Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944 by Richard C. Lukas Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944
Book Review: A bit apologist
Summary: 4 Stars
Interesting book. I learned a lot. Still, I thought the author was a bit apologist for the Poles' role in the Holocaust.Book Review: Forgotten Holocaust
Summary: 4 Stars
A very factual book about the Holocaust in Poland and the atrocities that both the Polish Jews and Gentiles suffered. This book is very well laid out and all comments are linked to sources of information.
This would be an ideal book for anyone studying the history of WW2 in Europe.
Some of the content is very distressing to read but in my opinion it's a topic that should never be forgotten.
Book Review: Serves to Correct Common Misconceptions about Poland in WW2
Summary: 4 Stars
While most people are familiar with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrated against the Jews in Europe in the Second World War, fewer people are aware that Hitler's homicidal policies extended to the Polish people, as well. Author Richard C. Lukas does an excellent job depicting the nature of the German occupation of Poland in 1939-1944, which resulted in the death of over 3 million Polish citizens who were not Jews. For example, many readers will be surprised to find that the first mass executions committed by the Nazis during the war were against Polish intellectuals and clergy in late 1939 and that the first victims gassed at Auschwitz were Polish civilians. The author also puts a great deal of effort into examining the state of Polish-Jewish relations under the German occupation, as well as the development of the Polish resistance. Overall, this book should help to ameliorate some of the erroneous historiography that has evolved over the years about the Holocaust and lead to a more nuanced view of that catastrophic event.
Forgotten Holocaust consists of seven chapters, beginning with a discussion of the German occupation of Poland. This section details German atrocities against the Poles from A to Z, including street-executions, round-ups, kidnappings, etc. The author also makes the point about how troubling it was for this deeply Catholic country to have their pleas ignored by the pro-German pope in Rome (although the author goes easy on Pope Pius XII - easier than he deserves). In the end, 22 percent of Poland's population died during the German occupation - the greatest percentage loss of any nation in the Second World War. The second chapter covers the Polish Government in Exile and the origins of the underground resistance. Although this chapter is short, it tells a great deal about the internal politics that affected the evolution of the Polish resistance - insights which are usually lacking from other histories that prevent a more homogenized appearance. Chapter three deals with military operations conducted by the underground. One number that I hadn't seen elsewhere was the large number of resistance fighters eliminated in 1942-44 by the Gestapo - upwards of 60,000. Chapter four covers civilian resistance and collaboration (or lack of). The author notes that unlike the German occupation in Western countries, the Germans made no effort to create a collaborationist government in Poland.
Chapters five and six cover the relationship of Poles and Jews during the German occupation. The author strives to fight against the common mis-conception (aided by Steve Spielberg in Schindler's List) that the Polish Government was anti-Semitic and that Poles routinely collaborated with the Germans to annihilate the Jews. In this regard, the author is fairly successful in disputing these slanderous characterizations of Polish collaboration with the Holocaust, but he tends to go off the deep end in trying to refute every charge of anti-Semitism leveled against Poles in the Second World War. Clearly, there were cases where individuals Poles made statements or conducted acts that were inimical to Jewish interests (the author also notes the reverse as well, such as Polish Jews who joined the Anders Army to escape the Soviet Union and then deserted as soon as they reached Palestine). Furthermore, there is also little doubt that Polish Catholicism was reluctant to cooperate with Polish Jews who were openly sympathetic with Communism, viewing them as the vanguard of Soviet imperialism. The charges and counter-charges get a bit tedious in these sections and at best, the issue is left unresolved.
The final chapter covers the Warsaw Uprising. Although not a blow-by-blow account, there was some interesting material herein about weapons stockpiles held by the Home Army, as well as some insight into the German leadership. Overall, this book adds to our understanding of the Second World War in Eastern Europe and should contribute to correcting some of the broad generalizations which have obscured the truth about Nazi extermination policies.
Book Review: A good start
Summary: 4 Stars
Recent scholarship on Poland's suffering during the war has opened eyes on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944(not the earlier Ghetto uprising of 1943) and has illuminated the destruction of Poland brought on by the Nazis. The Nazi racial theory applied to Slavs led them to be used as slaves and treated as meat by the German conquerors. Poland was treated a cow for milking, as hundreds of thousands of Germans entered Poland to administer and colonize it, it being the first nation to be 'liberated' for German 'labenstraum'. Here we get a story of the 'holocaust' of the non-Jewish Poles and perhaps this is where the helpful aspect of this book collides with the its other bizarre appeal. Many Holocaust deniers cite this book in order to prove that The Holocaust is being used to only show Jewish suffering while the 'real' holocaust of other non-Jews is covered up in histiography. Hence the name 'Forgotten Holocaust". However logically if the suffering of the Poles needs to be brough out of the dustbin of history and brought out alongside the Holocaust then why compare it to the Holocaust. The suffering of the Poles is not a 'fogotten Holocaust' rather it is another massive war crime that should be addressed in history and presented alongside the holocaust to show that the Nazis target other groups for destruction, if not extermination.
The Polish experience was different then the Jewish one. Polich Jews were destroyed, Poles were slaughtered in large numbers. However we have in the case of Poland a double tragedy when one realizes that hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported by the Communist Soviets between 1939 and 1941. In the end POlish borders were moved westward while Soviet Ukraine and Beylorussia and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad took over swaths of eastern Poland. Polish minorities such as the Germans were removed from Poland in 1945. Much of the 1939-1945 Polish history remains to be uncovered, such as resistance units, and the uprising of the Home Army and the suppression by the Soviets. This book begins down that path, however as a use to Holocaust deniers or those who want to see Jewish suffering relegated to the side it also presents a helpful tool, and that is tragic.
Seth J. Frantzman
Book Review: Detailed, Scholarly, Not Polish-Apologist, and Not Equating Poles with Jews
Summary: 5 Stars
This review focuses on only a few topics in this comprehensive scholarly work, and addresses some of the distortions of other reviewers.
Lukas consistently presents both sides of the story. For this, he has been labeled a "Polish nationalist" or "apologist" of some sort. He clearly is not. For instance, he is critical of Polish disunity in the prewar government and in the Polish Government-in-Exile. He is candid about Polish-German collaboration, and the tactical errors of the Warsaw Uprising. He is unjustifiably harsh on the Polish-Underground NSZ.
Most amazing of all is the assertion that Lukas equates the experiences of Jews and Poles. In actuality, Lukas recognizes the fact that the Nazis targeted the Jews for immediate and total annihilation. (e. g., p. 151). In contrast, the German genocide of Poles focused on the destruction of the intelligentsia, cultural genocide, etc. The total, or near-total, extermination of the Poles was to await the end of the war (pp. 4-5), with the "resettlement" provisions of GENERALPLAN OST possibly/probably being a euphemism for this extermination. [Recall that the extermination of Jews was also disguised as "resettlement".]
Those much-mentioned "Poles who would be Germanized" represented only 3% of the Polish population of the Reich-annexed regions. (p. 24). Furthermore, in German eyes, they were not Poles. They were Germans who had become Polonized, and would now be re-Germanized.
The no-Polish-Quisling-because-the-Germans-never-wanted-one argument (e. g., by Jan T. Gross) is fallacious. The Germans unsuccessfully approached Prince Janusz Radziwill, and others, as prospective Quislings. (pp. 111-112). An Israeli study estimates that about 7,000 ordinary Poles collaborated with the Germans. (p. 117). [This comes out to a vanishing 1 in 4,000 ethnic Poles.] As for the szmalcowniks, there were probably no more than about 1,000 in Warsaw. (pp. 250-251). Contrary to accusations, the Polish Underground did systematically liquidate blackmailers of Jews, and, furthermore, was largely successful in ending their plague in some geographic areas of German-occupied Poland. (p. 119).
The number of Jews who survived in German-occupied Poland is unknown. Figures of 40,000-50,000, 100,000-120,000, and even 200,000 or 300,000 have been quoted. (p. 149). Virtually all had depended on Polish help.
Lukas gingerly defends Bor Komorowski against the charge of his early Underground contacts with the Jews being postwar fabrications. (p. 173). Lukas' account of the scale of Polish aid to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising itself could be greatly expanded and updated. See Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto.
Some (e. g. David Engel) have accused the Polish Government-in-Exile of playing down what it knew about Jewish deaths, possibly because of anti-Semitism. Ironic to this, an unnamed British official had asserted, in December 1942, that there was "no reliable evidence" that the Germans were exterminating the Jews, and that Poles were talking TOO MUCH about Jewish deaths--in part to show that they were not anti-Semitic! (p. 160). Go figure.
Lukas' outstanding work is only the beginning. For further, in-depth study of the little-known genocide of Poles, see the Peczkis Listmania: FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST...