Jewish Overcrowding Intensifies Jewish Economic Hegemony Arad

The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads’ Campaign Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943, by Itzhak Arad, Itzhak Arad. 1989

The Holocaust By Bullets. How Nazi Germans Exploited the Pre-Existing Jewish Advantages and Wrongs to Locals, In Order to Secure At Least Passive Cooperation in Their Genocidal Schemes

Most of the Jews of the Ukraine and Byelorussia did not die in the gas chambers of death camps, but were the victims of mass shootings carried out by the Einsatzgruppen and similar German formations. (This has since become known as the Holocaust by Bullets). By some estimates, up to 2 million Jews (and–don’t forget–also many non-Jews) were murdered this way, and their bodies were buried in mass graves throughout the region. This book is much more than a compilation of some of the reports of these killings. It also provides a geography lesson of this area.

JEWS AS BOTH UNWITTING AND WITTING TOOLS IN THE TSARIST-RUSSIAN AND SOVIET-RUSSIAN SUPPRESSION OF LOCALS’ NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

A major source of conflict between the Jews and non-Jews of the entire region in question had recognizably been the gross overpopulation of mostly Russian-speaking Jews (e. g., the Litvaks) in this poverty-stricken region (deliberately caused by the 19th century policies of Tsarist Russia). One report alludes to the Pale of Jewish settlement: “More than half of world Jewry lives on a relatively narrow strip of east-central Europe along the Riga-Bucharest line…The zone that was open to the Jews in tsarist Russia included the districts of Kaunas, Grodno, Vilnius, Volhynia, Podolia, Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilev…”(p. 47). Also: “The deeper reason for the Ukrainians’ hatred of the Jews comes from the fact that the Jews were settled in tsarist times by a special order of the Tsar who wanted to weaken their strong [Ukrainian] national feelings by equalizing the population groups in Russia. At the time of the revolution, particularly in the year 1919, the Ukrainians took revenge on the Jews instigating veritable pogroms which killed thousands. The deep, insurmountable conflict between the Ukrainians and Jews found its expression in this action.”(p. 73).

MANY JEWS HAD ACTIVELY SUPPORTED COMMUNISM. NOW ALL JEWS WERE FORCED TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES

Owing to the fact that a very disproportionate share of the local Jews had recently sided with the Soviets, the Germans tried to take advantage of local anti-Communist and anti-Soviet feelings. In time, the genocide of Jews was subsumed under, and disguised as, an anti-Bolshevik crusade. The actual scale of Judeo-Bolshevism (the Zydokomuna) in the highest levels of Soviet government is described as follows: “…in Lenin’s time, the Jews, though constituting 1.77% of the entire population, were represented in the Communist party with 5.2%, in the party’s Central Committee with 25.7% and in the Politburo with 36.8%. At the end of the Lenin period their participation in the Politburo was up to 42.9%. In the area of high Jewish density, as in Byelorussia, the participation was accordingly higher.”(p. 49). One report summarizes recent Jewish-Soviet collaboration: “Again and again, mainly in the towns, the Jews were named as the actual Soviet rulers, exploiting the people with indescribable brutality and delivering them to the NKVD…the Jews especially worked for the Soviets, if not in responsible positions, then as agents or informants.”(p. 216).

OTHER DEEDS ATTRIBUTED TO JEWS

Written on the heels of the invading German Army, numerous reports describe the local Jews becoming responsible for such things as major robberies (e. g., p. 66, 79, 100), prostitution (e. g., p. 68), sabotage (e. g., p. 181), arsons (e. g., p. 59), and killings of locals (p. 30). It is impossible for the reader to ascertain which of these accounts is propaganda or hearsay and which are factual.

LOCALS’ COLLABORATION WITH THE NAZIS

I found only two mentions of a Polish auxiliary unit serving (or being forced to serve) the Germans. It consisted of members of the prewar Polish criminal police (p. 23, 83). On the other hand, many times the reports make reference to non-Polish units serving the Germans, specifically in the killing of Jews. This includes the Ukrainian militia, “Ukrainian Gestapo”, etc. (e. g., p. 12, 26, 92, 128, 131, 140, 174). As for the self-directed killing of Jews, the Lithuanians are singled out in this regard: “It was very easy to convince the Lithuanian circles of the need for self-purging actions to achieve a complete elimination of the Jews from public life. Spontaneous pogroms occurred in all the towns.”(p. 61; see also p. 17). For all of the media hullabaloo surrounding the Jedwabne massacre, the fact that these reports nowhere mention Poles actually killing Jews, with or without the Germans, at least suggests that this was a very marginal phenomenon.

WHY SOME LOCALS GREETED THE GERMANS

One of the reports describes the Polish reaction to the Germans, who had just driven out the Soviets from eastern Poland: “According to previous reports, the Polish part of the population is very friendly towards the Germans. This can be explained by the fact that they suffered more than anyone else under the Soviet regime.” (pp. 67-68). In his recently-published book FEAR, Jan T. Gross has also cited this Polish reaction, using it disingenuously as a counterbalance to the much more widespread Jewish jubilation over the invasion of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union back in September 1939. Contrary to common claims, the Jews did not react in this way out of fear of the Germans, as the eventual German intentions against Jews were not generally believed at that time. In fact, quite a few Jews had positive opinions of Germans derived from WWI experiences with Germans just 25 years earlier.

POLISH UNDERGROUND WAS ALREADY SIGNIFICANT

Interestingly, Poles were required to wear identification armbands just as the Jews (p. 92). Polish underground action against the Germans is mentioned in numerous reports (e. g., p. 2, 15, 23, 44, 67, 127, 272, 314). Consider this report, dated September 9, 1941, in particular: “The Polish resistance movement has become more evident in the area of Brest where there is strong propaganda for General Sikorski”(p. 127).