Jewish Collaboration Not All Choiceless Choices Ungar

Destined to Live, by William Chanoff, David Ungar, David Chanoff. 2000

Jewish Collaboration With the Nazis: Choiceless Choice and Save-One’s-Life Exculpations Fail

This book has a variety of interesting information. For example:

AT LEAST TWO SIDES TO POLISH ANTI-SEMITISM

Author William Ungar’s childhood in Krasne (near the Zbrucz River) repudiates the notion of anti-Semitism (and Christian-clergy hostility, including the spectre of deicide) being the constant companion of Polish Jews: “Both Father Hankiewicz and Father Leszczynski mainly preached the loving kindness of God. Because of the priests’ behavior, the peasants didn’t bear a grudge against Jews…The result was that I had the unbelievable good luck of growing up without either hatred or fear. My playmates were Polish and Ukrainian children and no one ever insulted me or tried to beat me up…Of course, they knew I was Jewish…But they considered me one of theirs.” (pp. 66-67).

At least some of the sporadic anti-Semitism which Ungar later did experience was clearly related to the entrenchment of Jewish economic hegemony, which worked against Poles. One Pole said: “I don’t know about Lvov, but around here they [the Jews] own all the big buildings, they own the stores, they own the banks. They take our money, and you can bet that they make sure Poles can’t get into business themselves.” (p. 86)

WHAT IF THE ENDEKS WERE AT LEAST PARTLY CORRECT?

Polish nationalists commonly supposed that even totally assimilated Jews (like Ungar) seldom become Poles at heart. Along these lines, Ungar candidly admitted that: “I would never have called myself a patriotic Pole…” (p. 31).

THE 1939 ZYDOKOMUNA. FEAR-OF-NAZIS EXCULPATION FAILS

One canned excuse for Jewish-Soviet collaboration is the presumed Jewish gratitude, to the Soviet Communists, for not falling into Nazi hands. But, as shown in the previous paragraph, Jewish service to the Soviets, at the expense of Poles, went far beyond any such considerations.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that, back in 1939, the Jews were particularly afraid of the Nazis. In fact, William Ungar points out that, up to the time of Operation Barbarossa, most local Jews thought of the Germans as a cultured people who wouldn’t do especial harm to the Jews (p. 154).

THE 1939 ZYDOKOMUNA. ADVANTAGES FOR JEWS IN THE “NEW ORDER”

After Poland’s defeat, Ungar made it back to Lviv, in the Soviet-occupied zone. He touched on Jewish-Soviet collaboration: “It also seemed to Wusia [Ungar’s first wife] that they [the Soviets] trusted Jews more than Poles or Ukrainians.” (p. 120). “Besides that, you began to see Jews in high positions, which would have been unthinkable before. There were Jewish army officers, Jewish party members, and Jewish city officials.” (pp. 136-137)

[If Jews could serve the Soviets when it was to their advantage to do so, then why—hypothetically–could Poles not serve the Nazis if it was to their advantage to do so? For example, consider the Poles buying post-Jewish goods at Nazi auctions. Why is that made into a big deal?]

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION: NOT ALL “CHOICELESS CHOICES” OR SAVE-ONE’S-LIFE DESPERATION

After the Lviv Ghetto was formed, some of the Jewish ghetto police acted reasonably towards their fellow Jews. “But many acted more like devoted servants in the hope of ingratiating themselves with the Gestapo. Others were just callous, brutal people, untouched by any of the nobler sentiments when it came to hunting down their fellows. That was how the Germans turned Jew against Jew.” (pp. 171-172).

“Neither of us knew any [Jewish] policemen, besides which, many of them were cruel and unscrupulous.” (p. 277).

While at Janowska Labor Camp, Ungar was denounced to the Gestapo by OBERJUDE (the German-appointed chief of the Jewish workers) Tenenbaum (p. 253, 276).

WHY THE SUDDEN ABOUT-FACE?

Unfortunately, Ungar cheapens his work through a sudden outburst of primitive Polonophobic innuendo late in the book. He denigrates the AK after accusing it, without a shred of supporting evidence, of being behind the killing of Rabbi Barfield. (p. 313, 316). Following Yitzhak Shamir, Ungar blanket-slurs the Poles for imbibing anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk. (p. 316)

Why this sudden, late outburst? Is Ungar trying to appeal to the more Polonophobic Jewish readers?