the American People (Hardcover) This book is much more than an account of the disgraceful sellout of Poland to the Soviet Union by the west and the brutal imposition of a Soviet puppet state. It is nothing less than a one-volume history of Poland from 1944-1947. It provides so much detail in just one book, and includes such things as pictures of then-General Eisenhower's visit to Poland.

Lane devotes some detail to the double-dealing of Roosevelt behind the Poles' backs. The sellout of Poland included President Roosevelt openly lying to Polish-American leader Charles Rozmarek, even using a prewar map of Poland as part of the deception (p. 96).

Throughout his travels across Poland, Lane was keenly aware of the terror created by the Communist secret police (Bezpieka: U. B., or UB). He clearly realized the fact that free elections were unimaginable under such circumstances, long before the farcical elections of January 17, 1947 that officially brought the Communists to power. Soon thereafter, Lane could not take it any more. He resigned his position as ambassador so that he could freely speak to Americans about the crime of betrayal that had been done to Poland.

Lane (p. 181) pointed out that the definition of a Fascist was often very elastic: "...that some well-informed persons had even gone so far as to define a Fascist as a person not in one hundred per cent agreement with Communism." Left-wingers had used the term Fascist in this manner since time immemorial. Lane also includes a statement of Stalin saying that, whatever the negative American response, Americans will soon forget about it and move on to other things (p. 312). Ah, the more things change, the more they remain the same!

Lane provides some detail on the Kielce Pogrom (pp. 246-251). He remarks: "But almost all sources agreed that the militia had been responsible to a great extent for the massacre, not only in failing to keep order but in the actual killing of the victims, for many had been shot or bayoneted to death...(p. 248). Yet no members of the militia had been brought to trial...the underlying cause of the pogrom was the growing anti-Semitism which, even our Jewish sources admitted, was caused by the great unpopularity of the Jews in key government positions. These men included Minc, Berman, Olszewski (whose real name was said to be Specht), Radkiewicz and Spychalski...It was known, furthermore, that both the U. B. and K. B. W. [Communist secret police] had, among their members, many Jews of Russian origin. (pp. 250-251)." Lane (p. 251) suspects that the "unbelievably inefficient" manner in which the militia and the U. B. had handled this situation points to at least some degree of conspiracy. Otherwise, Lane does not consider if those "mob" members clubbing the Jews were not themselves planted Communist agents. He does point out that accusations of the "tardy response of the Church" had been fueled by the coincidental absence of the Bishop of Kielce, Monsignor Kaczmarek (p. 249).

If indeed a staged Communist event, the so-called Kielce Pogrom certainly had the desired effect: "So, emphasis in the United States press was placed on the anti-Semitism still existing in Poland, rather than on the significance of the rigging of the referendum (p. 249)." In other words, the death of a few dozen Jews was deemed more newsworthy than the enslavement of 30 million Poles. What else is new?

In addressing Jewish Communism (Zydokomuna) as a factor, Lane (p. 252) quoted some Jewish relief officials who opined that not more than 5% of the repatriated Polish Jews were Communistic in their viewpoint. If accurate, this was many times the corresponding rate of Polish support, which was a fraction of 1%--as proved by the virtual nobodies who constituted the Soviet-imposed puppet state. More recent research shows that the Bezpieka leadership was very disproportionately Jewish. See the Peczkis review of After the Holocaust. It is obvious that the numbers of Poles killed by Jews far exceed the aggregate total of the much-ballyhooed actual or alleged Jewish victims of Poles (1930's "pogroms", Jedwabne and environs, Kielce Pogrom, postwar property-related killings, all combined).

Although this book does not directly discuss the postwar Polish-Jewish property disputes, a subject that has recently gotten a great deal of one-sided media attention because of the publication of the book FEAR by Jan T. Gross, it provides the context that destroys Gross' Pole-bashing thesis. To begin with, Ambassador Lane gives the reader a taste of the devastation of Poland by the Germans and Russians and the destitution of the Poles (partly quantified: p. 317). He even includes a surreptitious photo that shows a large Russian convoy taking away looted Polish property, and also informs the reader that the Red Army had seized 200,000 tons of grain from Polish lands. Furthermore, Lane points out (p. 219) that Poland was undergoing a serious shortage of grain that could lead to famine. Lane assesses the state of housing in postwar Poland, and how the Communists exploited it, as follows (p. 279): "We received reports from the larger cities--Krakow, Poznan, Gdansk, Katowice, and Lublin--that those persons who refused to sign the manifesto were told that they would probably lose their living quarters and their jobs unless they reconsidered their attitude. The housing shortage was critical all over the country, especially in cities such as Warsaw and Gdansk, where the destruction made it almost impossible to find shelter." Might not a "housing shortage...critical all over the country.." suffice as an explanation for many Poles not being thrilled when Jews came back to reclaim their property, and even killing them on rare occasions (300-600 killings out of some 300,000 returning Jews)?