Jewish Disloyalty 1939 War Wierzbicki

Polacy i Bialorusini W Zaborze Sowieckim, by Marek Wierzbicki. 2007

Systematic Jewish Disloyalty to Poland in the 1939 German-Soviet Conquest of Poland: Outstanding Research

POLES AND BYELORUSSIANS UNDER SOVIET CAPTIVITY: POLISH-BYELORUSSIAN RELATIONS IN THE NORTHEASTERN TERRITORIES OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC UNDER SOVIET OCCUPATION 1939-1941, is the title of this scholarly Polish-language book.

Owing to the fact that the issues raised tend to be the subject of denials, minimalizations, and rationalizations, and this book has specific eyewitness information, I focus my review entirely on WWII-era Jewish Communism, which is part of what is sometimes called the Zydokomuna.

ZYDOKOMUNA WAS VERY REAL AND SUBSTANTIVE

Perusal of this book quickly dispels the myth that the Zydokomuna was some kind of anti-Semitic gloss (as claimed by Jan T. Gross and his followers), or marginal phenomenon. In fact, the late historian Tomasz Strzembosz had identified fifteen locations, discussed in this book, in which significant visible Jewish-Soviet and Jewish-Byelorussian-Soviet collaboration is known to have occurred. These include: Antopol in Polesie [Polesia] (p. 92), Dereczyn (p.163), Drohiczyn in Polesie [Polesia] (pp. 175-176), Dubno (p. 143), Grodno (pp. 63-64, 132-134, 135, 202), Horodec (pp. 92, 176), Jeziory (pp. 139-142, 171, 178, 208), Lunna (pp. 137, 198, 205), Motol (pp. 92-93, 179), Ostryna (p. 139, 171, 178, 205, 208), Skidel (pp. 77-78, 133, 135-137,171, 201, 208), Wielka Brzostowica (pp. 66, 70, 72, 76, 137-138), Wiercieliszki (p. 137), Wolkowysk (p. 148), and Zelwa (pp. 147-148, 178).

ZYDOKOMUNA WAS PREMEDITATED, WILLFUL, AND SUSTAINED

Those Jews who cheered the arrival of the Red Army were Communized Jews (p. 48), and not, as often exculpated, people in desperate fear of the Nazis. [In fact, Poland’s Jews in general were not then particularly afraid of the Nazis, as evidenced, for example, by those Jews who later voluntarily relocated, or attempted to relocate, from Soviet-occupied Poland to Nazi German-occupied Poland.] As this work makes clear, Jewish-Soviet collaboration was not some kind of reactive behavior against the Nazis: It was an unvarnished act of militant enmity against Poles and Poland, with much of it planned well before the war. The Soviets, for their part, were repeating many of the behind-the-lines diversionary tactics that they had used against Poles in the 1920 Bolshevik War. (p. 192).

The WWII Jewish betrayal of Poland tended to be bolder and more open in those locations where there were many Jews. In the Grodno area at least, according to Officer Kazimierz Kardaszewicz of the Border Defense Corps, the local Lithuanians acted with reserve upon news of the Soviet invasion, while Byelorussians and especially Jews threw their support largely to the Soviets. (p. 143).

SOME SPECIFIC LOCATIONS OF JEWISH-SOVIET COLLABORATION AT POLAND’S EXPENSE

In this review, I analyze some of the collaborationist incidents brought to attention by historian Strzembosz. Let us first focus on the town of Skidel [Bialostok region], and consider the events–which are corroborated by both Polish and Soviet sources. (pp. 136-137). On September 18, 1939, the day after the USSR had stabbed Poland in the back by invading her in support of the ongoing Nazi German conquest proceeding further west, Byelorussian and Jewish Communists began fifth column activity. They seized control of the town, arrested and disarmed Polish soldiers and functionaries, and formed a revolutionary committee. A Polish counter-attack, directed by R. Wiszowaty, led to the burning of some of the buildings [likely misrepresented in Jewish accounts as a “Polish pogrom”], successfully drove out the armed traitors, and freed the captive Poles. Two days later, Wiszowaty’s unit engaged in temporarily successful combat against the encroaching Red Army, during which time it was subject to fire from the Jewish-Byelorussian fifth columnists. The Poles shot all those male traitors captured with weapon in hand.

At Dereczyn [Nowogrodek region], a group of Jewish fifth columnists opened fire on the nearby Polish Slonim Volunteer Battalion. During the combat encounter, in which the armed traitors were driven off, some buildings were burned (hence another “pogrom”.) One of the soldiers in the Battalion, Jan Bienkiewicz, later identified the attackers as young, local Jews. (p. 163). In surrounding areas, the fifth columnists engaged in robberies and murders of Poles.

In the Bialostok region, near the towns of Zaniemensk and Grodno, Polish forces experienced gunfire from armed bands. The Poles pursued the attackers to Grodno, and drove them out. While some buildings burned [yet another “pogrom”], there were explosions of the ammunition stored by the insurgents. (p. 143). A very similar set of events took place near and at the town of Ostryn, (p. 139).

In the Brzostowica Mala area of the Grodno region, Communist bands, consisting of Jews and Byelorussians, massacred many Poles. The victims included postal workers, teachers, nobility, the mayor, etc. (p. 70). [Subsequent investigation by the IPN (Institute of National Remembrance) has underscored the nature of the Brzostowica Mala massacre and its targeting of prominent Poles. By some estimates, 50 Poles were murdered by Jews and Byelorussians.]

At Wielka Brzostowica, a group of Jewish Communists had formed a cell, supported by the Soviets since before the war. Its members, some identified by name, conducted a local insurgency on behalf of the Red Army. (p. 76).

In Motol in the Polesie (Polesia) region, Poles were a minority, and the Soviets had been engaging in Communist agitation even before the war. No sooner had the USSR attacked Poland than the Jews at Motol took over the town and began a campaign of mass murder of Poles. (p. 179).

At Zelwa near Wolkowysk [Bialostok region], a band of mostly-Jewish locals formed a revolutionary committee a day before the arrival of the invading Soviet forces. As remembered by eyewitness Henryk Szumski, these Jews terrorized the Polish population, and disarmed Polish soldiers and then shot them. (p. 147).

At Wolkowysk itself, the entered Red Army allowed local Byelorussian and Jewish Communists (who were identified by an eyewitness by name: pp. 89-90), a free reign of terror for four days. The turncoats engaged in mass arrests of locally prominent Poles, and then murdered some of them.

ZYDOKOMUNA CONTINUED LONG, LONG AFTER THE EXCULPATED “JEWISH GRATITUDE FOR NOT FALLING INTO NAZI HANDS”

In March 1940, which was many months after the Nazi-Communist (German-Soviet) conquest of Poland, Jews remained a very disproportionate amount of functionaries in the Communist militia. These functionaries, in the Bialostok area, apportioned by nationality, were: 1,071 Byelorussians, 352 Russians, 188 Jews, 70 Poles, 32 Ukrainians, and 1 Tatar. (p. 240). The Byelorussian abundance reflects the local population, and the Russians are outsiders. Jews outnumber Poles nearly 3:1 even though there were far fewer local Jews than Poles. The extreme rarity of Tatars reflects their relatively small numbers in the local population, but probably also their long-noted unswerving loyalty to Poland.