Jan T Gross Rebutted Nowak 4

Falsze i Przemilczenia Grossa, by Jerzy Robert Nowak. 2011

A Detailed Refutation of Jan T. Gross and His Polonophobic Screed, ZLOTE ZNIWA (GOLDEN HARVESTS)

THE FALSEHOODS AND OMISSIONS OF [JAN T.] GROSS is the title of this Polish-language book. It is a natural sequel to Nowak’s NOWE KLAMSTWA GROSSA (THE NEW LIES OF [JAN T.] GROSS).

THE SORDID PASTS OF MANY OF TODAY’S POLE-BASHERS

Historian Jerzy Robert Nowak presents a Who’s Who of Holocaust-related Gross-imitating Pole bashers (pp. 10-12), quite a few of whom are Jews and non-Jews with a long pedigree of enmity towards Poland. They include “moralist” Andrzej Szczypiorski, a decades-long informer for the Bezpieka [U. B., the Communist security forces], and Feliks Tych, son-in-law of super Stalinist Jakub Berman, both of whom personally assured the Germans that Poles are co-responsible for the Holocaust. Then there is Aleksandra Jasinska-Kania, daughter of head Stalin-puppet President Boleslaw Bierut, and Zygmunt Bauman, onetime Stalin-admirer and Bezpieka Major. Other Gross-clones or Gross-lites include Jan Grabowski, Alina Skibinska, Alina Cala, and, to a lesser extent, Barbara Engelking.

WIDESPREAD REJECTION OF JAN T. GROSS

Gross’ critics are hardly limited to “Polish nationalists”. So egregious have Gross’ calumnies been that otherwise-sympathetic listeners have distanced themselves from him. Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski has called Gross on his distortion of facts. (p. 21). Piotr Cywinski, the Director of the Auschwitz Museum, called Gross racist for his characterization of Polish peasants. (p. 43). Marcin Zaremba, a publisher in the left-wing GAZETA WYBORCZA, which has been funded by George Soros, has nevertheless repudiated Gross’ contention that Polish rescuers of Jews did it to profit financially. (p. 78).

GREEDY PAID RESCUERS OF JEWS?

Gross, accusing Poles of exploitive greed, asserts that Polish rescuers of Jews did it only for the money. Nowak cites the scholar Teresa Prerekowa, who showed that only a minority of Polish rescuers of Jews required payment. (p. 70). Risking one’s life just to make a little money makes no sense. (The reader should realize the elementary fact that Poles, living in near-starvation conditions under the German occupation, could not readily feed fugitive Jews for nothing.)

VOODOO NUMBERS–SINCE QUOTED BY THE MEDIA AS FACT

Outright fabrications of Jan T. Gross include absurd accusations against the Polish Church–conveniently published, for non-Polish consumption, only in the English-language edition of FEAR (p. 27), the assumed origin of the GOLDEN HARVESTS cover photo, and the made-up figure of 100,000-200,000 fugitive Jews killed by Poles. (p. 29). These numbers have no basis in scholarship, yet have since become the latest media fake news about Poland.

Neither Gross nor Nowak seem to realize that Gross’ figures are self-refuting, even taken the most unfavorable assumptions relative to Poles. Accepting 200,000 Pole-denounced Jews, and the lowest-plausible number of Pole-rescued Jews (50,000), along with a ridiculously low 2 Poles involved per rescued Jew and 2 Jews denounced per Polish denouncer, means only an equal number of Polish rescuers and denouncers (100,000) each. Taking more plausible figures (5 Poles to rescue 1 Jew, and one average Polish denouncer denouncing 5 Jews) means that Polish rescuers outnumbered denouncers 6-fold. Fewer denounced Jews (100,000) and more rescued Jews (as many as 120,000) increases the Polish rescuer/denouncer ratio to as much as 30:1.

Emmanuel Ringelblum’s extraordinary claim of the Polish Blue Police killing “tens of thousands of Jews” is uncritically repeated by Gross [and Grabowski] even though Ringelblum, in hiding, could not possibly evaluate the veracity, much less quality, of the information coming into his bunker. (p. 57). Gross’ superficial generalizations about the Blue Police are also unwarranted.

THE MYTH OF THE RARE POLISH BENEFACTOR OF JEWS

Jan T. Gross successively attacks Catholic clergy, Polish peasants, railwaymen, firemen, Blue Police (POLICJA GRANATOWA), and Underground members, making sweeping accusations of them being grossly indifferent to, if not murdering fugitive Jews. Nowak refutes all this, showing how these classes of people often helped Jews, while suffering under the German occupation. It is NOT a matter of Gross’ selective anecdotes against Gross-critics’ selective anecdotes. Gross’ critics, including Nowak, cite many more anecdotes to support their position than does Gross for his position. For instance, against Gross’ argument that Catholic clergy who helped Jews were “just exceptions”, Nowak cites 769 known cases (of course, not an exhaustive list), of Polish clergy who aided Jews. (p. 36). Quite a few exceptions! Likewise, Gross’ attempt to again belittle the death penalty for Poles caught aiding Jews, this time by citing a few anecdotes of it not being applied, in no way nullifies the overwhelming majority of cases where the Germans did impose it upon Polish benefactors of Jews. (p. 79).

Gross, though caught in this lie in FEAR, repeats in GOLDEN HARVESTS the accusation of Cardinal Sapieha doing nothing for Jews. Actually, Sapieha repeatedly (but unsuccessfully) intervened with Hans Frank on behalf of Jews. Nor was this a selectively chosen anecdote. At least 20 named Polish bishops are known to have aided Jews. (p. 38-42).

Heroism, by its very nature, must be exceptional! Against Gross’ contention that Polish rescuers were extremely rare and atypical of Poles in general, Nowak quotes from ~20 rescued Jews. These expressed appreciation for the Polish rescuers, and saw the heroes’ actions as an embodiment of the Polish spirit. (pp. 98-97).

THE POLISH CATHOLIC CHURCH IS OFTEN UNDISCERNING

Throughout his work, Nowak marvels at how ZNAK, a professed Catholic publisher, was willing to publish ZLOTE ZNIWA with all its patently false, hate-filled attacks on Catholicism. Since Gross’ book is a shoddy one of a racist, propagandistic nature, a number of Polish professors had signed a petition asking ZNAK not to be the one to publish ZLOTE ZNIWA. The signees are: Wieslaw Wysocki, Jan Zaryn, Janusz Zbudniewek, Boguslaw Wolniewicz, Jerzy Robert Nowak, Zbigniew Zmigrodzki, Rajmund A. Dybczynski, Jan Wawrzynczyk, Zacharjasz Jablonski, Tadeusz Marczak, and Dominik Sankowski. (p. 192).

NO DIALECTIC BETWEEN POLES AND JEWS: BOTH COULD DO ILL

If only to show that Poles have no monopoly for misdeeds, Nowak then shifts the attention, of the latter part of his book, to Jewish crimes during the war. He once again documents the large scale of the 1939-1941 Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles, an outgrowth of the Zydokomuna (Judeo-Bolshevism). (pp. 98-134). After the sudden attack of Nazi Germany against its erstwhile Soviet ally in June 1941, the Soviet Communists, very disproportionately Jewish, murdered at least 20,000-30,000 Poles (and, to a lesser extent, Ukrainians) before beating their hasty retreat. (p. 113). At Czortkow, local Jews assisted the NKVD in the murder of over a dozen Dominican priests. (pp. 110-112). Jews are also documented, by name, to have been complicit in the murder of imprisoned Poles at Tarnopol. (pp. 115-116).

Nowak reminds the reader of the crimes of the Judenrat and Jewish ghetto police against fellow Jews. (p. 135-on). Jews also frequently robbed other Jews. (p. 150-on). Finally, Jews served as spies for the Germans on a large scale. (pp. 156-160).