Rejoicing at Jewish Deaths a Myth Borowiec

Destroy Warsaw!: Hitler’s Punishment, Stalin’s Revenge, by Andrew Borowiec. 2001

The Myth of Poles Cheering at Jewish Deaths During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

One especially valuable aspect of this book is its detailed introduction to the beginnings of the Polish Underground. Concrete Polish guerrilla strategy was planned even before the German guns of 1939 had fallen silent.

POLES DID NOT DELIGHT IN THE SUFFERINGS OF THE JEWS: TO THE CONTRARY

During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), even the German-constrained Polish firemen tried to help the doomed Jews: “The flames leaped high above the twelve-foot wall covered with broken glass, and firemen in gleaming helmets were called to the scene. But when they aimed their hoses at the burning buildings across the wall, an SS officer waving a pistol shouted at them to stop wasting water. They were there not to extinguish the burning Jewish part of the city but to prevent the flames from spreading to the ‘Aryan’ side of Warsaw. Near factories produced uniforms and spare parts for German army vehicles. The firemen stood there, useless and helpless, together with a crowd of silent Polish onlookers, numb with horror and fear. Several women wept. Then Lithuanian police in black uniforms arrived and told the crowd to move on.” (p. 55). Borowiec’s testimony, an eyewitness one (p. 66), adds refutation to the oft-repeated Polonophobic innuendo of Poles cheering the burning of the Jews.

1944 WARSAW UPRISING: PREMATURE SHOOTOUTS

Borowiec was 14 years old at the time of the Warsaw Uprising. He writes much about the first days of the Uprising and the premature shootouts that occurred prior to 5 PM, August 1. This made it virtually impossible to coordinate the first planned actions of the Uprising, and it ruined whatever chances the Poles had of taking the Germans by surprise at their strongly-defended positions (bridges, etc.).

But who actually did the premature shootouts? Was it the Communist GL-AL?

POLISH HEROISM EVEN IN DEFEAT

As if writing a rebuke to those who labeled the Uprising a folly, Borowiec quotes from an Underground newspaper: “There are no regrets and no fear. And we are determined to die in the Polish Thermopylae, in the ruins of our city, rather than abandon the independent life and the values gained in the general enthusiasm.” (p. 181).

GERMAN VINDICTIVENESS

Some 40,000 Varsovians were taken to concentration camps (p. 177), in violation of the capitulation agreement. The Germans removed 33,000 railway wagons of loot before burning Warsaw’s remaining buildings (p. 178).

The AK (ARMIA KRAJOWA) continued to fight the Germans after the Uprising before being disbanded on January 19, 1945 (p. 181).