Betrayals Jews By Other Jews Bartov

Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, by Omer Bartov. 2018

Author Identifies Alleged Ukrainian Backwardness. During the Holocaust, Jews Sometimes Betrayed Other Jews

Since most readers likely lack specialized knowledge on Polish-Ukrainian-Jewish relations in the Kresy, I instead focus on a few broad-based themes, beginning with the positive.

SELF-IMPOSED UKRAINIAN BACKWARDNESS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

In the interwar period, Poles argued that Ukrainians tended to blame Poland for everything instead of bettering themselves, and that the dearth of Ukrainians, in high positions in Eastern Galicia, owed less to Polish “hegemony” and more to the dearth of educated Ukrainians. Although Bartov, of course, does not promote this view, he presents evidence that supports it. Consider the state of the Prosvita in Buczacz. Bartov writes, “…Prosvita’s self-perception through the 1930s was of an association struggling both for funds and for greater support from the people it hoped to enlighten. Father Vasyl Melnik complained as early as 1930 that the general ‘decline and inertness of the reading clubs’ reflected ‘the aversion shown by citizens and Prosvita members to popular education’. Instead people preferred to indulge in reckless drinking…Most reading club members chose not to read any books…People had forgotten they could ‘overcome ignorance, gain consciousness, and become a civilized nation only through books and periodicals.’” (pp. 107-108).

DURING THE SHOAH: JEWS BETRAYED OTHER JEWS IN HIDING

There are many accounts of Jews giving away the locations of fugitive Jews, to the Germans, if only in a (futile) attempt to save their own lives. Bartov adds to this, “Children’s extraordinary will to survive could also lead them to betray others. While hiding in a bunker, six-year-old Aliza Griffel heard a Jewish boy saying to a Ukrainian policeman, ‘I’ll show you where there are Jews, will you let me live?’” (p. 241).

The implications of this is clear: The overall low survivorship of fugitive Jews does not necessarily mean that fugitive Jews were betrayed by non-Jews. Considerable numbers of fugitive Jews met their deaths as a result of information provided by other Jews.

THIS BOOK OVEREMPHASIZES CIRCUMSTANCES, WHEN IT SHOULD FOCUS ON GENOCIDAL CRIMES AS A CHOICE

Bartov treats the Second Republic of Poland as one that was doomed to failure from the start. He tacitly supposes that a stable Polish state, that encompasses territories in which ethnic Poles are a minority, was an impossibility. To the contrary: There are many stable multiethnic states in the world today. Consider Switzerland. The French and the Italians, each of which enjoy ethnographic majorities in parts of Switzerland, do not engage in separatism. They do not resent the “hegemony” of Switzerland’s Germans, and are loyal to Switzerland.

Although portrayed by Omer Bartov as such, genocide does not follow from resentments. It is a deliberate choice. Thus, for example, the Poles of the Cieszyn (Teschen) region found themselves under forced and resented Czech rule in 1919, yet they did not resort to genocide against the local Czechs at any time after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia (1938).

For centuries, Eastern Galicia had been part of Poland and most of its Ukrainian population had been loyal to Poland (GENTE RUTHENUS, NATIONE POLONUS). Genocidal Ukrainian separatism (OUN-UPA) was a very recent development. It did not have to happen!

Omer Bartov engages in moral relativism. He tacitly equates the (presumed) Polish injustices against Ukrainians with the Ukrainians’ genocide of the Poles. In actuality, garden-variety injustices, and genocide, belong in two different moral universes.

VICTIMHOOD COMPETITION: BARTOV COMPLAINS, BUT FORGETS ITS ORIGINS

The author inveighs against Poles and Ukrainians for engaging in victim competition. (pp. 289-290). He seems to conveniently forget that, in the West (especially in media, academia, and the entertainment industry), the Jews’ Holocaust gets 95% of the attention, and all of the non-Jewish genocides in history have to collectively settle for the remaining 5%. It is the Jews, and not the Poles or Ukrainians, who started “victim competition”, and who have subsequently made it into a fine art. So the Poles and Ukrainians are simply pushing back a bit.

CANNED EXCULPATORY MEMES FOR JEWISH CONDUCT

Although Bartov, at times, is even-handed, he mainly blames Poles and Ukrainians while consistently exempting Jews of any criticism for their conduct. As an example, he cites the maskil Moriz Bernstein (1850), “After all, ‘it is not the Jew who is a swindler, a usurer, as he is often called,’ but the legal restrictions that compel him to become that ‘profit-seeking salesman’ detested by his neighbors.” (p. 19). Now consider some modern-day high-profile financial scandals in the USA. Under which “legal restrictions” were Andrew Fastow, Jack Abramoff, and Bernie Madoff suffering under? What is their excuse?

Bartov also repeats the “Jews had it bad” exculpation for Jews supporting Communism. (p. 133). Yet, by his own admission (p. 28), the Jews of poverty-stricken Galicia were better off than the peasants, meaning that Jews were better off than most Poles and Ukrainians. In addition, the “We had it bad” alibi is a convenient one that anyone can use. It is the very same excuse used by the Germans for supporting Hitler!

THE AUTHOR GLOSSES OVER JEWISH CRIMES IN COMMUNISM

Omer Bartov does mention Poland’s Jews collaborating with the Soviets in 1939-on (pp. 130-131; 151-152). In doing so, he does not begin to do justice to this subject, much less its magnitude.