AntiSemitism Silenced Polish Rescuers a Myth Gammon

The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger, by Carolyn Gammon, Israel Unger. 2013

Oskar Schindler Demythologized. Debunks “Polish Rescuers Silent Owing to Anti-Semitism” Myth. Paid Polish Rescuers of Jews Were Not Greedy. They Were Justified

Israel (nicknamed Srulik) Unger was a young child during the Holocaust. He and part of his family survived the Nazis when some Poles hid them behind a false wall in an attic of a flour mill in Tarnow. Gammon and Unger at first estimate about ten Poles “in the know” (p. 15), but then expand this to conclude that the existence of the fugitive Jews in hiding was an open secret among the Poles. (p. 199). Yet not one of them denounced the Jews to the Germans.

OSKAR SCHINDLER ICONOCLASM

When visiting Poland in 2009, the authors met Kalman Goldberg, a fellow Holocaust survivor from Tarnow. He indicated that, after the Germans had liquidated the Tarnow ghetto, they dispatched him to the concentration camp at Plaszow, and he ended up on Schindler’s list. Goldberg stated that the movie, SCHINDLER’S LIST (which some call SWINDLER’S LIST), is inaccurate, and that Oskar Schindler raped a girl, in the factory, whom Goldberg knew. Kalman Goldberg also stated that he informed Steven Spielberg about this, and that Spielberg accepted the account, but wanted to know nothing more about it. (p. 176).

THE IMAGINED SHAME FELT BY POLISH RESCUERS OF JEWS

The authors of this work had an interesting discussion with Aleksander Dagnan. He had been a teenager during WWII, and his father had been a business associate of the Unger family.

Jan T. Gross has alleged that Poles who rescued Jews were unwilling to talk later about it because of the strong (what else?) anti-Semitic disapproval of other Poles. The actual explanations are much more prosaic. Some Poles feared the Jewish returnees reclaiming their properties. Others thought of the rescue of Jews as their civic duty, and thus nothing worthy of attention. (pp. 168-169).

Still other Polish rescuers of Jews were fearful of bandits [rampant after the war]. The authors comment, “Conversely, when Carolyn asked Aleksander Dagnan why not more was said about the Jews in hiding after the war, he said that no one spoke about it because, if it were known you had helped Jews, then people would assume you had been paid to do so and had lots of money…After the war nobody would talk about it because one could be suspected of having become rich and be a target for other Poles.” (pp. 168-169).

RESCUE FOR PAYMENT: GREED AND ANTI-SEMITISM? HARDLY

Paid Polish rescuers have commonly been condemned, by the likes of neo-Stalinist Jan T. Gross and the adulatory media, as ones exploiting the defenseless Jews. Although the Polish rescuers of the Unger family did not require payment from the Jews, it is easy to see why some Polish rescuers did. Srulik comments, “…food was so scarce, for non-Jewish Poles too.” (p. 14).

Srulik categorically repudiates insinuations against paid Polish rescuers of Jews. He writes, (quote) If you helped a Jew you were dead. But why shouldn’t you benefit from it? I don’t think it was immoral or unethical. You’re sorry to see what is happening to these people; you’re going to help them, but you need some help too. So why should it not be symbiotic? I don’t have anything against that. (unquote). (p. 14).

Even though a Polish rescuer of Jews faced death from the Germans if caught, regardless of circumstance, some Jews actually WANTED to pay Polish rescuers. That way, the rescuers would be complicit in the “crime” of the Jews, and thereby would be accomplices. (pp. 13-14, 18).

ARE POLAND’S JEWS POLES? TRYING TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS

Unger insists that Polish Jews are definitely Poles. (p. 73). At the same time, he repeatedly states that he does not consider himself a Pole. (e. g, p. 72, 155). So which is it?

Nowadays, Poles are frequently berated for questioning if Poland’s Jews are Poles. What gives?