Nazis Saw Jews and Poles Similarly Huneke

The Moses of Rovno: The stirring story of Fritz Graebe, A German Christian who risked his life to lead hundreds of Jews to safety during the Holocaust, by Douglas K. Huneke. 1990

The Holocaust By Bullets. No Dividing the Dead: A “Good” German Affirms the Terror Experienced by Poles as Well as Jews

Fritz Graebe, a German engineer, saved the lives of Jews (and Poles) by keeping them as workers and being partly successful in warding off their murderers by various means (p. 90). He spent time in the eastern Ukraine, but mostly in Volhynia (Sdolbonov-Zdolbunow-Zdolbuniv, Rovno-Rowne-Rivne, and Dubno). He witnessed the mass shootings (and burials of often severely-wounded) Jews by the Germans and their Ukrainian collaborators, in what has since become known as the Holocaust by Bullets. Later, he testified about these events at war crimes trials in Germany. Interestingly, Graebe had ties with the Polish Underground (p. 136), but this, unfortunately, is not elaborated.

UNLIKE NEO-STALINIST JAN T. GROSS, EYEWITNESS GRAEBE AFFIRMED THE GRAVITY OF THE GERMAN-IMPOSED DEATH PENALTY

While in the Sdolbonov area, Graebe also witnessed the aid of local Poles to fugitive Jews: “Graebe recognized the man as Fritz Germ. A day earlier, Graebe had watched as Germ led an SS officer and several militiamen through the streets outside of, and adjacent to, the ghetto. Germ would point to a certain house, always one occupied by Polish citizens, and the guards would crash through the door or a window, emerging with a family and the Jews whom they had hidden. The fate was the same for the rescuers as it was for the Jews. This occurred at four or five different homes.” (p. 84).

LIKE POLES LIKE JEWS: HOUNDED BY GERMAN TERROR AND AFFLICTED WITH PRIVATIONS

For all of the current emphasis upon Poles and Jews being unequal victims, the experiences of individuals from both groups were often not that different. Huneke, while discussing the challenges that Graebe faced as a rescuer, comments: “It required still other skills and patience to meet panicked Jews and Polish peasants who would do nearly anything to protect themselves and their families. These trapped, defenseless people were nearly as unpredictable as the war itself.” (p. 38). And, while caring for his workers, Graebe was hampered by official Nazi policies: “The Jews were permitted to receive only eighty percent of the wages earned by the Polish civilians. But wages really did not matter that much; what the people needed was food.” (p. 120).

UKRAINIAN NAZI COLLABORATORS

It would be a mistake to think that the Ukrainian collaborationist police merely assisted their German Nazi overseers. To the contrary, they tormented and killed Jews with great initiative and zeal. While at Rovno (July 13, 1942), Graebe had to repeatedly use armed force to ward off the Ukrainian collaborationist police’s attempts against his Jewish workers (p. 55, 59, 62). Note that: “Ukrainians were killing every Jew that passed their rifle sights.” (p. 62).

SADISTIC MURDER OF JEWS AS PRACTICE FOR THE SADISTIC MURDER OF POLES

Huneke also comments: “Many of the militiamen behaved like sadists. It was more than bloodlust that led them to seek out the youngest children. They seemed almost gleeful whenever they found a mother with an infant. Ripping the child from its mother’s arms, they would rush from house to house, holding the screaming infant by the leg. Then they ritualistically would whorl the child several times overhead and smash it against a pillar. From his vantage point Graebe saw such acts of terror repeated again and again in front of terror-stricken mothers. There was no way that one man could stop the carnage.” (pp. 55-56). [Several months later, the Ukrainian collaborationist police would desert their posts, form the semi-guerilla UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), and do the same (and worse) to Polish infants, as part of the OUN-UPA genocide of Poles.]