Returning Survivors Resented Because Few Postwar Houses Vachon

Poland 1946, by John Vachon. 1995

Occasional Polish Hostility to Holocaust Survivors: the Real Reason (Postwar Housing Shortage). Pro-Communist Author is Candid on Poland’s Wartime Destitution

I give this work two stars because, while the photos are priceless, the text is of little value. The author comes across as a superficially-minded tourist, and skirts around important issues. He is silent about the Communist terror going on in Poland. In the Introduction, Brian Moore identifies himself, and photographer John Vachon, as left-wingers. (p. xvi). It shows! Vachon expresses support for the Communist puppet government. (p. 51). He repeats egregious falsehoods straight out of Communist propaganda,. He conflates the ARMIA KRAJOWA (A. K.) with bandits (p. 64), and actually slurs General Anders as behind the (so-called) Kielce Pogrom. (p. 82).

One photo (p. 94) shows a message board with various Communist-propaganda posters. One poster says “Three Times Yes”, which is an allusion to the so-called Polish People’s Referendum of mid-1946. Another poster warns of the dangers of a return of capitalism.

WHY POLES WERE NOT EXACTLY THRILLED WHEN HOLOCAUST-SURVIVING JEWS RETURNED TO RECLAIM THEIR PROPERTY

The photos in this work feature the crushing destitute of post-WWII Poles. Many photos show the wartime devastation, notably the ruins of Warsaw. It was staggering.

Although Vachon repeats the “Poles are anti-Semites” mantra, he makes it easy to see why Poles were sometimes hostile to Jews who came back to reclaim their properties. Usable property was in short supply. For instance, one of the photos (p. 146, described on p. 155) shows Poles living in the cellars of the ruins of their homes. [This was at a village, and does not count the countless Poles living in the ruins of Warsaw and other large destroyed cities.] No wonder that the new Polish owners were not exactly thrilled when the presumed-dead former Jewish owners turned up alive to reclaim the property.

DOES NOT FORGET THE POLISH EXPELLEES FROM THE KRESY

Especially sad are the photos which show the abject misery (and disease) of those who had been expelled from the Kresy or returned from Siberia. (p. 41, 114, 115, 116, 117). Obviously, the German expellees, the VERTRIEBENE, were not the only ones who suffered because of the Big-Power-decreed expulsion/resettlement processes.