Polish Blue Police Not Collaborationist Friedman

Martyrs and Fighters, by Filip Friedman.1954

The Peripheral Role of the Polish Blue Police in the Suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

This book cites numerous sources published soon after the war. Commonly-available ones, notably those of Marek Edelman, Yitzhak Zuckerman, Bernard Goldstein, and Emmanuel Ringelblum, were or are to be reviewed separately. This review is limited to the citing of relatively obscure sources.

NO POLISH COLLABORATIONIST POLICE (RARE INDIVIDUAL EXCEPTIONS NOTWITHSTANDING)

The Policja Granatowa (Polish Navy Blue Police) has at times been falsely portrayed as the Polish counterpart to the Ukrainian and Baltic collaborationist police units. In actuality, although the Blue Police did include collaborators (particularly the Volksdeutsche: Polish-Speaking Germans), it was mainly a criminal police, not a collaborationist one. Various Holocaust films have falsely portrayed the Polish Blue Police as a major force in the roundup of Jews for the trips to the death camps and of playing a major role in assisting the Germans in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Friedman sets the record straight in his quotation of an April 19, 1943 report of the Jewish National Committee (Z. K. N): “The action is being carried out by German military police under the command of the SS. The Polish police have been withdrawn from the ghetto. They are now assigned to watch the ghetto walls from the outside.” (p. 238). This fact is confirmed by Jurgen (Juergen) Stroop, who is quoted as follows: “The Polish police, which had formed an encircling chain on the outside…” (p. 257). It is therefore clear that the only combat clashes of the Jewish (and, yes, Polish) guerilla fighters with the Polish Blue Police took place in the form of sporadic encounters occurring at the geographical peripheries of the ghetto. By far the greatest share of the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the murder of Warsaw’s remaining Jews (usually by burning alive in torched buildings) was perpetrated by the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators.

A SHAMEFUL DISCOUNTING OF POLISH AID TO THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

The Stroop report makes numerous references to “Polish bandits” fighting alongside the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. (“Polish bandits” is standard German terminology for Polish guerilla fighters). Friedman tries to minimize the scale of Polish Underground assistance to the Jewish fighters with the following amazing assertion: “The Germans could not admit that they had been beaten by Jews, and tried to create the impression that considerable Polish underground forces were involved in the fighting, which is not true. Ed.” (pp. 229-231). Friedman’s imaginative mind-reading of Juergen Stroop is unworthy of the dignity of a comment.

THE GERMAN-IMPOSED DEATH PENALTY WAS VERY REAL: POLES WERE FRIGHTENED INTO BETRYAYING FUGITIVE JEWS

After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a few tens of Jewish fighters managed (with help from the Polish Underground) to hide in the surrounding woods. A number of recent authors have advanced the rather silly notion that the German-imposed death penalty, for the slightest assistance to Jews, was so much part of an indiscriminate use of the death penalty that it no longer made any impression on Poles. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the deterrent effect of the death penalty worked not only in making Poles commonly disinclined to help Jews but also to make Poles more inclined in betraying fugitive Jews. This is recounted by Wladka, quoted by Friedman: “The woods near Lomianki are small. The peasants around quickly learned of the presence of their new Jewish neighbors. The Poles were frightened and threatened to turn the Jews over to the Germans, if the Jews were not taken away from there immediately. Every day you might expect the Germans to surround the woods and to wipe them all out.” (p. 291).

However, thousands of Poles did in fact risk their lives to aid Jews, despite the death penalty, and more Poles are honored at Yad Vashem for rescuing Jews than any other nationality (though the Yad Vashem awards were begun after Friedman wrote this book).

WHY DIDN’T POLES HELP MORE? BECAUSE JEWS REFUSED HELP!

Friedman briefly discusses Zegota (p. 299-300). He lists six lines of action taken by Zegota for the assistance of fugitive Jews. Of course, the rescue of the doomed Jewish masses was impossible. But greater successes were in the offing for the rescue of prominent Jews. One of these was the attempted rescue of Meir Balaban, a famous Jewish Professor of history: “Professor Balaban’s Polish friends decided to act on his behalf and offered to move him to the ‘Aryan’ side. However, Professor Balaban declined. He declared that his place was among the other Jews.” (p. 138). Friedman also recounts the proffered rescue of Jewish clergy: “From the highest ranks of the Roman Catholic hierarchy suddenly came the proposal to save the last three rabbis who remained in the Warsaw ghetto. Rabbi Menahem Zemba, Rabbi Simon Stockhamer and Rabbi David Szapiro. The high Roman Catholic clergymen suddenly decided to hide the three rabbis in a safe place.” (p. 172). According to Friedman, the first two rabbis declined the offer, choosing to perish with their congregations, while Rabbi David Shapiro was saved (p. 173).

Of course, these are the high-profile cases. There were doubtless also many low-profile ones.