Average Jew Better Off Than Average Pole Bartov

Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine, by Omer Bartov. 2007

The Average Jew Was Better Off Than The Average Pole and the Average Ukrainian. Author Has Pronounced Judeocentric Bias

This work provides a city-by-city survey of remnants of Jewish architecture in eastern Galician towns. The properties that once belonged to the Polish expellees, often still bearing half-concealed Polish writing, are also frequently mentioned. Featured are the towns of Lviv (Lwow), Sambir (Sambor), Drohobych (Drohobycz), Stryi (Stryj), Bolekhiv (Bolechow), Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanislawow), Kolomyia (Kolomyja), Kosiv (Kosow), Kuty (Kitov), Horodenka (Gorodenka), Husiatyn (Gusiatyn), Chortkiv (Czortkow), Zolotyi Potik (Potok Zloty), Buchach (Buczacz), Monastyryska (Monasterzyska), Ternopil (Tarnopol), Berezhany (Brzezany), Zolochiv (Zloczow), Brody (Brodie), and Zhovkva (Zolkiew). Surprisingly, Boryslav (Boryslaw) is omitted.

MOST JEWS WERE POOR–BUT MOST POLES AND UKRAINIANS WERE EVEN POORER

Prewar Poles and Ukrainians were poorer than the Jews (p. 17). This, of course, means that the average Jew was better off than the average Poles and the average Ukrainian.

MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTING FACTS

Fully 80% of Jews alive today have their ancestry in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (pp. 16-17), and both the Ukrainian and the Jewish (“Ha-Tikvah”) national anthems were influenced by the Polish national anthem. (p. 121). Approximately 1.4 million Ukrainian soldiers and 2.2 million Ukrainian civilians perished at the hands of the Nazis. (p. 67).

OMER BARTOV’S LEFT-WING AND JUDEOCENTRIC TENDENTIOUSNESS

Omer Bartov shows bias in featuring writers that he agrees with (e. g. Gross, Michlic), while mentioning, but ignoring the findings of, historians such as Marek Chodakiewicz (p. 40, 206), who he mischaracterizes as part of “the right-wing turn in Polish politics.” If Orwellian labeling is to be done, why not do it equitably–such as Judeocompliant scholars and Judeo-independent scholars?

THE POLONOPHOBIC INNUENDO HITS THE FAN

The informed reader may well do a double-take in reading Omer Bartov, who asserts that, “Moreover, even as Poland did courageously resist the German occupation and paid a horrendous price for its struggle, numerous Polish patriots and nationalists were also anything but displeased with the `removal’ of the Jews from their country, and not a few collaborated with the effort to bring about that `removal’.” (p. 205). As a historian, Bartov should know better than to make such totally unsupported and bigoted statements.

NO POLISH DEATH CAMPS, BUT BLAME THE POLES ANYWAY

He recognizes the fact that “Nazis chose Poland as the site of the death camps because of Poles” has no basis in fact, but then uses his “being a victim doesn’t absolve you form being a victimizer” thinking inconsistently. (p. 159). He fails to hold Jews to the same standard that he demands from Poles.

Omer Bartov is in strong denial about the fact and magnitude of Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles and Ukrainians. (pp. 35-36, 40, 68, 159-160, etc.), known as the Zydokomuna. This collaboration was substantive, and, contrary to exculpations, was not primarily driven by Jewish fear of the Nazis. (See detailed English-language review of Przemilczane zbrodnie: Zydzi i Polacy na Kresach w latach 1939-1941 (Polish Edition)).

CONDEMNING THE OUN-UPA

Bartov repeatedly discusses Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration, and condemns the glorification of the OUN-UPA, which occurs through such things as the erection of statues honoring Bandera at Drohobych (p. 53), Buchach (p. 137), and Berezhany (pp. 164-165).