Jewish Disloyalty 1939 War Weiss

From Oswiecim to Auschwitz: Poland Revisited, by Moshe Weiss. 1994

Includes an Example of Jewish-German Collaboration, Against Poland, in the 1939 War

Much has been written about some Poles who, during the Nazi German occupation, had served the Germans at the expense of the Jews (the “Polish complicity in the Holocaust” meme). However, it is also a little-known fact that some Jews had earlier curried favor with the German invaders of Poland in 1939. This book provides one such example of Jewish disloyalty to Poland.

AID AND COMFORT TO THE GERMAN ENEMY ON THE VERY FIRST DAY OF WWII

Author Moshe Weiss writes, “Before candle lighting, on Friday, September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, two Oswiecim Jews, the wealthy businessman Leo ‘Eliezer’ Shenker and a companion, heard a plane crash into a field near Shenker’s villa. From their flattened position to escape the bombing, they watched in amazement as a man attached to what seemed like a giant umbrella floating to the ground and struggled to disentangle himself from the ropes that harnessed him to his strange contraption. The man was wounded and bleeding, and the two Jews ran to his aid and carried him to a nearby house. He was a German pilot whose plane had been shot down by Polish anti-aircraft guns. His co-pilot had been killed in the attack. The surviving pilot’s leg and several teeth were broken. The Jews tended the wounded man and DID NOT INFORM THE POLISH AUTHORITIES OF HIS PRESENCE. When the Germans entered Oswiecim on the third of September, the Jews led them to the wounded man, who, it turned out, was an important Nazi officer. While the Nazis could not really understand why the Jews had gone to so much trouble to save a German life, they were nevertheless grateful. Leo Shenker, a leader of the Oswiecim Jewish community, became friendly with the wounded Nazi officer, and as a result of this connection was in a position to gain many favors for the Jews.” (p. 156; Emphasis added).

Clearly, this was not merely an expression of compassion for a wounded soldier. It was the deliberate concealment of an enemy soldier during wartime, done for opportunistic reasons. [This, and many other incidents of the same nature, commonly made Poles think of Jews as ones having ephemeral loyalties, and prone to switch their allegiances to whoever was ruling over Poland at the time.]