Betrayers Liquidation VERY Difficult Bukalska

Years of Turmoil: From Early Years in Lodz through the Ghetto, the Underground, and the Warsaw Uprising, to Israel’s Wars: A Life, by Patrycja Bukalska, Stanislaw Aronson. 2010

The Grave Difficulties of Identifying and Liquidating Nazi Collaborators: The Definitive Work. A. K. Guerillas Were Not Bandits

Stanislaw Aronson (“Staszek”, nom de guerre “Rysiek”), was an openly Jewish member of the ARMIA KRAJOWA (A. K.), specifically in the elite Kedyw unit. He was the colleague of a fellow Jewish member in the Warsaw Kedyw–Stanislaw Likiernik. Please see: By Devil’s Luck: A Tale of Resistance in Wartime Warsaw, and read the detailed Peczkis review.

EARLY LIFE

“Staszek’s” grandparents knew both Yiddish and Polish, but he knew only Polish. He grew up fully assimilated to Polish culture (p. 29), and his observance of Jewish customs was occasional. (p. 35). Aronson was always nonreligious and an unbeliever, and considered himself a Pole of the Jewish persuasion. Only later, in Israel, did he think of Jews as a nationality. (p. 25). “Staszek” did not go to a Jewish school. He went to one that was 60% Jewish and 40% Polish. He came to identify with the Pilsudski-style Polish patriotism. (p. 37).

1939 JEWS WERE NOT PARTICULARLY AFRAID OF THE NAZIS. THEY VOLUNTARILY RETURNED TO NAZI-OCCUPIED POLISH TERRITORY!

One of the most common canned exculpations for the Zydokomuna is gratitude to the Communists for not falling into the hands of the Nazis. Aronson upends this false narrative.

During WWII, “Staszek” and his family fled to eastern Poland, which fell under Soviet occupation. The author speaks of a rush for permission for Jews to return to the German-occupied General Government, notably in May and June 1940, and “Staszek” describes the Soviet ruse of promising such Jews transport there, and instead deporting them to Siberia. [pp. 53-54]. [Historian Jerzy Robert Nowak wrote of this also.] The willingness of Jews to relocate to Nazi-held territory vitiates the “mortal fear of Nazis” exculpation for some Jews collaborating earlier with the Soviets.

LATER WWII EVENTS

In time, “Staszek” was in the Warsaw Ghetto, and he escaped the deportation to death at Treblinka. He joined the Polish Underground. As a member of Kedyw, he was involved in operations that included sabotage (pp. 75-on), the blowing up of a German train (p. 98), etc. His unit also liquidated collaborators and participated in the Warsaw Uprising (both elaborated below). He fled Warsaw disguised as a civilian, and later left Communist-ruled Poland for Palestine (eventually Israel). Decades later, he repeatedly revisited Poland.

THE “ALL POLISH GUERRILLA MOVEMENTS WERE BANDITS” MYTH

The Communist GL-AL bands are well known for its wanton murders and banditry. There are those who argue, in an obvious attempt to whitewash the GL-AL, that “They were pretty much the same” (whether GL-AL, OUN-UPA, AK, or NSZ), and “They were all bands” in terms of onerous conduct. This is false.

The authors note, for example, the high standards expected in the A. K. They comment, “Special rules govern wartime, but Staszek’s commanders, Rybicki and Zajdler…placed such an emphasis on the moral aspects of clandestine warfare, stressing the difference between murder and liquidation on the orders of a court, or between banditry and the confiscation of means for the Underground struggle. (unquote). (pp. 105-106). One Kedyw member, CYGAN, a close friend of Staszek, was executed by the A. K. for banditry. (p. 106).

LIQUIDATING COLLABORATORS: UNAPPRECIATED SEVERE CHALLENGES

“Rysiek” summarizes the anti-collaborationist activities of the Kedyw. He writes, (quote) The life we led was intense in terms of morals, psychology, and nerves. We carried out more than 60 combat operations in the last 15 months before the Uprising. Many of them were liquidations, and I’d prefer not to talk about them. Every operation involved preparation and reconnaissance of the target and the surroundings. It was risky, it took a lot of time, and it didn’t leave us much time for rest. The losses were incredible. We lost about 45 percent of our unit’s total strength in clandestine operations. (unquote). (p. 93).

Other factors came into play. It took some time for the Polish Underground court to evaluate the accusation against someone accused of Nazi collaboration. (p. 109). The one accusing someone of serving the Germans could be a German agent himself. (p. 103). It was very difficult to stalk a suspected collaborator without being noticed doing so (p. 99), and the Germans could apprehend Kedyw men waiting around for the target of an execution to appear at the scene. (p. 100). For the sake of safety and effectiveness, a failed assassination attempt should not be followed by a repeat attempt for some time. (p. 99). Collaborators sometimes worked in groups, and the successful execution of one collaborator endangered the executioners to denunciation to the Germans by a surviving collaborator. (p. 104).

Finally, there was the ever-present danger of making a tragic mistake. Even decades after the war, there were accusations of innocent Poles falsely accused, and executed, for collaboration with the Germans. (p. 101).

Let us consider some implications of all this. The Polish Underground is often accused of “not doing enough” to eliminate Poles who denounced fugitive Jews, or to eliminate the SZMALCOWNIKI. Although the authors do not discuss this, it is obvious that this contention is misplaced. Identifying and liquidating Poles who collaborated with the Germans was a VERY difficult and dangerous task.

Jews were not the only targets of extortionists, and the Kedyw targeted extortionists of various kinds. Aronson (p. 103) discusses the liquidation of a POLICJA GRANATOWA official who blackmailed Jews for money, as well as the liquidation of a Polish couple that allegedly took money from Poles over false promises of being able to free relatives from the Gestapo.

1944 WARSAW UPRISING

Aronson describes his combat actions in the Warsaw Uprising. However, he seems to show emotion as he evaluates the Warsaw Uprising as a needless tragedy that had no chance of success, and even as an event that should not be commemorated! (pp. 119-120). This frankly seems to partake of Jewish cynicism.

The criticism and anger should be directed at Soviet perfidy–a shameless perfidy that ordered the Red Army to halt on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw, and to do so for months. It should also be directed at the perfidy of Churchill and Roosevelt, who had already under-handedly betrayed Poland to Soviet intrigues at Teheran, and would do so again at Yalta. Oddly enough, Aronson does not do this.

JEW-KILLING: CONFUSES SPECIFIC ALLEGATIONS WITH DIFFUSE, GENERALIZED ACCUSATIONS

Aronson suggests that his 1994 letter to GAZETA WYBORCZA, about the dubious validity of Michal Cichy’s accusation of the A. K. killing Jews during the Warsaw Uprising, does not mean that he is suggesting that such incidents never occurred. (pp. 288-289). But that confuses the issue: No one was suggesting that such incidents NEVER occurred!

CANDOR ON JEWISH POLONOPHOBIA: WILLFUL IGNORANCE

Prejudices go both ways. Aronson is candid about how mainstream (and not only extremist) Israeli Jews egregiously misrepresent Poles. He writes, (quote) A significant part of the public in Israel was not even aware that Poland had fought on the Allied side during the war, that there was a resistance movement, or that Poles fought against the Germans. All they knew was that Poland meant the death camp, that the Poles were partners with the Germans in the Holocaust, and that they collaborated in the German war effort. (unquote). (p. 284).

However, Aronson does not take this far enough. Are Israeli Jews, the beneficiaries of one of the world’s finest educational systems, somehow uninformed about Poland? Or do they not know basic facts about Poland because they DO NOT WANT to know?