Property Restitution and Polish Guilt Myth Rice

What! Still Alive?!: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Israel Remember Homecoming, by Monika Rice. 2017

A Rather Prejudicial Title. Rest OK. Confutes Jan T. Gross on “Polish Guilt” For Acquiring Post-Jewish Property

This book is a somewhat better than the standard Holocaust fare, except for the title, which is inflammatory and misleading. Some takeaways:

THE POLONOCAUST OR POLOKAUST (MY TERM): NOT ONLY JEWS SUFFERED UNDER THE NAZIS

This work is not entirely Judeocentric. Author Rice touches on the Nazi German genocide of Poles, although she does not use that term. She comments on the millions of non-Jewish Poles murdered, and adds that, “The Christian population of Poland was left exhausted and without resources. The worst of the Nazi terror against the Poles had been directed against the Polish intelligentsia, understood in its widest sense to include not only the intellectuals, writers, artists, clergy, teachers, state officials, and doctors but also lower-level clerks, pharmacists, and small-town officials. It has been estimated that during the war Poland lost about 45 percent of its physicians and dentists, 57 percent of its attorneys, more than 15 percent of its teachers, 40 percent of its professors, half of its engineers, about 30 percent of its technicians, and more than 18 percent of its clergy. Close to 38 percent of university graduates and 30 percent of high school graduates lost their lives…” (pp. 17-18).

THE SOVIET-IMPOSED COMMUNIST PUPPET GOVERNMENT AND THE CONTINUED TERROR AGAINST POLES

The author (p. 19) cites estimates of 20,000 to 50,000 Poles killed during the forced Communization process. (Larger figures could be cited.). She fails to mention that over 100,000 Poles were imprisoned by 1951.

Polish suffering was much greater than that caused directly by the Communists. Author Rice comments, “Two major waves of famine occurred in postwar Poland; in the eastern regions during the process of liberation (summer 1944 to spring 1945) and during the winter and summer of 1946. Official data indicate that village inhabitants consumed 1,396 calories per day during 1945 and 1946. At least two and a half million people were in need of food aid during this time. Infant mortality, which stood at 20 to 25 percent across all of Poland, was 40 top 50 percent among the repatriates from the East [the Kresy expellees]. Deaths outnumbered births by 30 percent. The situation was catastrophic in the hospitals, which lacked basic medications, medical tools, bedsheets, and other necessary items.” (p. 211).

Unfortunately, however, author Monika Rice does not “connect the dots”: the horrific privations faced by Poles, the brutal atmosphere of civil war, and Poles often being hostile (and occasionally murderous) to surviving Jews who came to reclaim their property.

POSTWAR JEW-KILLING BY POLES SHOULD NOT BE EXAGGERATED

One major takeaway of Rice’s study is that only a minority of archived Jewish testimonies mention Poles at all. Out of 588 ZIH (Jewish Historical Institute) documents, only 98 (that is, 17%) mention Poles, and out of 182 YV (Yad Vashem) testimonies, 87 (that is, 61%) do the same. (p. 114, pp. 204-205). (One reason for this was that Zionists wanted to awfulize the Jewish experience in the Diaspora in order to advance their agenda.) Of those that do, only about a fifth make allegations of having experienced direct Polish threats against them.

Unlike those who treat Jewish testimonies uncritically, as does Jan T. Gross, Monika Rice cautions the reader to treat them skeptically. (pp. 160-163). In particular, she reminds us of the fictional claims of Jerzy Kosinski vel Lewinkopf in his PAINTED BIRD, and the totally fraudulent claims of Binjamin Wilkomirski. (p. 162).

To her credit, author Monika Rice realizes that Jew-killers would feign membership in an Underground army to give it a bad name (p. 75, 221), and that a Jewish Communist could be killed for being a Communist and not for being a Jew. (p. 221).

JAN T. GROSS “POLISH GUILT OVER OBTAINING JEWISH PROPERTY” REFUTED. NOT EVEN MOST JEWS RAISED THE ACCUSATION

Jan T. Gross, notably in his FEAR, has alleged that Poles were anti-Semitic and murderous towards Jews because of repressed Polish guilt for having acquired Jewish property. What amazing mind-reading skills Gross must have! This is the classic PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU (politics of shame) in action, employed in the service of the Holocaust Industry.

Gross’ canard is refuted by none other than the Jewish testimonies themselves. Monika Rice quips, “Another surprising finding is that the question of appropriated Jewish property, often indicated as one of the reasons why the Polish population was hostile to the returning survivors, is ALMOST NEVER MENTIONED in Jewish testimonies after the war.” (p. 77; Emphasis Added).