Polish Blue Police Not Collaborationist Pinkus

The House of Ashes, by Oscar Pinkus. 1990

As at Warsaw, THE Polish Blue Police (POLICJA GRANATOWA), at Losice, Was Not Trusted By the Germans for Collaborationist Purposes Against Jews

Oskar Pinkus is a Polish Jew who lived in Losice, located 85 miles east of Warsaw and 10 miles from the Bug River. In 1939-1940, after the German-Soviet conquest of Poland, Losice’s Jews didn’t believe in Hitler’s threats (pp. 50-51). This further shows that the widespread Jewish-Communist collaboration of 1939 couldn’t have been driven by fears of Nazi extermination.

THE POLICJA GRANATOWA–NOT COLLABORATORS

The Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa) was kept in the dark until the last moment before the August 1942 roundup of Losice’s Jews (p. 106). The Germans also forced the local farmers to come with their carts (p. 106). (This corrects the misuse of a painting shown in the movie SHTETL, through which the viewer is misled into believing that the local farmers collaborated willingly in the roundup and transport of Bransk’s Jews).

At Siedlce, 20 miles from Losice, the Ukrainian police took over (pp. 109-110), and both the Blue Police and Polish farmers were sent home! The Ukrainians and Germans loaded the Jews onto trains for their 60-mile trip to their deaths at Treblinka.

THE POLES CHEERED JEWISH DEATHS MYTH

The Polonophobic canard is promoted by the likes of the well-watched movie SCHINDLER’S LIST. A young Polish girl is shown giving the Jews a sarcastic farewell as the German escort them to their soon-to-be deaths. The truth was rather different

At Siedlce, it was the Germans, not Poles, who were jeering the Jews: “As the Jews passed, the Poles fell silent watching the procession of doomed men and women. The German soldiers who stood on the sidewalks commanded in sneering voices…: (pp. 109-110).

A SUCCESSION OF POLISH BENEFACTORS, NOT JUST ONE LONELY “ALTRUISTIC INDIVIDUAL”

Just before the roundup, Pinkus fled Losice. Throughout his treks, he was helped by Poles in numerous, successive occasions (p. 88, 90, 91,128, 129, 137, 212), including once by a Polish Blue Policeman (p. 87). This further proves that many Polish benefactors were necessary for the saving of even one Jew. Pinkus also mentions Poles who refused to help owing to the German-imposed death penalty for such acts (p. 89, 93, 133) and, unlike Jan Tomasz Gross, recognizes the legitimacy of this motive for Polish inaction (p. 119). However, Pinkus criticized overseas Jews for their lack of assistance (p. 119).

THE GREEDY PAID POLISH RESCUER MYTH

Pinkus eventually found “permanent” lodging in a shelter underneath farmer Karbicki’s barn. At first, Karbicki helped only because Pinkus paid him but, in time, became more altruistic (p. 199; “But I can’t keep you for nothing”, p. 220). The reader may exonerate Karbicki after considering his extreme poverty, which included tattered clothes and hole-ridden boots (p. 128; p. 153). (It is unfair that Poles who were paid to help Jews are deemed ineligible for the Yad Vashem medal, whereas Danes, who were incomparably better well-off under German occupation and yet took hefty fees for shipping Jews to Sweden, are eligible).

THE ARMIA KRAJOWA

At first, Pinkus praised the AK and commended it for assassinating Germans, spies, collaborators, and informers (pp. 195, 204), and for making the Germans fearful of entering the woods. As a result of all this, in 1943 the hidden Jews felt safer than ever (p. 196).

JEWISH BANDITRY IN ACTION, AGAINST POLES, PROVOKES THE DESERVED POLISH REPRISALS

In time, Pinkus left his shelter at Karbicki’s farm and encountered other Jews in hiding in the forest or nearby farms. They assembled into a band that built an independent shelter within the forest, and that stole feedstuffs and livestock from Polish farmers (pp. 204-206). One may understand why Poles sometimes killed fugitive Jews.

Pinkus then writes: “Shymeluk had gone to Wolki for food one night and did not return. At first the farmers denied that he had even been in the village but eventually we learned that he had been killed by …the AK, the Polish underground. Shymeluk was in a farmer’s house when the AK arrived. They took him with them, and although there was no direct proof that they killed him, it remained a fact that Shymeluk never returned from that trip.” (p. 213). Obviously, Pinkus didn’t see any of this, but was relying on someone else’s statements (in other words, hearsay). Besides, could “going for food” include stealing? Finally, in any event, how could Pinkus know that Shymeluk’s presumed death didn’t occur sometime AFTER the latter’s presumed contact with the AK?

Interestingly, Pinkus’ only clearly eyewitness experience with the AK was a positive one. The AK visited the area, forced all the Jews out of hiding, and, not only didn’t harm them, but encouraged them (pp. 215-218).

THE AUTHOR’S POLONOPHOBIC FISH TALES

But later that night, the AK allegedly returned and “without even looking” threw grenades into the forest shelter in which the Jews had until recently been hiding (p. 218). Considering the darkness of the forest, and unless Pinkus was very close to the shelter (which he doesn’t indicate), how could he possibly know such details? Besides, if the AK was out to kill Jews, why didn’t it do so earlier that day, in broad daylight, when it had all the Jews gathered together?

Skepticism is justified. The informed reader may recount Polish Jew Jerzy Kosinski’s tall tales about Polish atrocities against Jews, exposed as such by independent investigation, or Yaffa Eliach’s contradictory, fantastic account of her 7 year-old self counting the number of bullets fired by an AK soldier into her baby brother. (Who counts shots, and what AK soldier would waste multiple scarce bullets on an infant?)

Pinkus even makes a Yaffa Eliach-like accusation of the AK having an order to kill all remaining Polish Jews. He admits the nonexistence of written evidence of it, yet says: “But better evidence lies in their record of persistent and widespread murder…In 1945 alone, 352 Jews were murdered by the AK…” (p. 226). What a non sequitur! A few hundred Jews killed, even if all correctly blamed on the AK, is hardly proof of an AK “mini-Wannsee” (Eliach’s term). And 352 killed out of over 250,000 remaining Polish Jews would only mean that the AK did an atrociously poor job of it!

Pinkus claims that, in March 1945, the AK killed 3 of the 20 surviving Jews of Losice (p. 226). This is a flat lie. The AK no longer existed then! It had already been disbanded by Leopold Okulicki, its final commander, in January 1945.