Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Clarifications Edelman

The Ghetto Fights, by Marek Edelman, John Rose (contributor). 1990

Anti-Jewish Riots German-Made. Jews Long in Denial About Unfolding Holocaust. As per Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), Poles Couldn’t Arm Jews More

This book was written in 1945 in Poland. [Review based on 1990 English-language reprint.] Owing to the fact that it was originally published right after the war, it is free of the Holocaust-promotion related accretions that have developed in subsequent years and decades. Also, owing to the fact that it was originally written before the Soviet-imposed Communist puppet government had full control of all aspects of Polish society, this book is relatively free of obvious Communist censorship.

DOES NOT BLAME POLES FOR GERMAN-SPONSORED ANTI-JEWISH RIOTS

Edelman recognized the fact that the Spring 1940 pogroms were German-staged events, and treats them as substantially German–not Polish–anti-Jewish acts. He writes: “Thus during the Easter holidays of 1940, pogroms lasting several days were instigated. The German Air Corps engaged Polish hoodlums for four zloty per `working day’. The first three days the hooligans raged unopposed. On the fourth day the Bund militia carried out revenge actions…It was, however, our determined stand that momentarily checked the Germans’ activities and went on record as the first Jewish act of resistance.” (p. 38).

JEWS WERE LONG IN DENIAL ABOUT THE FACT OF THE GERMAN-MADE HOLOCAUST

The unfolding Holocaust met with unbelief among Warsaw’s Jews. News items of the mass shootings of thousands of Jews, beginning in the summer of 1941 on the new eastern front by the Einsatzgruppen (later known as the Holocaust by Bullets), were dismissed as isolated acts against Jews. (p. 44).

News of the mass gassings of Jews in the death camps near Lublin was reckoned “too horrible to be true”. (p. 50). Even when Zalmen Frydrych, with the help of Polish railroad workers, ascertained the truth about Treblinka after traveling there, the mass murder of Jews was still disbelieved. (p. 57).

And yet, nowadays, Poles are blamed for “not doing enough” to warn the Jews, and the world, about the unfolding German-made Holocaust. Go figure.

HAS A PROPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE POLES’ INCAPABILITY OF MORE SUBSTANTIALLY ARMING THE JEWISH WARSAW GHETTO INSURGENTS

Unlike far too many modern Holocaust materials, Edelman refrains from making insinuations against the Polish Underground for initially failing to help arm the eventual Warsaw Ghetto fighters. He writes: “It must be taken into account that the time was the year 1942. The resistance movement of the Poles was just beginning at the time, and only vague stories were being circulated about partisans in the woods. It must be remembered that the first organized act of armed resistance on the part of the Poles did not take place until March 1943. Therefore, there was nothing unusual in the fact that our efforts to obtain arms and ammunition through the Government Delegate and through other agencies encountered major difficulties and, as a general rule, brought no results.” (pp. 68-69).