Phony Indignation NonEthnographic PreWWII Poland Evans

The Nazi New Order in Poland, by Jon Evans. 1941

The Early Polokaust: An Overview of the First Two Years of the German Occupation of Poland. “Non-Ethnographic Poland” Phony Indignation

The title of this book is a bit Orwellian: It creates the impression that Nazism was some kind of fad in Poland. It was not. It was the outcome of the German conquest of Poland.

This short (184 page) book was set in print before Nazi Germany attacked her erstwhile Soviet ally in June 1941. It provides general information, focusing on Hitler’s early apparent friendship towards Poland, the inadequacy of Poland’s military-related industry before WWII, the various causes for Poland’s rapid 1939 defeat, the Nazi mass murder of Poles (especially the intellectuals), the systematic destruction of Poland’s culture, etc.

GERMANS ALWAYS BLAME SOMEBODY ELSE

One common Nazi propaganda poster, common in German-occupied Poland, had the following message: England, this is your work! [ANGLIO! TWOJE DZIELO!] Poles sabotaged it in a clever manner. They scratched-out the word “England”. (p. 171).

POLISH PEASANT RESISTANCE TO GERMAN THIEVERY

The Germans systematically expropriated Polish properties. Peasants forced to give up their holdings sometimes burned their farmsteads instead of turning them over to the Germans. At other times, they exercised farewell defiance by slaughtering their livestock, breaking their windows, destroying the stoves, chopping-up floors and doors, and throwing the contents of feather-beds and pillows down into wells. (p. 168).

THE AUTHOR SOUNDS LIKE A COMMUNIST

The book is of limited value because the author has a pronounced left-wing bias. He keeps talking about “workers” as a class, and uses Communistspeak, or at least leftspeak (e. g, a “people’s war”: p. 31). He repeats the Communist-propaganda line that, whereas Nazi expropriation of properties is for the selfish interest of one class, the socialist (read: Communist) expropriation of properties is for the common good. (p. 88). Yeah, right.

THE PHONY INDIGNATION ABOUT POLAND’S “INJUSTICES” TO HER MINORITIES

Evans also repeats the Communist talking points about the “injustices” of Poland’s pre-WWII frontiers, in that they were not “ethnographic”. (p. 46, 179-180). [This is doubly ironic in view of the fact that the USSR was anything BUT ethnographic. It consisted of a relatively small Russian-majority core surrounded by a geographically-huge periphery of compelled non-Russian nations within which ethnic Russians were decidedly in the minority.]