Poles and Jews in Palestine Pruszynski

Poland Fights Back, by Ksawery Pruszyński. 1944

Fills-in the Gap Between the 1939 War and the 1940 Battle of Britain. Jewish-Polish Relations in WWII Palestine

This gem of a book covers a lot of ground, and I focus on a few items.

1939 WESTERPLATTE

Here is a direct quote:

The tiny garrison of Westerplatte resisted furious attacks for seven days. Of its three officers and 165 men only 59 remained alive, 32 of them were wounded. The Germans attempted several times to take the Polish position by storming it, but each time were drive back by the withering fire of the defenders. Finally the fourteen-inch guns of the battleship SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN and the dive-bombers reduced the heroes of Westerplatte, who had no artillery, to honorable surrender. (p. 31).

1939 HEL PENINSULA

Here is another direct quote:

Its isolated position and concrete fortifications allowed the garrison to hold it until September 28. The attacks of the German dive bombers against Hel were invariably defeated by its excellent anti-aircraft artillery. The German cruisers shelling Hel for days were kept at some distance by the Polish guns. As for the German infantry, who tried to attack along the sandy strip of land connecting Hel with the main coast, it paid a heavy price for tis attempt. Hel, under Rear-Admiral Joseph Unrug, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Navy, held out as long as Warsaw itself, although it had been surrounded and cut off in the first days of the war. (p. 32).

POLES FIGHT ON

Most books about Poland in WWII focus on the 1939 invasion of Poland, and then jump to the Battle of Britain. This one, in contrast, tells us of the exploits of the Polish submarines WILK and ORZEL, notably the sinking of the German troop-carrying ship, the RIO DE JANEIRO, by the latter. (p. 94).

This work especially details the Polish forces fighting in France and in Norway. In fact, when Poles defeated and captured a German contingent at Narwik, the local Germans believed that they had been captured by British or French soldiers, and, having long been fed the line that Poland was irrevocably defeated and gone forever, could not believe that the Poles were still fighting. (p. 51). German propaganda tried to convince the Poles that they were fighting a futile war on behalf of the British and the Jews. (p. 52).

AERIAL BOMBING: REPAYING THE HUN

Polish pilots played a major role in the Allied bombings of Germany. An unidentified old Polish airman, interviewed by the author in 1941, said, ” Soon we shall exceed the weight of bombs dropped by the Germans on Poland during that tragic September campaign, in which they had such a superiority in the air. We shall have settled our 1939 account and we will begin to pay out interest.” (p. 142).

POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS IN WARTIME PALESTINE

The author describes the reaction, to the Polish soldiers, by the Arabs and the Palestinian Jews (most of whom had emigrated from Poland) in these direct quotes below:

The Arabs looked with amazement at Poles who were not Jews. They had been accustomed to regard as Poles the Zionist Jews who came to Palestine from Poland as settlers. (p. 126).

The Polish Jews, of whom several hundred thousand are living in Palestine, soon forgot their old feuds with the Poles. Besides, they were soldiers fighting against Hitler. The clever Jewish tailors and hatters started making Polish uniforms and four-cornered caps of the traditional pattern, work with which they were familiar, for they had done it in Poland before going to their own country& The Brigade stayed in the Holy Land for several months& Everyone in Palestine was sorry to see them leaving. (p. 127).

” We are losing the Poles, they are good soldiers,” sighted the Jews, who preferred the company of their former Gentile hosts to a tete-a-tete with the Arabs. ” We are losing good customers,” said the tradesmen and entertainers of Tel Aviv. (p. 128).