Nazis Saw Jews and Poles Similarly Kaplan

Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan, by Chaim Aron Kaplan, Abraham I. Katsch (Translator ). 1999

No Polish Quisling. Anti-Jewish Riots. Jewish Nazi Collaboration Confronted. Similar Nazi Attitudes Towards Poles and Jews. Early Polish Warnings of Shoah

This classic if full of fascinating information. Its Jewish author appears to get over his Polonophobia and come to appreciate the Poles.

EGREGIOUS ANTIPOLONISM

Chaim Kaplan begins by blaming Poland’s 1939 defeat on the “incompetence” of the prewar Polish government (Never mind the fact that Nazi Germany had a 5:1 firepower asymmetry over the Polish forces, and was powerful enough to roll over most of Europe. Never mind that it finally took several powerful, industrialized nations–combined–many years to subdue Nazi Germany). He also misrepresents the Poles as ones who were basically sympathetic with Hitler and who were only forced to change their minds when Hitler conquered Poland. This is egregiously false. In actuality, many prewar Polish politicians (Pilsudski and Dmowski) warned of the evils and dangers of Nazism long before it cast its imperialist eyes upon Poland. Then again, positive opinions of Hitler were common all over the prewar world. Let us not forget that some prewar German Jews were ready to support the Nazi movement and its Polonophobia if it would only outgrow its anti-Semitism and behave more like the old-style German aggressive nationalism.

NO POLISH QUISLING BECAUSE POLES REFUSED

Kaplan implicitly refutes those who insinuate that there was no Polish Quisling only because the Germans never wanted one: “You will not find one single public-spirited citizen among them [the Poles] who is willing to be the conquerors’ representative, to talk to his people and make them realize that they cannot change reality and must accept the yoke of German rule–like Hacha in Czechoslovakia and Quisling in Norway. We could also add Petain in France, that stupid old man who willingly said Kaddish for his country.” (p. 206).

DOES NOT CONFUSE TRIVIAL ANTI-JEWISH RIOTS WITH THE LATER GERMAN-MADE HOLOCAUST

In early 1940, Kaplan rejected the notion that the Nazis would be able to stir up the Poles to large-scale violence against Jews (p. 101, 114), but he realized that isolated attacks may occur because: “No nation lacks hooligan elements, and the conquerors have paved the way for them.” (p. 114) and because: “Terrorists and troublemakers are not lacking among any people, and at all times and places they can be found in sufficient numbers.” (p. 101). He characterizes the Easter 1940 events as follows: “The conquerors have begun a new political operation. Gangs of young toughs, Polish youth (you won’t find one adult among them), armed with clubs, sticks, and all kinds of harmful weapons, make pogroms against the Jews.” (p. 134).

SIMILAR NAZI GERMAN ATTITUDES TO BOTH JEWS AND POLES

Kaplan comments: “The conqueror tramples upon both `inferior’ races, but the Jews are on the lowest rung and the Poles on the next to lowest.” (p. 81). At other times, he comes close to juxtaposing the victimhood of both peoples: “Nazi pride is unlimited. The Poles and the Jews are classed together as if they were both `natives’ of African jungles. Both were supposedly created only to serve the conqueror.” (p. 73). Kaplan includes the following amazing statements: “At heart, the conqueror hates the Poles more deeply than the Jews. Once the head of the Warsaw district, Dr. Fischer, said, `The Poles we hate instinctively; the Jews we hate in accordance with orders.'” (p. 204).

Kaplan presents evidence that, in many ways, Poles were initially victimized by the Germans more than Jews. Consider the summer of 1940: “Today, Aryans were seized for work!…When pedestrians disappeared from the streets after the hunt began, they stopped the trolleys and took the male passengers off, whether they were Poles or Jews. After personal interrogation the Jews went home and the Poles were imprisoned. How good it is to be a Jew!” (p. 179). At other times, Poles wore the Jewish Schandeband to avoid forced labor (p. 150). Poles also sent their children to Jewish homes overnight to prevent the children from being seized by Germans for forced donations of blood for German soldiers (p. 152). In spring 1941, Poles hid in the Jewish ghetto during German mass executions of Poles (p. 254).

NOT ONLY JEWS LOST PROPERTY: POLES DID TOO

About 140,000 Poles lost their properties, along with a comparable number of Jews, during the German creation of the Warsaw ghetto (p. 212; see also p. 266). (The occasional postwar Polish killings of Jews over properties, much exaggerated by neo-Stalinist Jan T. Gross in his FEAR, must be understood in the light of the atmosphere of complete disregard for property rights that had recently befallen both Jews and Poles.)

THE MYTH OF POLES CHEERING THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATHS OF JEWS

One Polonophobic meme has Poles rejoicing at the fate of the Jews. For example, the acclaimed movie, SCHINDLER’S LIST, viewed by millions, has a scene of a Polish girl giving a sarcastic farewell to the Jews being escorted by the Germans to their deaths.

The facts are very different. Kaplan unambiguously credits the Poles for smuggling food into the Warsaw Ghetto (p. 304, 316), and, in general, for not falling for Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda: “We thought that the ‘Jewish badge’ would provide the local population with a source of mockery and ridicule–but we were wrong. There is no attitude of disrespect nor of making much of another’s dishonor. Just the opposite. They show that they commiserate with us in our humiliation. They sit silent in the street cars, and in private conversation they even express words of condolence and encouragement. `Better times will come.'” (p. 82). Also: “Common suffering has drawn all hearts closer, and the barbaric persecutions of the Jews have even aroused feelings of sympathy towards them.” (p. 114).

EARLY POLISH WARNINGS OF THE BEGINNING OF THE GERMAN-MADE HOLOCAUST IN THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT (GERMAN-OCCUPIED CENTRAL POLAND)

Mordechai Kaplan repeatedly credited Polish messengers for scouring the entire General Government to ascertain the fact that, up to that point, 40,000 “resettled” Lublin Jews were definitely no longer alive (p. 286, 291, 309).

BELATED JEWISH RECOGNITION OF THE UNFOLDING HOLOCAUST

In his entry for July 22, 1942, Kaplan is candid about the fact that, even at that late date, Warsaw’s Jewish officials continued to insist that Warsaw’s Jews would never be deported (p. 319). And, in common with many Jewish chroniclers, Kaplan criticizes world Jewry for its indifference to the fate of Polish Jews (pp. 76-77).

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION CONFRONTED

During the deportations of Jews to the death camps, Kaplan lambastes the Jewish ghetto police “…whose cruelty is no less than that of the Nazis…” (p. 324), and says that: “It is the Jewish police who are cruelest toward the condemned.” (p. 326).

NAZISM IS A COMPETITIVE IMITATION OF COMMUNISM

Kaplan writes: “Nazism is not original. They took everything from Bolshevism, only that they expanded its rottenness.” (p. 329). [Decades later, German historian Ernst Nolte caught a lot of flak, from the Holocaust establishment, for saying much the same thing.]

POLES SAVED KAPLAN’S DIARY

Katsh, the editor, credits a Pole, Wladyslaw Wojcik, for preserving Kaplan’s diary for posterity and for later discovering the second Ringelblum Archive (p. 14).