Jedwabne LEWACTWO Tool Gutman

Thou Shalt Not Kill: Poles on Jedwabne, by Jan Tomasz Gross (Contributor), Israel Gutman (Introduction), Antoni Macierewicz (Contributor), William Brand (Translator). 2001

Jedwabne a Tool of Polish Left (LEWAKS) For Pushing Polish Self-Flagellation. Selective Indignation on Boycotts. Manipulated Evidence For Anti-Polish Agendas

One lasting value of this anthology is its inadvertent expose of the eager willingness of many Polish liberals (LEWACTWO) to uncritically join the rush to judgment on Poland, as over Jedwabne. In fact, most entries in this book are translations of exclusively Pole-accusatory articles originally published in such leftist and Judeocentric papers as the GAZETA WYBORCZA. The contents of this book map onto cultural Marxism, the PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU, the politics of shame, and ethnomasochism.

Information about the massacre itself, in this book, is very outdated. An excellent, detailed and current English-language book on the Jedwabne massacre is: Chodakiewicz. 2005. JEDWABNE…I recommend it highly.

The anthology does contain some valuable information, some of which I discuss.

IF JEWS ARE HARMED, IT IS TERRIBLE; IF POLES ARE HARMED, IT IS NO BIG DEAL

In pre-WWII Jedwabne: “The majority of the Polish traders had gone bankrupt in the face of Jewish competition.” (Wroniszewski and Wroniszewski, p. 18). Obviously, this was not quite an auspicious start to Polish-Jewish relations. And the blame, as for Endek-led boycotts of Jews, is—surprise–always laid on the Poles. Who cares if Poles suffered because they have no other way of “cracking the nut” of Jewish economic hegemony?

THE MYTH OF THE MYTH OF THE ZYDOKOMUNA

What about the Zydokomuna as a provocation of the Jedwabne massacre? K. Jasiewicz, in showing that most Communists were gentiles, cites Soviet figures of 38% of the NKVD of the early 1930’s being Jewish (p. 128). But this also means that Jews were over ten times more common in this dreaded secret police than in the general Soviet population. Historians Strzembosz (pp. 168-171) and Musial (pp. 196-197) soundly refute the claim that later Jewish-Soviet collaboration, especially against Poles, had been a marginal phenomenon. Strzembosz comments on the 1939 Soviet conquest of eastern Poland: “But what troubles me is not triumphal arches, but the fact that in 16 places in so-called Western Belorussia, the Jews opened fire on the Poles.” (p. 275).

Historian Tomasz Strzembosz rejects any proposed symmetry between the Jews welcoming the Soviet invaders in 1939, and Poles welcoming the German displacers of the Soviets in 1941. He first presents evidence that the Jews did NOT fear the Germans in 1939 (p. 166), and then says: “Indeed, Jews may not have had things too good in pre-war Poland…However, Jews were not deported to Siberia, they were not shot or sent to concentration camps, they were not killed through starvation and hard labor. If they did not regard Poland as their homeland, they did not have to treat it as an occupation regime and join its mortal enemy in killing Polish soldiers and murdering Polish civilians fleeing to the east. They also did not have to take part in fingering their neighbors for deportations…” (p. 173).

POLISH COLLABORATION IN PERSPECTIVE

On another topic, Skaradzinski touches on the Policja Granatowa: “I had the opportunity to observe the Jewish Holocaust at close range, since I was near the Warsaw ghetto. And I remember how, shortly before the elimination of the ghetto, the Germans removed the Polish police (the `blue police’) and replaced them with Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Latvians…No one liked the `blue police’, yet nevertheless they were Poles, and this vote of no confidence, as it were, by the occupation regime was well received by public opinion.” (p. 187).

POLE-ACCUSERS ENGAGE IN PICKING AND CHOOSING EVIDENCE TO THEIR LIKING

Neo-Stalinist Jan Tomasz Gross displays his usual creativity in attempting to discredit evidence that doesn’t fit his anti-Polish agenda. His attack on recently filed testimonies (pp. 263-264; ones that tend to implicate the Germans) is especially ironic. In the US, eyewitness recollections given decades after the events have stood up in court as a major ground for the conviction of long-incognito Nazi war criminals.

THE REAL ISSUE: BLAMING POLES, FOR JEWISH ADVANTAGE, NO MATTER THE FACTS

Some authors (e. g., Yisrael Gutman, p. 9) contend that Jedwabne now makes the Poles participants in the Holocaust. This is ridiculous. Those Poles consensually involved in the massacre (if any) could not possibly have known that their one-time vindictive act would become part of a chain of events that would eventuate in the Germans’ murder of 5-6 million Jews. In contrast, the Ukrainian and Baltic collaborators knowingly and repeatedly participated in the ongoing and large-scale killings of Jews. Also, Macierewicz comments: “The involvement of Poles [at Jedwabne], although shocking, is definitely not equivalent to the involvement of Jewish police who murdered their fellow Jews in the ghettos, delivered them into the hands of their executioners, and drove them into the Umshlagplatz.” (p. 215).

[In recent years (2018) the drumbeat mendacity of “Polish complicity in the Holocaust” has only grown louder.]

Polish guilt at Jedwabne, whatever its degree, should not be overgeneralized. The Wroniszewskis cite Antoni Ch., a local Jewish survivor: “The peasants staged a fictitious man-hunt so as not to fall foul of the Germans, but they did not want to have any part in the atrocity. Earlier, the peasants had slept in the fields or gone into hiding in order to avoid being picked to lend a hand in the burning of the Jews in Radzilow.” (p. 27).

A FIG LEAF

A thoughtful comment was made by Rabbi Schudrich: “Accusing the Poles of participation in the Holocaust is a sin…The time has come at which we Jews, if we want the Poles to feel and understand our pain, must understand and feel the pain of the Poles.” (Inside front cover page). Sounds good, but it is far from reality.

A RIGHTEOUS GERMAN KNOCKED OFF THE PEDESTAL

Archbishop Zycinski (pp. 252-253) debunks the myth of German soldier Otto Schimek, who had been praised for facing court-martial and execution for refusing to obey an order to shoot unarmed Polish civilians. German documents show that Schimek’s offense was nothing more than simple roguery.