Did the Polish people profit from the extermination of Jews?

[michael mills]

[These posts were split off from the thread on the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=137901 , and recaptioned by the moderator -- DT].

It is rather hypocritical of the Polish political Establishment to make such a fuss over the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and its suppression, given that the event was part of a process whereby the German occupiers of Poland achieved a goal that the Poles themselves had been pursuing for some time but had been unable to achieve, namely the cleansing of Poland of its Jewish minority.

The Polish population of today enjoys the benefits derived from the elimination of the previous Jewish minority, without having to bear any of the odium resulting from the method by which that elimination was accomplished. Today, Poles live in urban space formerly occupied by Jews, and they have moved into socio-economic niches formerly held by Jews, processes that began even before the end of the German occupation. Living an urban life, and earning one's living in secondary or tertiary industry, sure beats grubbing for potatoes in muddy fields, the dreary existence of most ethnic Poles before the Second World War, when most of the urban population was Jewish.

While the Warsaw Ghetto was burning, the Polish population of the city was enjoying itself on holiday. There was a fun-fair with a carrousel right next to the ghetto wall, and the young people of Warsaw could enjoy themselves in two ways, riding on the merry-go-round and watching the Jews being dealt with.

According to the report issued by Stroop, Polish police and members of the Warsaw fire brigade participated in the suppression of the Jewish uprising.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote:

It is rather hypocritical of the Polish political Establishment to make such a fuss over the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and its suppression, given that the event was part of a process whereby the German occupiers of Poland achieved a goal that the Poles themselves had been pursuing for some time but had been unable to achieve, namely the cleansing of Poland of its Jewish minority.

Some observations:

(a)

hypocritical of the Polish political Establishment

As you should be well aware, the "Polish political Establishment" is rather different today than it was between the two world wars. In order to term it "hypocritical," your formulation falsely assumes that it is collectively "the same person," with the same goals, values and aspirations of its predecessor.

(b)

a goal that the Poles themselves had been pursuing for some time but had been unable to achieve, namely the cleansing of Poland of its Jewish minority

Here you have shifted from a discussion of the "Polish political Establishment" to the Polish people. If this clause read "a goal that Polish anti-semitic elements had been pursuing for some time . . ." it might be accurate. As it stands, the comment is a gross overgeneralization. For this well-established flaw in the reasoning process, see:

Fallacy of composition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

As you have written it, the clause is insulting to our readers' intelligence and the Polish people. Such insults are forbidden by both the forum and section rules:

Posts containing insulting generalizations about nationalities, ethnic groups, societies or religious groups and practices are not permitted here. This includes remarks about collective responsibility.

Nonconforming posts are subject to deletion without warning. Serious breaches of these rules are punishable by banning the poster.

H&WC Section Rules
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962

(c) As you are well aware, we have a number of pre-existing open threads on your hypothesis of widespread Polish anti-semitism in this section, which makes your observation in this thread redundant. I will let it stand as a single comment, but if you want a discussion of your theories, provide a link to one of those open threads.

[michael mills]

If the Polish political Establishment of today came out openly and admitted that its pre-war predecessor had had as one of its goals the departure from Poland of the Jewish minority, that the extermination perpetrated by the German occupiers had achieved that goal, albeit in a more radical and brutal way than originally envisaged, and that the Polish population has derived tangible material benefits from the disappearance of the the Jews, then its stance would not be hypocritical.

If it came out openly and said that ordinary Poles in Warsaw were enjoying themselves at a fun-fair while the ghetto was being crushed, and that they watched the destruction without showing much sympathy, then it would not be hypocritical.

As it is, the Polish political Establishment appears to making much of the activities of one woman, who was not really representative of the attitude of most of the Polish population during the war.

[Patzinak]

[…] Living an urban life, and earning one's living in secondary or tertiary industry, sure beats grubbing for potatoes in muddy fields, the dreary existence of most ethnic Poles before the Second World War, when most of the urban population was Jewish.[…]

According to the 1931 census, of a total population of >32M, Jews were 10.9% by religion (8.6% by language); their urban average was 32.4%. In other words, "most of the urban population" was definitely not Jewish.

The Polish population of today enjoys the benefits derived from the elimination of the previous Jewish minority […]. Today, Poles live in urban space formerly occupied by Jews, and they have moved into socio-economic niches formerly held by Jews […]

This is a very dubious proposition, based on the assumption that urbanisation is a zero-sum game. IOW, the statement assumes that the number of "socio-economic niches" is limited and constant (either absolutely or relative to population size), and that the only way for one group to "move" into these "niches" is to remove the previous occupants. Even if this assumption were correct (and I believe the examples which disprove it are legion), Poland would still be the wrong place for it -- a quick 1939 vs 1946 comparison of Polish borders and population statistics would immediately show why.

--Patzinak

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote:

As it is, the Polish political Establishment appears to making much of the activities of one woman, who was not really representative of the attitude of most of the Polish population during the war.

This whole argument seems insubstantial -- even trivial -- to me. You might as well say that the US is hypocritial for celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. day, Lincoln's birthday, or St. Patrick's Day, for the same lopsided reasons you advance here -- the persons didn't truly represent contemporaneous national opinion, or at some point in a nation's history there were more bigots around than there are now. So what?

[henryk]

Michael Mills
Please provide a reference for the so-called "fun-fair" Google does not.
How did the Police and Fire Brigade participate. Were the Police armed? Did the Brigade put out fires?

More on the commemoration:
http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/ne ... 80229.html
Polish Radio-External Service-English Language

Shimon Peres in Poland for 65th anniversary of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
14.04.2008
Listen 3,95 MB
The number one event in Poland this week centers on history – it is the commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the uprising in Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto. The main ceremony at the city’s Ghetto Monument tomorrow will be attended by Polish and Israeli presidents Lech Kaczynski and Shimon Peres.

Michał Kubicki reports
The commemorative events began on Sunday with a march of prayer in tribute to the victims of the Holocaust. It is an annual get-together of people of various denominations launched by the Polish Council of Christians and Jews in 1992. Its co-chairman on the Jewish side Stanislaw Krajewski says there are no speeches or statements.

‘I think that praying together is the best thing we can do. Everything else seems to be inadequate for what can one say in the face of such tragedy as the Holocaust’.

Zbigniew Nosowski is the other co-chairman of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews.

‘The march is an ecumenical and inter-religious event which brings together Jews and representatives of various Christian churches – Roman-Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. We started from the monument to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and finished at the Umschlagplatz, from where Warsaw Jews were deported to the gas chambers of Treblinka’.

Some 750,000 Jews and people of other nationalities were murdered in Treblinka between July 1942 and October 1943. A visit to the site of the camp, some 100 kilometres north-east of Warsaw, is on the programme of the first day of the visit to Poland by Israeli president Shimon Peres.

Together with President Lech Kaczynski, he will take part in the Jewish prayer for the dead at the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto. They will also pay a visit to 98 year-old Irena Sendler who risked her life to save 2, 500 Jewish children during the Holocaust. The programme of the four-day visit also includes political talks. According to Lukasz Warzecha, of the daily Fakt, common history is a highly important factor shaping Polish-Israeli relations.

‘We have hundreds of years of common history. If it had not been for that common history, today’s links between Israel and Poland would be like between Poland and, say, Morocco. Because of that common past Polish-Israeli links are very significant and the problem is that we should see this common history in a proper war. We mostly do, but there are still some issues that stir some doubts and this visit will certainly help clear these doubts.’

The commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising anniversary is not a Polish-Israeli affair alone. Tomorrow’s event will be attended by high-ranking delegations from several countries. The official part of the concert by the Israeli Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta will be televised worldwide from Warsaw’s National Opera.

[Ogorek]

I find Mr. Mill's statements on topic to be odious.... How many Poles went to the fun fair? How many watched teh destruction without showing sympathy?

How many people anywhere in the world gawk at traffic accidents, or shout "JUMP" while police try to get a potentially suicidal person off of a bridge?

Many of my relatives in Poland witnessed unspeakable crimes in Poland - they took no pleasure in what they saw, but rather were tormented by it.

You comment "the Polish political Establishment appears to making much of the activities of one woman, who was not really representative of the attitude of most of the Polish population during the war." - - - - -Does this mean that the current Polish political establishment represent the attitudes of 60 or 70 or 80 ago? What political entity now does?????

Your pedantic screed has added nothing of any worth to this subject or this forum.

[michael mills]

Whether or not the Polish political Establishment of today represents the Establishment of 60-70 years ago is not really the point.

The issue is that the Polish political Establishment of today is distorting history by emphasising the largely tokenistic activities of one organisation (Zegota) and one woman, while ignoring the reality of the attitude of large parts of the Polish population of the time, quite possibly the majority, to the Jewish minority in their country and its liquidation.

The largest party in pre-war Poland, ie the party that received the greatest electoral support, the National Democratic Party, was strongly anti-Jewish, and propagated a policy of forcing all Jews to leave Poland. One of its means to that end was a boycott of Jewish businesses that it had maintained since 1910. The next largest party, the Peasant party, was not so strongly anti-Jewish, but it nevertheless also supported the forced emigration of all or most of the Jewish minority. The National Democratic Party and the Peasant Party between them represented the majority of Polish voters during the 1930s.

The reaction of large parts of the Polish population to the mass slaughter of Jews in 1942 by the German occupiers was one of fear, but that is because they thought that the Germans might do the same thing to them. By 1943, when the German Government was trying to conciliate the Polish population by stressing the danger of a Soviet invasion, and had abandoned attempts to germanise parts of the Generalgouvernement, that fear of being treated in the same way as the Jews had largely evaporated, and the people of Warsaw could look on with indifference as the Jewish remanants were liquidated.

The German administration followed a policy of giving the homes of Jews who had been taken to extermination camps to homeless Poles. For example, on 11 March 1942, Governor Zörner of Lublin District applied for fumigation agents for the purpose of fumigating the buildngs in the Lublin Ghetto, the Jewish inhabitants of which were rounded up and sent to Belzec five days later, with the stated aim of making those buildings available for the settling of Poles. I dare say the Poles who were given Jewish houses to live in were not unhappy.

Before the physical extermination of the Jews in Poland began, the German authorities had followed a policy of "dejudaising" the economy, ie expelling Jews from their jobs and businesses, and replacing them with ethnic Poles. That was precisely what the Polish political Establishment had been trying to achieve before the war. That was particularly the case with the free professions, eg medicine, law etc, where there were plenty of unemployed Polish professionals available to fill the positions vacated by the expelled Jews. In the Generalgouvernement, much of the economic space vacated by the Jews could be occupied by ethnic Poles expelled from the West Polish provinces annexed by Germany.

I am sure that the Poles who were able to take over a former Jewish business, or a job formerly held by a Jew, were not too unhappy with their situation, and did not concern themselves too much with what had happened to the Jews they had replaced.

As for the fun-fair near the Warsaw Ghetto wall, it is well-attested, and there are photos of the carrousel with the ghetto wall in the background. The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote a poem about it; here is a link to the poem:
http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/exhib/ghetto2/fiori.html.

Here is a link to an interview with Milosz, in which he confirms that he saw the scene with his own eyes:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lite ... rview.html

Here is another link that attests to the existence of the fun-fair and the carrousel:

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rhill/Cynth ... jewski.htm

As for the Warsaw fire brigade, Stroop included members of it in his list of the forces available to him, in the report he prepared on the crushing of the ghetto uprising. Firemen can be seen in some of the photos in the report. Polish police were also among Stroop's scratch force.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote:

Before the physical extermination of the Jews in Poland began, the German authorities had followed a policy of "dejudaising" the economy, ie expelling Jews from their jobs and businesses, and replacing them with ethnic Poles. That was precisely what the Polish political Establishment had been trying to achieve before the war. That was particularly the case with the free professions, eg medicine, law etc, where there were plenty of unemployed Polish professionals available to fill the positions vacated by the expelled Jews. In the Generalgouvernement, much of the economic space vacated by the Jews could be occupied by ethnic Poles expelled from the West Polish provinces annexed by Germany.

I am sure that the Poles who were able to take over a former Jewish business, or a job formerly held by a Jew, were not too unhappy with their situation, and did not concern themselves too much with what had happened to the Jews they had replaced.

If you have any sourced references to the German administration giving Jewish businesses to Poles, I'd like to see them. Starting in September 1939, and continuing through the war, Jewish businesses were "aryanized," not "polonized", by the Main Trustee Office East [Haupttreuhandstelle Ost]. See the confiscation decree in Document 3363-PS, Concerning the Jewish Question in German Occupied Territory, Secrecy For the 'Entire Planned Measures,' and "First Preliminary Measure for the Final Aim', in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. VI, US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1946, pp. 97-101, at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 26#p579626

There are a number of documents in the Nazi Occupation of Poland thread at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=54862 on the handling on confiscated property (Polish and Jewish), and in every case it was held by the German occupation authorities or reeased to ethnic Germans, not Poles.

Furthermore, at the time of the Warsaw ghetto revolt most Poles were profoundly unhappy with their situation, as this June, 1943 report from the German Governor General notes:

"Document 437-PS [translation]", in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Volume III: Documents 001-PS-1406-PS. District of Columbia: GPO, 1947. pp. 396-397.

[Extract from report of Hans Frank to Hitler re situation in Poland, dated 6/19/1943 Pages 10-11.]

In the course of time, a series of measures or of consequences of the German rule have led to a substantial deterioration of the attitude of the entire Polish people in the General Gouvernment. These measures have affected either individual professions or the entire population and frequently also often with crushing severity the fate of individuals.

Among these are in particular:

1. The entirely insufficient nourishment of the population, mainly of the working classes in the cities, whose majority is working for German interests.

Until the war in 1939, its food supplies, though not varied, were sufficient and generally secure, due to the agrarian surplus of the former Polish state and in spite of the negligence on the part of their former political leadership.

2. The confiscation of a great part of the Polish estates and the expropriation without compensation and resettlement of Polish peasants from manoeuvre areas and from German settlements.

3. Encroachments and confiscations in the industries, in commerce and trade and in the field of private property.

4. Mass arrests and mass shootings by the German police who applied the system of collective responsibility.

5. The rigorous methods of recruiting workers.

6. The extensive paralyzation of cultural life.

7. The closing of high schools, junior colleges and universities.

8. The limitation, indeed the complete elimination of Polish influence from all spheres of State administration.

9. Curtailment of the influence of the Catholic Church, limiting its extensive influence, an undoubtedly necessary move and, in addition, until quite recently, the closing and confiscation of monasteries, schools and charitable institutions.

[michael mills]

My source for the elimination of Jews from the Polish economy and their replacement by ethnic Poles (and Ukrainians) is the book by the rightist Polish historian Bogdan Musial, "Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement"(Wiesbaden 1999), in particular pages146-157.

For example, on pages 150-151, Musial shows how the trade in agricultural products and the goods required by agriculturalists was removed from Jewish hands and made a monopoly of the German administration, with the work on the ground being done by Polish and Ukrainian peasant co-operatives, which underwent a considerable expansion as a result.

As an aside, these peasant co-operatives had been founded before the war, largely for the purpose of obviating the Jewish middlemen, who largely controlled the trade between town and peasant. However, the co-operatives did not have all that much success until the Germans came along and totally removed the Jews.

Another example from page 153. In August 1940, the German authorities in Szczebrzeszyn closed all Jewish shops, beerhalls, pastryshops and other small businesses, and sold most of them to Poles expelled from the Annexed Eastern Territories (= West Poland).

On pages 153-154, Musial states that most confiscated Jewish trade, commercial, credit and insurance businesses were handed over to German or ethnic German trustees, but that ethnic Poles also became trustees in cases when no suitable Reich German or ethnic German candidates were available.

On page 154, Musial states that it was relatively easy to replace small-scale Jewish traders and businessmen, since almost anybody could be trained up in a relatively short time to perform the function, and there thousands of Polish expellees from the Annexed Eastern Territories who were ready, willing and able to take any job.

On the other hand, it was difficult to replace Jewish skilled tradesmen, due to the length of time required to acquire the necessary skill level, and for that reason that part of the Jewish population was initially spared from the anti-Jewish measures. Even so, the German authorities intended to train Polish tradesmen to take the place of the Jews.

On page 156, Musial shows how easily Jewish professionals in the fields of the law and medicine were replaced. The head of the health system in the Generalgouvernment, Dr Walbaum, simply ordered Jewish doctors, dentists and dental technicians to leave their practices and homes; he then appointed unemployed Polish doctors, dentists and dental technicians to take their place. Most of these were expellees from West Poland.

On pages 156-157, Musial states that in the businesses taken over by trustees, the Jewish employees were dismissed and their places taken by Polish employees.

In short, despite the rhetoric of National Socialist ideology, the net result of the expulsion of the Jews from the largely urban middle-class socio-economic niche they had occupied hitherto was the emergence of an ethnic Polish lower middle class, which the German administration permitted if only for pragmatic reasons.

[Patzinak]

[…] The largest party in pre-war Poland, ie the party that received the greatest electoral support, the National Democratic Party, was strongly anti-Jewish, and propagated a policy of forcing all Jews to leave Poland.[…]

There is no doubt that Endecja was virulently anti-Semitic. But on what is based the notion that they "received the greatest electoral support" in interbellic Poland? In 1928, Endecja (ZLN) received <9% of the vote (roughly 10% if its allies are counted) -- less than the Socialists (13%).

[…] The National Democratic Party and the Peasant Party between them represented the majority of Polish voters during the 1930s.[…]

From 1930 onwards the elections were "managed", and therefore do not reflect the actual preferences of the Polish electorate. Naturally enough, they produced solid majorities not for the radical right (Endecja under its various forms), nor for the Peasant parties (united in SL after 1931), but for the gov't block (BBWR, later OZN). It should be noted that strictly speaking -- as those who have bothered to read a bit know -- no "National Democratic Party" existed in interbellic Poland. There was a movement informally known as National Democratic (Endecja), represented at different times by several political parties -- ZLN, SN, OWP, ONR (some regard the latter, which was distinctly more radical, as no longer part of the Endecja).

Sources:

• Groth, AJ (1965) Polish Elections 1919–1928. Slavic Rev 24(4): 653–665.
  
  Groth, AJ (1968) The Legacy of Three Crises: Parliament and Ethnic Issues in Prewar Poland. Slavic Rev 27(4): 564–80.
  
  Kopstein, JS; Wittenberg, J (2003) Who Voted Communist? Reconsidering the Social Bases of Radicalism in Interwar Poland. Slavic Rev 62(1): 87–109.
  
  Wynot, ED (1971) "A Necessary Cruelty": The Emergence of Official Anti-Semitism in Poland, 1936–39. Am Hist Rev 76(4): 1035–58.

[Andreas]

As an aside, these peasant co-operatives had been founded before the war, largely for the purpose of obviating the Jewish middlemen, who largely controlled the trade between town and peasant. However, the co-operatives did not have all that much success until the Germans came along and totally removed the Jews.

Unsourced claim. How many agricultural wholesale businesses were owned by Jews?

On page 154, Musial states that it was relatively easy to replace small-scale Jewish traders and businessmen, since almost anybody could be trained up in a relatively short time to perform the function, and there thousands of Polish expellees from the Annexed Eastern Territories who were ready, willing and able to take any job.

This therefore appears to have had nothing to do with Poles previously being kept out of these professions, but instead was only helpful because work could be found for the Poles expelled by the Germans from their homes and occupations?

On page 156, Musial shows how easily Jewish professionals in the fields of the law and medicine were replaced. The head of the health system in the Generalgouvernment, Dr Walbaum, simply ordered Jewish doctors, dentists and dental technicians to leave their practices and homes; he then appointed unemployed Polish doctors, dentists and dental technicians to take their place. Most of these were expellees from West Poland.

This therefore appears to have had nothing to do with Poles previously being kept out of these professions now allowed to climb up the social ladder, but instead was only helpful because work could be found for the Poles expelled by the Germans from their homes and occupations?

In short, despite the rhetoric of National Socialist ideology, the net result of the expulsion of the Jews from the largely urban middle-class socio-economic niche they had occupied hitherto was the emergence of an ethnic Polish lower middle class, which the German administration permitted if only for pragmatic reasons.

In short, despite the unsourced claims by you, the net result of the expulsion of the Jews appears to have been to rectify the potentially critical problem of how to deal with the middle-class expellees from the German-annexed western parts of Poland, and not some wholesale upgrading of the lives of Polish peasants previously kept away from the cities.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

Living an urban life, and earning one's living in secondary or tertiary industry, sure beats grubbing for potatoes in muddy fields, the dreary existence of most ethnic Poles before the Second World War, when most of the urban population was Jewish.

You no doubt have some numbers to back up this claim?

Regards

Andreas

[Schirmmutze7]

Hello ALL,

thanks for these great history Document, very intersting...

Sebastien.

German Caps :
http://coiffures.aceboard.fr/

[michael mills]

Unsourced claim. How many agricultural wholesale businesses were owned by Jews?

Musial does not give any figure. He simply says that Jews dominated agricultural and urban trade in the Lublin District. He states that in order to exclude Jews from the trade in agricultural products and inputs, it was necessary to set up an entirely new trading organisation, because of the domination of this economic niche by Jews. A government trading monopoly, the Landwirtschaftliche Zentrale was created, and the existing Polish and Ukrainian peasant co-operatives were used as its agents at the local level. As a result of the exclusion of the Jewish traders, states Musial, the co-operatives underwent a swift development (page 151: "Diese Genossenschaften betätigten sich insbesondere auf der Kreisebene und konnten sich schnell entwickeln").

Musial states that the Landwirtschaftliche Zentralstelle became the largest trading enterprise in the Eastern Territories.

For the city of Lublin, Musial states that 60% of both industrial and commercial enterprises were in Jewish hands.

For the rest, I refer Andreas to the book "Poland: Key to Europe", by Raymond Leslie Buell, published in 1939. That book is a contemporary analysis of the Polish economy and society in the 1930s, and goes into great detail on the socio-economic role of the Jewish minority. He notes that whole sectors of the economy, particularly trade and artisanry, were dominated by Jews, and examines the claim by Polish political activists that that domination was the cause of rural over-population and poverty, since the surplus peasants could not move to the towns most economic niches there were already held by Jews.

Buell, who appears quite sympathetic to the Jewish plight, recommended economic development as the solution to the problem, as that would provide employment to both Jews and surplus Polish peasants. He was right in theory, but the reality in the 1930s, when even the most developed and dynamic economies in the World were still suffering the effects of the Great Depression, was that economic development was not an immediately available option for backward countries like Poland.

Remember that here it is not a question of the intentions of the German occupiers, but rather of the net effect of their actions, regardless of whether those effects were accidental or intended. The net effect was that, after the war, the disappearance of the Jewish minority (and of the German minority) left a large vacuum into which ethnic Poles could move.