FREE Two-Day Shipping for Students. Learn more |
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Learned a lot about Warsaw ghetto,
This review is from: On Both Sides of the Wall: Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto (Paperback)
"On Both Sides of the Wall" is the story of Vladka Meed during World War 2 in Warsaw Poland. She provides an important perspective of what life was like both inside and outside the ghetto. Vladka was involved in the ghetto revolt and as a courier outside the ghetto. She was able to pass herself off as being non-Jewish. She helped to find hiding places for other Jews and kept in contact with those in hiding. Her story continues through to the Warsaw revolt - when the whole city was fighting against the German forces.
I have read dozens of WWII and holocaust books. I most enjoy those books, such as this, that are written from the perspective of the regular person (doing extraordinary things). I learned a lot from this book and recommend it highly.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Implications, Polish Praise; Details of Polish-Built Jew-Hiding Places,
By
This review is from: On Both Sides of the Wall: Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto (Paperback)
[Review based on 1972 edition]. In common with many Jewish authors, Meed is critical of the Jewish Ghetto Police and its role in the deportation of Jews to their deaths at Treblinka. (p. 26-on). The Police accepted bribes from Jews to avoid being made part of that day's contingent. (p. 27).
Poles are sometimes accused of unilaterally disparaging Jewish fighting capabilities. This was far from the case. Meed comments: "Aryan Warsaw watched the Jewish resistance with amazement and observed its toll of hated Germans with grim pleasure, but it scarcely lifted a finger of help." (p. 143). "The Polish underground had been awed by the heroic Jewish resistance. Illegal Polish publications praised Jewish courage and composed hymns to Jewish strength and fortitude. But that was the extent of the response. Almost no practical assistance was ever extended..." (p. 156). [The Polish-nonhelp assertions are patently false. For instance, the ZZW (Z. Z. W.) which Meed ignores entirely in this ZOB (Z.O.B)-centered work, obtained, among other things, several hundred firearms from the Polish Underground, and some Poles actually fought alongside the Jews. See the Peczkis Review of Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto]. Ironically, the Jewish hesitance in launching the Uprising owed to the same reason as Polish disinclination to support it more fully--the fear of incurring numerous at least potentially-avoidable deaths. "The Jewish leaders did not want to assume the responsibility of risking the lives of those who still hoped to survive." (p. 69). "Before long, the admiration and excitement of the Poles over the Jewish uprising was replaced by a gnawing apprehension. `What's next now?' the Poles wondered. `Will the Germans turn on us also'?" (p. 147). In recent years, Jan T. Gross and his fans have belittled the German-imposed death penalty for aid to Jews. Meed, who actually went through the German occupation, knows better. She writes of the situation soon after the Ghetto Uprising: "The streets of Warsaw were teeming with S.S. and Gestapo patrols, and with jeeps bearing armed Germans. Searches and arrests were the order of the day, even in Polish homes. Huge posters, warning of the `Jewish peril', ordered the arrest on sight of any Jew, warning that Poles who extended aid or shelter to a Jew would be shot. As an object lesson of sorts, the Germans set fire to a house on Kazimierz Square, killing the entire Gentile family living they because they had given shelter to Jews. The Poles were frightened. `The Germans were capable of anything,' they said apprehensively over and over again. Spontaneously, defense committees arose to safeguard Polish homes from `misfortune,' a euphemism for Jews." (p. 163; see also p. 175). Fear of German reprisals, rather than simple anti-Semitism, sometimes led Poles to denounce fugitive Jews. Meed notes: "They [post Warsaw-Ghetto-Uprising fighters] hid in the Lomianka Forest, near Warsaw, awaiting help...The Polish peasants in the vicinity, afraid to be caught harboring Jews, threatened to report them to the Germans if they did not leave." (p. 156). The situation got worse. Meed comments: "As the war dragged on and German reverses on the battlefields multiplied, the ferocity of the terror in Aryan Warsaw mounted. The Germans arbitrarily broke into Polish dwellings, ransacked them and deported thousands of Poles to Germany for forced labor or to Pawiak prison for liquidation. The reign of terror threw the entire Polish population into a panic. Even worse was the dread among the Jews hiding in Gentile homes." (p. 226). Much of this book is on how Jews hid among willing Poles. Considerable detail is devoted to the creativity of the hiding places (melinas) built by Poles for Jews, and situated in both urban and rural areas. For instance, there is a description of the elaborate bunker in which historian Emmanuel Ringelblum hid along with a total of 30 Jews. (pp. 209-210). It was eventually betrayed not by an anti-Semite but by the disgruntled mistress of the owner. Unfortunately, Meed greatly exaggerates the significance of the Polish extortionists/denouncers (szmalcowniki) in Aryan Warsaw, and over-emphasizes the Jews killed by Poles during the later Warsaw Uprising (1944). In actuality, 6/7th of fugitive Jews in Warsaw were not denounced, and the total number of Jews killed by Poles during the Warsaw Uprising (and then mostly under unclear circumstances, some of which were probably justified) amounts to 100 (out of some 15,000 surviving Warsaw Jews). See the Peczkis review of Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
