Customer Reviews

Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-44

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

A great book that shows readers a look into a side of the holocaust that is somewhat left untaught. How people can accuse Martin of not including facts and figures and making assumptions obviously have done little to no research on the topics he discuses in his book. It's hard to collect facts and evidence on something that happend 50 years ago on a side that is shoved under the carpet.
This is a great look into another significant part of the Holocaust that is sometimes overshadowed by the traditional teachings of the time period.

The setting of this heavily-documented work is the Belorussian (Byelorussian)-majority area of pre-WWII northeast Poland under the German occupation. Although Dean doesn't discuss the Jedwabne massacre, he provides the background that enables the reader to understand how Poles came to be blamed for it: "Dr. Walther, Stahlecker, the commander of Eisatzgruppe A, confirmed in his report that it was deliberate policy to incite pogroms in the first days of German rule. These pogroms gave the appearance of popular support for the measures against the Jews. Care was to be taken, however, to ensure that Germans were not seen to be coordinating these actions." (p. 21).

Dean repeats the non-sequitur of Jan T. Gross, in which the fact that Jews were victims of Communism is somehow supposed to nullify their disproportionate support for the same. He also cites figures of 25% of the prewar Polish Communist Party being Jewish, and no more than 5% of Jews supporting Communism (p. 175), forgetting the fact that Jews were only 10% of pre-WWII Poland's population, and only a small fraction of 1% of Polish gentiles supported Communism. Even so, his quoted figures are too low. They fail to take account of the fact that much support for Communism was covert.

After conquering the region in 1941, the Nazis set up the German gendarme and the mostly-Belorussian Schutzmannschaft. At first, membership was voluntary (p. 65), and, among those who joined, Poles were relatively few. (p. 46, 52). By mid-1942, local men were forcibly drafted into the Schutzmannschaft (pp. 66-67), and, through the year 1942, its overall membership increased 9-fold. (p. 60). Many Poles involved were members of the Polish Underground, and used their positions for such things as the procuring of weaponry. (p. 74, pp. 142-143).

The degree of direct (killing) and indirect (roundup) Schutzmannschaft participation in what remained the mostly-German (p. 166) murder of Jews varied from unit to unit and person to person, and was not simply reducible to anti-Semitism. (pp. 162-163). In addition, there were Jews who betrayed other Jews (p. 91), as well as Jews who took part in German-sponsored trading of stolen goods. (p. 199).

Dean uses the false and offensive term "Polish death camps" (p. viii, 101)--totally inexcusable for a Holocaust historian. He labels Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 as "Polish nationalist". (p. 191). How so? It offers a balanced presentation of both Polish and non-Polish collaboration. Dean faults it for having a chapter on Jewish collaboration. Shouldn't books whose avowed subject is collaboration include Jewish collaboration?

It is possible that Soviet partisans inflicted only 15,000--20,000 German casualties. (p. 207). Dean mentions the "massive stores of potatoes" possessed by Soviet partisans in the Naliboki forest, and how some of these had been acquired from the "deserted town of Naliboki". (p. 205). In actually, Naliboki was far from deserted, and its members (and those of Koniuchy) were eventually murdered by Soviet and Jewish bands. He does mention the OUN-UPA genocide of Poles further south. (p. 145, 207).

Finally, Dean goes beyond a strictly Judeocentric focus. Not only Jews but also the Polish intelligentsia was specifically targeted for annihilation. (pp. 69-70, 100, 196-197). A staggering one-third of the entire population of this region perished in WWII. (p. 119). The German despoiling of the region was severe, as enumerated on page 117. Overall, it took 20 years after the war to replace the losses. (p. 148).

Dean makes very specific accusations in the very subtitle of this book, yet he provides no documentation to back his assertions. I expect more from a scholar.

Read this book, and quite frankly was a waste of time. It really was not worth the paper it was written on. This author has proven to me to be a master of historical revisionism-a master spinner. So do not bother reading or buying this shmata.

As has already been mentioned --- the author makes numerous assumptions, but offers no proof, because he apparently feels that facts and figures are not required in a holocaust book.
Mr. Dean should not set himself above truthful and honest approach to a touchy subject.

Dean makes very specific accusations in the very subtitle of this book, yet he provides no documentation to back his assertions. I expect more from a scholar.