Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America

jan peczkis|Tuesday, January 10, 2012

There are many reviews of this book available and, instead of repeating them, I review this book in terms of deeper implications. The American who looks down judgmentally at Poles for how they once treated the Jews is in for a shock upon reading this book, whose setting is not 1930's Poland but 1980's America.


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The "quaint" Hasidim who came to Postville used to exemplify mainstream Judaism until relatively recently. In Poland, most Jews--a huge urban population--were unassimilated right up to the time of the German-made Holocaust. The Jewish arrivals at Postville did not start on the bottom. (p. 50). In like manner, Jews arriving in Poland, several centuries ago, were immediately largely exempt from the heavy manual labor of the Polish masses by the nobility, and bestowed with other privileges.

Newcomers normally are eager to assimilate. In contrast, the Postville Hasidim practiced self-imposed apartheid. They used only their own schools. They did such things as demanding exclusive use of the town swimming pool for part of the day (p. 111), refusing to participate in an ecumenical service at a neutral locality (pp. 146-147), and sometimes even ignoring greetings from neighbors. (p. 51, 146). Even when unassimilated Jews were friendly to gentiles, the attitude behind the aggressive separatism makes it easy to see why, never mind Postville, the Poles commonly saw their Jews as perpetual aliens. Bloom interviewed Lazar, one of the upstanding members of the Hasidim community (p. 243), who said: "`Wherever we go, we don't adapt to the place of the people', Lazar preached...`It's always been like that and always will be like that. It's the place and the people who have to adapt to US.'" (p. 209; emphasis is Lazar's).

Continuing his interview, Bloom remarked: "Lazar's comment underscored the Hasidim's contempt for non-Jews, which wasn't limited to the Postville gentiles, but to all Christians...Lazar's gentile-bashing reminded me of the Yiddish aphorism ER SHMEKT NIT UN ER SHTINKT NIT (`He doesn't smell and he doesn't stink'), used derisively to describe non-Jews, who are viewed as inconsequential and unimportant." (p. 197).

Such attitudes were not limited to the unassimilated. Bloom, a much-assimilated largely nonobservant American Jew, recounts what his parents said: "A common expression used by Jews to describe a slow, dense person was--and still is--`He's got a GOYISCHER KOP', which literally means `He's got a gentile head' but figuratively means `slow-witted'." (p. 63, 197). A Polish-Jew author described comparable verbalized sentiments, by Poland's Jews, regarding Poles. See the Peczkis review of The Jews in Polish Culture / Aleksander Hertz ; Translated by Richard Lourie ; Editor, Lucjan Dobroszycki ; with a Foreword by Czeslaw Milosz.

The Hasidim were more than just different. Bloom found the Hasidim, in his words, downright rude in their business dealings (pp. 48-49, 120), and this conduct was even defended by one of them. (p. 209). An American once visiting Poland's Jews had the same experience. See the Peczkis review of Poland: The Unexplored.

The Postville residents, for their part, grew increasingly tired of being told to be tolerant. A Jewish boy was run off the road, causing injuries that required stitches. (p. 119). Derogatory remarks about the Jews grew more and more common. Bloom grew concerned that the gentiles were hardening their attitudes: "The problem, as I saw it, was that although the locals might have been right about the atrocious behavior of some of the Postville Jews, not a few of the locals began using this behavior to generalize about all Jews...All Jews were greedy, all Jews bargained, all Jews reneged on their agreements." (p. 242).

In the end, the Postville locals voted to rezone the area (p. 329) in hopes that it would drive the Lubavitchers out. Bloom, who had visited the Postville area many times to be sure of his conclusions, siding with the locals. (p. 319). This is reminiscent of the Endek-led boycotts of Jews in Poland, designed to persuade Jews to emigrate.

The reader who wants to use this work as a microcosm of onetime Jewish-Polish relations must realize that the situation in Iowa was much less antagonism-provoking than that in pre-WWII Poland. Imagine, to begin with, the extra sense of alien-ness of the Hasidim in Postville if, instead of speaking English (p. 46), they mainly spoke Yiddish. Imagine if Postville had been under enemy rule only a few decades earlier, and there were harsh memories of many of the Jews having sided with the enemy.

Instead of many local non-Jewish small businesses benefitting economically owing to the presence of the Jews (e. g., p. 109, 118, 120, 319), imagine if virtually all the businesses WERE Jewish. Instead of the nonexistent employment relevance of the Jewish slaughtering plant to factory-working Postville residents (p. xi, 51, 133), imagine most of them dependent, for employment at a livable wage, upon Jewish factory owners. As for the farmers, imagine the prices of farm needs and farm products determined not by supply and demand, but by the profit-making goals of Jewish middlemen. Imagine many farmers in a debtor position, where continued possession of their very farmsteads is at the mercy of Jewish usurers. Finally, instead of being fairly well off (p. 32), imagine the Postville-area farmers locked in poverty for many generations, unable to advance economically because the next-higher niche (the nascent middle class--the small businesses--the shopkeepers, tailors, shoemakers, etc.), as noted, is largely pre-occupied by Jews. All of the normal employer-employee, seller-buyer, and lender-borrower tensions are now superimposed upon the Jewish-goy tensions. How THEN would the relationship of Postville locals and the Hasidim play out?
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                          78 used & new from $7.90         Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Modern War Studies) by Edward B. Westermann
Edition: Paperback Price: $22.51 Availability: In Stock   32 used & new from $22.39
WWII in Eastern Europe as a German Racial War Against Jews and Slavs, January 2, 2012 This review is from: Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Modern War Studies) (Paperback) Most books on WWII in Europe typically dwell on the Holocaust, and any mention of non-Jewish victims of the Nazis is an afterthought. They also tend to dichotomize the military actions of Hitler's regime and its genocidal policies. This work, in contrast, shows that the war-making and genocidal actions of the Nazis formed a seamless garment, as did German attitudes and actions against Jews and Slavs. Instead of focusing on leading Nazi personages, the SS, Gestapo, or even the Wehrmacht, Westermann examines the ordinary German police forces as killers.

In the early 20th century, westerners commonly depicted the Hun as innately warlike, even going back to the FUROR TEUTONICUS of Roman times. Interestingly, the Germans themselves cultivated such a characterization. For instance, well before WWII, Wilhelm Kube, the eventual Reich commissar for Belorussia, commented as follows: "Kube began his article by noting that the love of bearing arms had been in the blood of a northern people like the Germans for thousands of years." (p. 75). All this was part of the unmistakable trend elaborated by Westermann: "The march towards `social militarization' did not go unnoticed by contemporary observers. In a diary entry of September 10, 1934, William Shirer, an American radio correspondent in Berlin at the time, reflected that militarism `is something deeply ingrained in all Germans.'" (p. 59).

Although the author does not fall for Goebbels' propaganda regarding the "Bloody Sunday" events at Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), his citation of "over 1,000" German deaths, including that of innocent bystanders, is still wide of the mark. See the Peczkis review of: Dywersja niemiecka i zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Bydgoszczy na tle wydarzen w dniu 3 IX 1939 (Polish and German Edition).

The German occupation of Poland was far more intense than that of any other German-conquered nation. Westermann thus writes of the situation in August 1940: "In fact, the ratio of policemen to inhabitants ranged from 1:400 in the annexed Polish territories and 1:860 in the General Government to 1:3,323 in the Netherlands." (p. 87). For comparison: "The ratio within the Reich (including the Sudetenland) was 1:475 with the inclusion of the 91,500-man Police Reserve." (p. 264).

Westermann discusses the expulsion of Poles from those regions of German-conquered Poland directly annexed to the Third Reich. The victims, mostly women and children, underwent transport, for days, in 30 degree below zero weather (C), in cattle cars lacking lavatories, water, or heat. The death toll was very high. (p. 150).

The author also mentions the Germans' destruction of the Polish intelligentsia and those suspected of involvement in resistance activities (e. g., p. 111, 159), but realizes that Germans murdered Poles, at whim, under any pretext. (e.g., p. 158, 227). [This refutes the Judeocentric notion that "Whereas Jews were killed because they were Jews, Poles were killed because it was war."]. However, Westermann does not begin to do justice to the scale and genocidal scope of the 2-3 million non-Jewish Poles murdered by the Nazis. (See the Peczkis Listmania: FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST...).

This book devotes most of its attention to German conduct against the conquered population of the Soviet Union. The scale of Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration was staggering. By the end of 1942, out of some 300,000 auxiliaries serving the Germans in the German-occupied portion of the USSR, there were some 100,000 Ukrainians alone. (p. 196).

Westermann examines and rejects many of the exculpations advanced to excuse Nazi conduct. For instance, against the "atrocities happen in every war" notion, he cites the racially tinged Japanese-American Pacific War, in which individual atrocities did take place on both sides. However, at no time did Presidents Roosevelt or Truman order or condone the indiscriminate slaughter of Japanese. (p. 234). As for the BEFEHL IST BEFEHL (An order is an order) notion, the author comments: "There is not a SINGLE documented case of a policeman being shot or imprisoned for refusing to kill Jews in cold blood." (p. 236; emphasis his).
 Comment | Permalink       Thoughts for Thinking by Maciej Giertych
Edition: Paperback Availability: Currently unavailable  
Short-Essay Philosophical Issues. Unpublished Views of Roman Dmowski on the Popular Vote, January 1, 2012 This review is from: Thoughts for Thinking (Paperback) This short (45-page) book consists of several paragraphs each on topics as diverse as child rearing, the nature and limitations of free will, types of love, equality of humans, and much more. Relatively little of the overall content is directly on political issues.

Probably the most interesting part of this book is Giertych's brief exposition of Roman Dmowski's views on people who vote in democracies. (pp. 27-29. Giertych knew Dmowski personally). Dmowski's views on this subject were never published, except for brief renditions in obscure Polish-language publications of the late 1920's.

Dmowski is quoted as believing in the following: "The main aspect of this system is that electing of the countries' leaders should be performed by people who are interested in the affairs of the country as a whole, and not in their interests only." (p. 28). Rich and poor citizens should pay a pro-rated fee in order to vote, and a lawbreaker would have to pay extra in order to have the privilege of voting. Voting should not be easy: There should be red-tape and other obstacles to voting.

The purpose of all this would be the following: "This would raise the electioneering on to a higher level--it would elevate the important qualities of candidates and reduce the popular appeal aspect." (p. 29). The informed reader will realize that some modern American conservatives have voiced similar ideas. For instance, those on public assistance (welfare) would not be able to vote while they are on welfare. This would give them an incentive to get off welfare, would prevent them for voting for candidates who sustain their economic dependency, and would prevent politicians from pandering to those who receive "free" monies.  Comment | Permalink       Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe by Philip W. Blood
Edition: Paperback Price: $14.96 Availability: In Stock   38 used & new from $3.03
On Lebensraum, Nazi anti-Partisan Warfare, & Biographies of Nazis. Poles Fought Alongside Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, December 31, 2011 This review is from: Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe (Paperback) Hitler discussed Lebensraum in his MEIN KAMPF. (p. 97). However, the concept long predated Hitler. For instance, around the time of WWI, various German thinkers thought in terms of Germans colonizing surrounding territories and cleansing them racially of their current inhabitants. (p. xiii).

During WWII, Jews were not the only ones facing systematic racism. Thus, the Nazis referred to Russians as "Europe's Negro", etc. (p. 100). Escaped British or American POWs, who were Slavs or French, were automatically put to death in accordance with PLAN KUGEL. (p. 118).

Although some members of all nationalities collaborated with the Nazis, the scale of Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration was staggering. In November 1942, in German-occupied Russia, Hans-Adolf Prutzmann had at his disposal 15,665 Ukrainian Schuma (Schutzmannschaften) and 55,094 full-time and part-time Ukrainian Hilfspolizei. (pp. 131-132).

The author inadvertently attests to the relatively low rate of Polish collaboration. He writes: "Over the period of the war, 158 Schuma battalions were raised in the Baltic States, 23 in Russia-Centre, 65 in the Ukraine, and 11 in the General Government of Poland." (p. 142). [Even this does not tell the full story. Many if not most Poles in the 11 units had been recruited by the Germans under duress, and deserted at the first opportunity. In addition, there were very many non-Poles in these 11 units.]

One obvious characteristic of this book, to the informed reader, is its spotty coverage of relevant WWII events. For instance, it elaborates on partisans in the German-occupied Soviet Union. However, apart from a few paragraphs that include the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, it ignores the extensive scale of Polish guerrilla warfare and the savage German actions in attempting to stamp it out. [See Peczkis Listmania: GUERRILLA WARFARE...]. Heinrich Himmler compared the ferocity of the house-to-house fighting in the Warsaw Uprising with that earlier in Stalingrad. (p. 240).

The author discusses the Jews' 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Interestingly, he quotes Franz van Lent, a Dutchman who served with the SS before being captured by the British. Lent writes about the German cruelties against the Jewish insurgents, and adds: "`Six Poles of the Polish Underground movement who had tried to help the Jews were arrested and shot...'" (p. 221, 358). This confirms the oft-ignored fact, mentioned in the The Stroop Report: The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is No More!, that Polish guerrillas fought alongside the Jews. [Of course, Lent's figure does not include those Polish guerrillas who had died earlier in the combat, or had managed to escape.]

The biographical details of this book, though centered on von dem Bach-Zelewski, include many other SS personages, if only within short-paragraph accounts in the back of the book. The Polish reader may be stunned at the number of high profile Nazis, known to have committed atrocious crimes against Polish civilians, who lived to a ripe old age and escaped justice for their crimes. These included Otto Hellweg, Fritz Kattzman, Bach-Zelewski, and Heinz Reinefarth. (p. 240, pp. 298-299).
 Comment | Permalink       Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust by Richard Rhodes
Edition: Paperback Price: $9.90 Availability: In Stock   75 used & new from $5.21
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: The SS Killings in German-Occupied Poland and the USSR in Broader Context, December 29, 2011 This review is from: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (Paperback) This book mixes theory and history. It covers the development of Nazi ideology, details about the Einsatzgruppen operations in the wake of Operation Barbarossa, the unfolding Holocaust, biographical details of top Nazis, etc. It contains many photos.

The author points out that Hitler was severely beaten as a child, and otherwise tries to find a link between being violent and having experienced corporal punishment, from parents and schoolmasters, while a child. However, he realizes that multitudes of people who experienced violence do not themselves become violent against others. [In addition, what about all the violent revolutionaries who came from privileged backgrounds?]

The author devotes more biographical detail to Heinrich Himmler than to any other Nazi. Himmler became involved in the occult. He believed in reincarnation and mental telepathy. (p. 82).

Long before the Nazis came to power in Germany, various Germans thought of dispossessing the Slavic peoples for purposes of German LEBENSRAUM. (pp. 82-87). Shortly after the conquest of Poland in 1939, the Germans murdered over 16,000 Polish citizens, mostly ethnic Poles. (p. 6).

The author believes that the "11 million Jews' figure in the Wannsee Accords was probably a Nazi fantasy. (p. 237). Against the common misconception that most of the 6 million murdered Jews died in gas chambers, Rhodes showed that most of them died from privation and shooting. (p. 156). Although most of the victims of the Einsatzgruppen were Jews, the author does not fixate himself in a Judeocentric mindset. He realizes that the Nazi policies towards Jews went beyond anti-Semitism. They followed from a mentality that divided peoples into "worthy" and "unworthy", with the latter including not only Jews but also the handicapped, etc. (p. 95).

In fact, Jews constituted one-third of the victims of the Nazis. The Slavic untermenschen were the main victims--3 million Poles, 7 million Soviet citizens, and 3.3 million Soviet POWs. (pp. 156-157). Himmler's initial plans for the conquered USSR included death by starvation of 20-30 million Jews and Slavs. (pp. 17-18; see also GENERALPLAN OST, pp. 239-243). However, the German defeat at Stalingrad forced the discontinuation of systematic genocidal plans against the Slavs. (p. 264).

The Nazi priority of killing Jews stemmed in part from Hitler's belief that Jews were "the mightiest counterpart to the Aryan". (p. 95). [The informed reader may realize that, among Europeans, Jews and Germans were rivals for first and second place in many economic, industrial, and scientific endeavors.] Many Jews in the USSR were unafraid of the Nazi invaders because they had remembered the WWI-era Germans as benevolent towards the Jews (pp. 149-150), because the Soviet press had avoided any negative publicity of the Nazis during the time of the 1939-1941 German-Soviet pact (p. 173), and because news of the Jew-killings travelled slowly.

Unfortunately, Rhodes uncritically accepts Jan T. Gross shoddy research and his exclusive blame of Poles for the Jedwabne massacre. (p. 122). In actuality, according even to some Jewish sources, the Germans were the main killers of Jedwabne's Jews. See the Peczkis review of The Warriors: My Life As A Jewish Soviet Partisan (Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust), and follow the link within the review.

For the first six weeks after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Einsatzgruppen units mainly killed Communists and Jewish men. The order to expand the shootings to include Jewish women and children did not come until late July 1941. (p. 164).