Jan T Gross Rebutted German Guilt Diffusion Nowak

Sto Klamstw J. T. Grossa o Jedwabnem i Zydowskich Sasiadach, by Jerzy Robert Nowak. 2001

An Eye-Opening Expose of Jan T. Gross and the Agenda behind Him

This Polish-language book is titled: 100 LIES OF J. T. GROSS ON JEDWABNE AND THE JEWISH NEIGHBORS. It is nothing less than a mini-encyclopedia of prewar Polish-Jewish relations, and it’s a travesty of scholarship that this work hasn’t been translated into English. The objective reader, whether or not in agreement with Jerzy Robert Nowak, will have to recognize that Nowak has written a much more scholarly book than any of the Polonophobic screeds of Jan Gross.

GERMAN GUILT DIFFUSION

Jerzy Robert Nowak gives the reader considerable historical context (p. 10, 14). The words of two Polish Jews that were saved by Poles have proved prophetic in this regard (p. 268). Soon after the war, famous Polish Jewish scientist Ludwik Hirszfeld warned that one day the Jews will attempt to whitewash the Germans when they think it in their interest to do so. Already by 1960, Joseph Lichten had detected an anti-Polish tendentiousness among American Jews, as well as the false insinuation that Poles had something to do with the establishment of the German Nazi death camps on Polish soil. Lichten asserted that this was a blame-Poles-for-German-crimes agenda, driven by German reparations money paid to the Jews. An endless stream of Polonophobic Holocaust materials and mendacious references in the press to “Polish death camps” have followed since. (So has the conspicuous de-Germanization of the Nazis in Holocaust films). Gross’ books are just the latest and ugliest in this whole process. The defamation of Poland is an integral part in the extortion of money from her, as part of what has become known as the Holocaust Industry.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN AND ANTI-POLISH MEMES DECONSTRUCTED

No modern Holocaust material would be complete without Christian-bashing and the blaming for the Holocaust of Christianity instead of German barbarity, and Gross doesn’t disappoint us in this regard. He would have us believe that Catholic clergy encouraged hatred and persecution of the Jews. In actuality, Catholic clergy, named by Nowak, were instrumental in locally averting the tsarist-era pogroms of 1881 and 1905, and the 1931 robbery-pogrom of Jews in Lwow (Lvov, Lviv) (p. 51).

Gross’ one-sided overgeneralization of Polish peasants hating Jews is just that. Jewish historian Graetz and Polish writer Boleslaw Prus have pointed out the long history of the exploitation of Polish peasants by Jews (p. 31, 43-44). Nevertheless, Jerzy Robert Nowak points out that, according to Jewish testimonies, prewar Polish-Jewish relations had been good in several-named eastern Polish towns (pp. 46-47). Gross blames numerous pogroms on Poles that were actually almost entirely the acts of Lithuanians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians (pp. 247-250).

Gross would have us believe that “only a tiny handful of Poles ever helped Jews” during the Holocaust itself. Nowak, in contrast, cites Marek Edelman’s estimate (p. 124) that 1 in 7 Warsaw Poles were involved in helping Jews in some way. One in seven is a minority, but it is hardly a tiny handful, especially 1 out of 7 of a large urban population.

Jerzy Robert Nowak presents evidence against Gross’ contention that Jewish-Soviet collaboration had been rare events. He discusses murders of Poles by Jews in 17 named cities and towns in Soviet-occupied eastern Poland in 1939 alone (p. 82). He also cites a recent work by Eugeniusz Rozenblat, a Byelorussian Jewish historian, who doesn’t mince words on the vast scale of Jewish-Soviet collaboration (pp. 77-78).

Gross frequently engages in selective historical amnesia. He cites Jan Karski’s condemnation of Polish anti-Semitism, but overlooks Karski’s condemnation of Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles (p. 83). Gross cites Klukowski on Polish peasants helping the Germans uncover Jews in hiding, but conveniently ignores mention of Klukowski’s statement that Jews were simultaneously involved in these dastardly activities (pp. 130-131). In fact, the Jewish collaborators proved more valuable to the Germans in the unmasking of these hideouts than the Polish ones! Gross also cites Klukowski, on Polish bandits taking from Jews, while omitting mention of the Jewish bandits, discussed by Klukowski, doing the same. [For more recent examples of Gross’ self-serving selective citation of sources, see my review of FEAR].

JAN T. GROSS IS NOT EVEN INTERNALLY CONSISTENT

Jerzy Robert Nowak points out that “a liar has to have a good memory.” Gross does not. He makes statements in NEIGHBORS that flatly contradict what he had written earlier (e. g., pp. 167-176). Also, in his early books, Gross wrote candidly on the extensive scale of Jewish-Communist collaboration (the Zydokomuna). The more recent Gross, engaging in obvious “auto-revisionism”(my term), would now have us belief that this collaboration was rare (pp. 73-76, 84-85). So which Jan Tomasz Gross should the reader believe?

The mendacity of Jan T. Gross sometimes takes on humorous proportions. For example, the accusation of Poles at Jedwabne’s square throwing stones at Jews near the barn would mean that the throwers were super-men who could hurl rocks 350 meters! (pp. 253-254).

Gross makes much of the fact (even more in his recent FEAR), that “those greedy Poles” acquired post-Jewish properties. But property acquisition was a many-way street. For instance, Nowak points out that Germans acquired Polish properties at the time of Bismarck and Hitler. The massive expropriation of Polish properties after the imposition of the Communist puppet state was conducted by none other than Hilary Minc. Both Minc and most of his staff were Jewish! (p. 285).

I do not focus on Nowak’ s analysis of the Jedwabne massacre itself because it has been updated more recent works. An excellent, detailed and current English-language book on the Jedwabne massacre is: Chodakiewicz. 2005. THE JEDWABNE MASSACRE (see my review).

Jerzy Robert Nowak does not pretend that his book is exhaustive. It could easily be 200 Lies of J. T. Gross (p. 11), and this doesn’t include Gross’ post-2001 lies. Without a doubt, Jan Tomasz Gross is a consummate fraud. Agendas aside, it is a wonder that he retains any credibility in the eyes of either the Polish or non-Polish press. On second thought, it is no wonder, as the events of 2018 (e. g, Act S.447), related to the Holocaust Industry, have shown once again.