Jewish Collaboration Even Profiteering Robertson

Don’t Go to Uncle’s Wedding: Personal Stories from the Warsaw Ghetto, by Jenny Robertson. 2000

Touches on Pre-WWII Polish-Jewish Economic Rivalry. Candor on Jewish Nazi Collaboration (as Profiteering). “God’s Will” For Not Helping Jews

This work includes extracts from the works of Ringelblum, Lewin, Szpilman, and others. Quotations from non-English-language sources make it particularly useful.

JEWISH ECONOMIC HEGEMONY

Instead of attributing prewar Polish anti-Semitism to some kind of “intolerant spirit”, “hyper Catholicism”, or “primitive nationalism” among Poles, author Robertson understands its true cause. The economic dominance of Jews had often created hostilities between the mostly-buying Poles and the mostly-selling Jews. (p. 110).

UNDER NAZI GERMAN OCCUPATION: POLES WERE BETTER OFF THAN JEWS, BUT NOT BY MUCH

Robertson recounts the German conquest and occupation of Poland. Poles were allotted 669 calories daily, which was closer to the allotted 184 calories daily for Jews than to the 2,613 calories allotted daily for Germans. (p. 7).

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION: NOT JUST CHOICELESS CHOICES

The author summarizes Jewish life in the Warsaw Ghetto prior to and during the “resettlements” to Treblinka. She describes Jewish Gestapo agents and the Jewish ghetto police in stark terms. The Jewish ghetto police, consisting largely of lawyers and university graduates (p. 27) got rich off fellow Jews (pp. 26-27), and played a major role in rousting Jews out of their hiding places and boarding them on the Treblinka-bound trains. (e. g., pp. 50-51).

“GOD’S WILL” AS A REASON FOR INACTION ON BEHALF OF DYING JEWS

Much has been said about how some Christians refused to aid Jews because they believed that Nazi actions against Jews were “God’s will”. Ironically, Jewish resistance against the Nazis was delayed because some Jewish religious leaders objected to it for exactly the same reason. (p. 75).

POLES FOUGHT ALONGSIDE JEWS IN THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

Unfortunately, Robertson’s treatment of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has a conspicuous omission of the central role of the ZZW in the Uprising. However, she recognizes the fact that the Polish Underground (ARMIA KRAJOWA) tried unsuccessfully to explode holes in the ghetto walls to enable Jews to escape. (pp. 89-90). She also realizes that the reluctance of the AK to be more substantially involved in the Uprising was governed
by the pro-Communist leanings of the ZOB. (p. 78).