Jewish Collaboration vs Polish and Double Standards Bauer

Jews for Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945, by Yehuda Bauer. 1994

Double Standards on Nazi Collaboration and Widespread Holocaust Awareness. Jewish Victimhood Absolutism. Newer Books Available (Listed)

My review identifies and focuses on deeper issues, related to the Shoah, than the specific Jewish-Nazi negotiations for the release on some Jews. Consider the following:

DOUBLE STANDARD: JEWISH COLLABORATION AND POLISH COLLABORATION

In discussing the beginning of the deportations of the Jews of Slovakia, to their deaths, author and Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer comments, “The key role in this was played by Karel Hochberg, a Jewish engineer, who had become Wisliceny’s helper and head of the internal ‘department for special tasks.’ Hochberg was in the mold of Jewish traitors during the Nazi period. In Warsaw there was Abraham Gancwajch, head of the Gestapo-supported police, who tried to snatch the leadership of the ghetto from the head of the Judenrat, Adam Czerniakow, and who believed in the final Nazi victory; in Krakow there was the head of the Jewish special police, Szpiro, a Hasidic Jew who became a Gestapo agent—and there were others, not surprisingly, under the impossible pressure of the Nazi murderers.” (p. 70).

And there you have the standard, canned exculpation. I never hear of “the impossible pressure of the Nazi murderers” (despite the fact that millions of ethnic Poles were being murdered by the Germans) when the subject of Poles betraying (or killing) Jews is brought up! Finally, whoever heard of the “Jewish complicity in the Holocaust” in the light of the facts provided by Bauer, and countless others?

DOUBLE STANDARD: INFORMATION THAT THE HOLOCAUST IS TAKING PLACE, AND THE INTERNALIZATION OF SUCH INFORMATION (TWO DIFFERENT THINGS)

Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer discusses the apparently-plentiful information, on German actions elsewhere, available to Hungarian Jews by mid-1944, on the eve of their annihilation. He writes, “The question is, however, is whether this information was internalized and turned into knowledge. It is quite likely that in villages and among uneducated people in towns the information would have been either unavailable or hazy; but it is difficult to believe that it did not reach most Hungarian Jews. Because it was life-threatening, it was largely rejected.” (p. 151)

Author Bauer then generalizes on this issue, “We must differentiate between information and its INTERNALIZATION, or ‘knowledge’…Internalization—that is, acceptance of information as correct and thinking in accordance with that information, and later possibly action—is a complicated process. During the Holocaust countless individuals received information and rejected it, suppressed it, or rationalized about it, or seemingly internalized it and then behaved as though it had never reached them. This is true not only of people who were outside the kingdom of death but also of people within it.” (p. 72; Emphasis added).

In fact, this is applicable to all people who went through WWII! Consider Jan Grabowski vel Abrahamer and his media-promoted JUDENJAGD, in which he portrays Poles denouncing and killing Jews as “complicit in the Holocaust” (standard Holocaustspeak). Apart from the fact that most Polish killings of Jews were driven by fear of the Germans, protection from Jewish banditry, etc., the media-promoted “Polish complicity in the Holocaust” meme overlooks the fact that most Poles (especially rural ones) had only a hazy awareness of the fact that the Nazis (Germans) were out to kill virtually all Jews. So Poles can hardly be “complicit in the Holocaust”, if only because they had—at best—a dim awareness of the unfolding Holocaust in the sense of a near-total Jew-destroying event. [Remember also that it took a VERY long time for most Polish Jews to also come to the realization that they were collectively doomed.]

JEWISH VICTIMHOOD ABSOLUTISM: AUTHOR YEHUDA BAUER LAMBASTES RABBI WEISSMANDEL

Attention is now focused on the negotiations intended to reduce or end the shipment of Slovakian Jews to the death camps. Consider the role of Rabbi Michael Dov Ber Weissmandel. Author Bauer inveighs against Weissmandel for criticizing the Zionists and the JDC for what Weissmandel sees as their criminal negligence during the negotiations. Bauer then loses all sense of objectivity as makes he makes sweeping assertions about “Weissmandel’s hatred of the JDC and of the Zionists”. (p. 89). To top it all off, Bauer concludes, “In other words, according to Weissmandel, the Jews were responsible for their own murder.” (p. 90). This is beyond ridiculous. Disagreeing with Weissmandel’s faulting of some Jews for inadequate action during the Holocaust, and accusing Weissmandel of saying that Jews caused their own murder—these are two entirely different things. No rational person insinuates that the Jews were responsible for their own murder.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Yehuda Bauer is promoting a Jewish-victimhood absolutism, in which not a single detail of what took place could ever be the fault of ANY Jew. At very least, this is an attempted manipulation of Holocaust discourse.

NEW SCHOLARLY WORKS ON KASZTNER, HIMMLER, AND JEWISH-RELEASE NEGOTIATIONS

Because this book is outdated with reference to its main subject area, I recommend these up-to-date works:

Kasztners Crime (Jewish Studies)

In the Name of Humanity: The Secret Deal to End the Holocaust