Death Penalty German Decisive Kulski

Legacy of the White Eagle (Book & DVD), by Julian Kulski.

A Polish Guerrilla on: Poles Not Cheering Jewish Deaths, the Church’s “Silence” on the Holocaust, the ARMIA KRAJOWA Not Bandits

In this book, author Julian E. Kulski discusses his youthful experiences during the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland and the years of the German occupation. The enclosed CD includes both still and moving footage from the 1939 War and German occupation, photos of Kulski and his relatives, of Underground posters and newspapers, of the elder Kulski returning to former key locations, of the graves of the dead, of Auschwitz, of the Warsaw Uprising, etc. It also includes interviews with former A. K. members.

THE UNFOLDING POLOKAUST

One of Kulski’s first recollections of the German cultural genocide of Poles was the closing of schools. (p. 30). Later, the Germans confiscated and melted down the statues of Poles–supposedly because they needed the metal for the manufacture of munitions. (p. 48). Kulski first became involved with the A. K. at the tender age of twelve. (p. 41). He had wanted to join when he was much younger. [This reminds me of the seven year-old boy who ran away from home because he wanted to join the Polish forces in the January 1863 Insurrection.] The A. K. members each took up a NOM DE GUERRE, commonly creatively based on animals, places, battles, Biblical or historical figures, etc. (p. 43).

POLISH PATRIOTIC WOMEN

One platoon that Kulski was involved in consisted of 15%-20% women. These females served not only in traditional roles as cooks and nurses, but also in signaling, courier work, and the organization of ammunition, weapons, supplies, maintenance, etc. (p. 43).

ARMIA KRAJOWA COUNTERINTELLENCE

Kulski describes his adventures while serving in the Armia Krajowa. He took part in the acquisition of weaponry. He fulfilled an order to unmask a suspected traitor nu pretending, to him, to want to serve the Germans. (p. 44). Later, thanks to the denunciation of another Nazi collaborator, he faced brutal imprisonment in the Pawiak Prison. Finally, the author fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. He found the German-serving Hungarians to be friendly to Poles. (p. 84). After an ordeal in the Warsaw’s sewers, Kulski ended up in a German prison camp.

I devote the remainder of my review to items that clarify misconceptions about the Poles and the A. K. Each paragraph below addresses a different item.

The author, Kulski, was partly of Jewish ancestry. (p. 40, 51). His experience adds to those of other Jews in the A. K., whose very existence refutes the contention that the A. K. refused membership to all Jews, or that it had some sort of secret plan to “finish Hitler’s job” by killing all known remaining Jews.

The author’s firsthand experiences with Polish traitors (p. 44, 56) remind the reader that some Poles could always be found who would serve the Germans at the expense of other Poles. It was not just a matter of some Poles betraying fugitive Jews.

POLES CHEERED JEWISH RESISTANCE, NOT JEWISH SUFFERING

Unlike those Jewish sources that accuse Poles of cheering as the Jews were burning during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Kulski reports that the Poles cheered all right–in a very different way. Eyewitness Kulski remarks, (quote) Hours later, when the streetcar to Bielany was waved through the fighting, a burst of Jewish machine-gun fire toppled three Germans. The crowd watching roared its approval, but the Germans, enraged, turned their guns on the crowd. Some people fell; others scattered. (unquote)(p. 52).

LIKE POLES LIKE JEWS

Those who try to put Jewish sufferings above Polish ones have argued that Jews falling into Nazi hands were never spared, while Poles falling in Nazi hands could be spared. Actually, Jews occasionally were spared, as were Poles. Thus, for instance, Kulski’s release from Pawiak Prison was noteworthy precisely because it was something “almost unheard of”. (p. 61). Normally, the guilty were shot, and the innocent were dispatched to Auschwitz.

WHY THE POLISH CHURCH WAS “SILENT” DURING THE GERMAN-MADE HOLOCAUST

Some ignorant critics have faulted Poland’s Catholic priests for not speaking out against the Nazi extermination of Jews. How ridiculous! Consider the fact that priests faced death for speaking out even in favor of Poles! Kulski comments, “It enraged me that the Germans had already made it illegal–punishable by death–to sing patriotic hymns in church or to give sermons of a political nature.” (p. 71). Kulski’s unit once creatively circumvented the prohibition by forcing, at gunpoint, the organist to play a patriotic song.

RESCUING JEWS VERSUS OTHER DEATH-SENTENCE OFFENSES–UNEQUAL RISKS

Jan T. Gross and his fans have forwarded the argument that the death penalty faced by Poles, for hiding Jews, was really nothing, since Poles regularly incurred the German-imposed death penalty in many other matters (such as engaging in the black market), yet disregarded it. This is nonsense. Poles engaging in black market activity were definitely afraid of German consequences, which did not necessarily involve the death penalty, and took practical steps to protect themselves. For instance, Kulski writes, (quote) The Germans wanted more than metal from us. They took everything they could, especially food. My mother resorted to smuggling food from the country to the city, watching for police patrols at the stations. Whenever she spotted one, she threw the precious food out the windows of the train to avoid arrest and deportation to a concentration camp. “Black markets” (people illegally selling food and other things) flourished in Warsaw. The black-market prices were exorbitant and the risks enormous, but at least we had food. (unquote)(p. 50).

THE “ALL GUERILLA ORGANIZATIONS WERE BANDITS” COMMUNIST-EXCULPATORY MYTH

Owing to the fact that the Communist GL-AL bands robbed the people, some have argued, “it’s all the same” because “all guerrilla organizations did it”. This is not true. The Armia Krajowa (A. K.) was not authorized to steal from Poles. Instead, A. K. representatives would either buy provisions from the peasants, or else reimburse them for requisitioned items. For instance, Kulski (p. 82) reports how his unit had paid a peasant woman for a pig that they had requisitioned and eaten.