Germany Not Poland a Nation of Thieves Hellersperk

Lania: An American Woman in Nazi-Occupied Poland, 1939-1945, by Melania Kocyan Hellersperk. 1991

Germany, Not Poland, a Nation of Thieves (and Not Only Against Jews!). The Unfolding Polokaust

The author and her husband were visiting Poland in the summer of 1939, but the outbreak of WWII trapped them in Poland for the duration of the war and early-postwar Soviet rule. They spent much of the time at Milanowek, located about 30 km southwest of Warsaw. Lania initially did not have a positive view of Poles (p. 5, 73), and, for this reason, the reader should not expect her memoir to have a significant pro-Polish bias.

THE SYSTEMATIC GERMAN BOMBING TERROR IN 1939

In common with many other eyewitnesses, the author saw Luftwaffe planes strafing defenseless civilians. (e. g., p. 21, 36). Lania also saw the aftereffects of the German bombing of a hospital with wounded patients. (pp. 38-39).

THE GERMAN HORROR WAS ONLY BEGINNING…

Following the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland, the Germans drove the Poles out of their homes, on a large scale, to make room for Germans. (p. 52). In addition, “Leading citizens and priests were shoved into trucks and boxcars and sent to concentration camps. Executions were a common sight in Warsaw…” (p. 53). The Germans murdered members of the Polish intelligentsia under any pretext. (e. g., p. 103, 202). Stefan, Lania’s relative, survived a mass execution of Poles by Germans. (p. 122).

Then came the dreaded wapanki (lapanki, literally “catchings”). The Germans grabbed Poles, off the street, on a large scale, for forced labor in Germany. (e. g., pp. 133-134). Poles sent to German farms often worked eighteen hours with very little food. (p. 134). The Germans also kidnapped attractive Polish women to serve as sex slaves, as happened to Lania until her American citizenship became evident. (pp. 136-138).

GERMANS, NOT POLES, WERE THE BIG PLUNDERERS

Nowadays, all we hear about are how some Poles (never mind the circumstances of severe wartime want) acquired the properties of Nazi-murdered Jews, as at Nazi-sponsored auctions, and how this is supposed to make Poles essentially a “nation of thieves” (Jan. T. Gross and the media). Can the Holocaust Industry be far behind?

Who were the REAL thieves??

Lania answers, “The Nazis came as conquerors and their occupation of Poland turned out to be one big looting expedition. The plunder of private homes by German officers, Gestapo agents, and soldiers was carried out on a large scale…In Milanowek…soldiers stripped houses of practically everything, including pots and pans.” (p. 54). “Trucks piled high with Polish merchandise left for Germany.” (p. 55). Throughout the German occupation, the wanton looting continued. (e. g., p. 145, 161).

THE UNFOLDING POLOKAUST

Cultural genocide took on staggering proportions: “Since one of the aims of the German occupation was to destroy Polish culture and eliminate the intelligentsia, libraries, universities, museums and art galleries were looted. Rare books were ruthlessly burned.” (p. 54). “All theaters and concert halls were closed.” (p. 71). “Even the secondary schools were closed…” (p. 72). “It was with heavy hearts that the Poles watched the desecration and destruction of their monuments, museums, art galleries, universities, and other precious symbols of their long civilization. Although not a native Pole, I, too, grieved with them, for I could imagine the sacking of Washington, D. C., with the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, the White House, and the halls of Congress.” (p. 56). Well said!

The biological genocide of Poles as a whole, at that stage of the German occupation, was primarily of a passive nature, designed to lower the birth rate and increase the “natural” death rate. The Germans systematically confiscated feedstuffs. “Food became a major issue…The Polish population suffered greatly from the food shortage. In Milanowek, we were short on food and had to stand in long lines…Meat became a luxury…” (p. 55). “Bread was difficult to get because the Germans confiscated most of the wheat and flour.” (p. 64). Germans and Volksdeutsche were well fed. Not so the Poles: “The rationing system was a farce…But for Poles it meant great privation and possibly starvation.” (p. 82). During the Germans’ Pole-removing Zamosc-area operation, Lania came across a train filled with sick and starving deported Zamosc-area children. (pp. 177-179).

The Poles developed a large and sophisticated black market and food-smuggling system. Unlike Jan T. Gross and his fans, Lania, who actually went through the German occupation, appreciates the German-imposed death penalty for black market activity (p. 55), and food smuggling. (p. 83). As they began to lose the war, the Germans relaxed the death penalty for these acts. (p. 204).

JEWS WERE PUT IN GHETTOS. POLES WERE NOT. BIG DEAL…

We hear that, unlike the Jews, the Poles were not confined to ghettos [which, given the large size of the Polish population and the need to allow them to farm the lands for German exploitation, and expecially under wartime conditions, would have been somewhere between impractical and impossible.] However, “No Pole was allowed to travel more than seventy kilometers without special permission, which was difficult to obtain.” (p. 173).

JEWISH PASSIVITY AND POLISH ACTION

“The public executions that we witnessed opened a new reign of German terror…But where most Jews—until their last struggle in the Warsaw ghetto—submitted to the Germans without a fight, the Poles kept fighting back.” (p. 202). Stefan joined the Polish underground. Sabotage included putting sugar into the gas tanks of German vehicles (p. 171), and forcing a captured German to urinate into the large vat of milk that the Germans had confiscated from the Poles. (pp. 172-173). There were assassinations of especially-vicious German officials, and, in reprisal for public executions, the derailing of a train near Szymanowem (costing the lives of a hundred German soldiers). (p. 203).

THE MYTH OF POLES “HAPPY THAT HITLER WAS DOING THE DIRTY WORK FOR THEM”

One of the most odious of Polonophobic slurs is that of Poles cheering the death of Jews. [For instance, think of SCHINDLER’S LIST, seen by over 120 million Americans, and the scene of the Polish girl giving a sarcastic Goodbye Jews! farewell to the soon-to-die Jews, while other Poles were throwing globs of mud on these Jews.]

Lania’s observations contradict accusations of Poles of delighting in Jewish suffering: “While Poles did not have to live in the ghettos, they did not like to see them or what was happening to the Jews inside.” (p. 155). The author praises Poles for risking, and often giving, their lives to smuggle food to the Jews in the ghettos. (p. 154).

POLISH BLACKMAILERS AND BETRAYERS IN CONTEXT

The Polish blackmailers (szmalcowniki) and denouncers of Jews are usually presented without the proper context of general (mostly Pole-on-Pole) criminality. Lania’s family was the victim of bandits (pp. 197-199), prompting this comment: “These bandit raids were becoming a common occurrence in our region.” (p. 199).

Jan T. Gross, in his ZLOTE ZNIWA (GOLDEN HARVESTS) has created the impression that Poles only looted dead Jews. The author was an eyewitness to an entering Red Army soldier reprimanding a Polish boy for taking the helmet off a dead German soldier. (p. 231).

THE SOVIET COMMUNIST OCCUPATION REPLACES THE NAZI GERMAN OCCUPATION

After the Red Army had entered Poland, Lania mused: “We exchanged the oppressive and cruel German yoke for a similar one of the Russians. Instead of treating the Poles as liberated Allies, the Russians treated us as subjugated people. And when the NKVD (fore-runner of the KGB) moved into our region, the terror began all over again.” (p. 233). Stefan was arrested by the NKVD for his earlier underground activities, and sent to Siberia. Most of the family returned to the USA in 1945. Stefan was released in 1947 and fled to the west in 1948. (p. 235, 237).