Jew Killing WWII By Poles Contextualized Williamson

The Polish Underground 1939-1947, by David G. Williamson. 2012

Finally! Polish Denunciations and Killings of Fugitive Jews are Contextualized. No Death Penalty Fear Double Standard. Comparing Danish and Polish Rescuers is Ridiculous

This single volume covers major developments and actions of the Polish Underground State, largely from a British perspective. No less than 65 escaped British POWs–the most famous one being John Ward–were hidden from the Germans by the Polish Underground. (p. 81).

This work is based on both archival information as well as secondary sources. Unlike most works on the Polish Underground, it does not stop with the defeat of Nazi Germany. It also includes the first years of militant resistance, as by WiN (and other members of the ZOLNIERZE WYKLECI), against the Soviet-imposed western-acquiesced Communist puppet state.

The many photos are a blend of familiar ones, as well as uncommon ones. In the end of his book, Williamson includes a helpful glossary of Polish and German abbreviations, as well as such things as biographical details of some of the German oppressors and Polish Underground leaders.

UNSTINTING CREDIT TO POLISH BRAVERY—EVEN IN DEFEAT

Williamson tells us that, when the order was given to surrender Warsaw to the Germans in 1939, some Polish soldiers not only were unwilling to do so, but threatened to shoot the officers giving the orders. (p. 7). [Before that, I had read of Polish women complaining to the officers about “surrendering already”, and stating indignantly that, “We can endure the bombing and shelling.” The officers replied that the situation was hopeless, and that further loss of life made no sense.]

THE “LOOK HOW THE DANES SAVED THEIR JEWS AND POLES DIDN’T” CANARD

The German occupation of Poland was so intense that the military occupation force alone was never less than 300,000 men. (p. 19). The informed reader can compare this, for example, with the almost-nominal German occupation of Denmark. Danes had freedom to act in rescuing Jews under relatively luxurious conditions not even imagined in brutally German-occupied Poland.

POLISH BETRAYALS AND JEW-KILLING DRIVEN BY WARTIME CIRCUMSTANCES, NOT POLISH VILLAINY

Although Polish-Jewish relations are beyond the purview of his work, Williamson is objective when he does bring it up. For instance, he realizes that the occasional Polish blackmailers (SZMALCOWNIKI) and betrayers of Jews, and appropriations of post-Jewish properties [As distorted in the media-acclaimed Jan T. Gross’ GOLDEN HARVEST] did not simplistically reduce to (what else?) Polish anti-Semitism, traditional Christian teachings about Jews, or Polish “greed”.

Williamson comments, (quote) For the urban population, already suffering food shortages, lack of heating, and often poor housing, and living in daily terror of the Gestapo or of being caught up in sudden swoops to provide forced labour, life was much more difficult. The German and Soviet occupations effectively atomized Polish society by removing not only the legitimate government but also by destroying the Polish state itself and all the organizations that helped knit society together. It was thus hardly surprising that corruption–which might also involve denouncing either Jews or Poles for money–alcoholism and crime were widespread. (unquote). (p. 24).

THE GERMAN-IMPOSED DEATH PENALTY: NO DOUBLE STANDARDS IN POLES FEARFUL OF AIDING JEWS AND POLES FEARFUL OF UNDERGROUND ACTIVITIES

The Polish historian Czeslaw Madajczyk is quoted as having calculated that about 6% of Warsaw’s population was active in Underground activity. (p. 19). [One can compare this with Gunnar Paulsson’s estimate, in his SECRET CITY, that 7-9% of Warsaw’s Poles were involved in rescuing Jews.] The figures are telling, and they contradict the complaints of neo-Stalinists such as Jan T. Gross–about Poles being substantially willing to risk their lives in Underground activity but substantially unwilling to risk their lives in aiding fugitive Jews. No such disparity existed.

NO POLISH QUISLING EVEN THOUGH THE GERMANS TRIED TO FIND ONE

Williamson recognizes the fact that Poland never produced a Quisling, quoting Lord Selborne’s 1942 statement. He notes that the Germans did try to find a high-level Polish collaborator without success. (p. 1, 15, 44-45). Unfortunately, he then contradicts himself, and repeats the non-sequitur argument that the Germans did not really want a Polish Quisling because they intended to reduce Poles to perpetual slavery. (p. 1). So how can both be true?

In actually, the Germans also looked down at other Slavs as UNTERMENSCHEN, but that did not prevent them from using large numbers of Ukrainians as collaborators, and establishing Quisling governments in Croatia and Slovakia. The Nazi attitude towards the Jews was unmistakable, yet that did not prevent them from establishing de facto Quisling governments (in the form of Judenrats) in many ghettos. Clearly, the “Poles unworthy of the ‘privilege’ of a Quisling government” argument is fallacious.

THE COMMUNIST TERROR IN THE POLISH COUNTRYSIDE

The author includes discussion of the Soviet-sponsored Communist GL-AL bands and their conduct, under the German occupation, by utilizing the work of Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. For more on the “revolutionary banditry” conducted by the GL-AL, and the large-scale Jewish complicity in it, see the detailed English-language Peczkis review, of Tajne oblicze GL-AL i PPR: Dokumenty (Polish Edition).

GENERAL “GROT” BETRAYED, AND THE ENSUING COMMUNIST LENIENCY ON THE PERPETRATORS

The author discusses the betrayal of A.K. Commander Stefan Rowecki “Grot” to the Germans by Polish-German A.K. members who became Gestapo agents–only one of whom was executed for this act of treason. (p. 103). However, Williamson does not mention the fact that this leniency owed largely to the new Communist puppet government being almost as antagonistic to the A.K. as the earlier Germans. This, once again, had made the Communists the allies of the Nazis—fighting against a common enemy, Poland.