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Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44

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FIT THE BILL AS A DOCUMENT TELLING OF DAY TO DAY EXPERIENCES OF LOCAL DOCTOR IN TOWN IN SOUTH EASTERN POLAND DURING GERMAN OCCUPATION IN WW2. BOOK ARRIVED PROMPTLY AND WAS AS DESCRIBED , IN EXCELLENT CONDITION.

Loved this book! First hand account of what it was like living in Poland under Nazi occupation during WWII. It doesn't get much more real than this! A unique book...not one you would likely find in a bookstore.

This diary, centered on Szczebrzeszyn/Zamosc and environs, touches on daily life during the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland, the German occupation, German preparations for Operation Barbarossa, Odilo Globocnik's de-Polonization project and Polish guerrilla resistance against it (e. g., pp. 229-233, 253-254), etc.

What about the Zydokomuna? During the 1939 Soviet/German transfer of territory, "Many Jews left Szczebrzeszyn with the Soviet army, especially those who were part of the Red militia." (p. 38).

The German occupation was characterized by: Confiscation of educational materials (p. 72, 106), mass murders--especially of the Polish intelligentsia (p. 140), the destruction of youth (p. 87), destruction of churches (p. 112), destruction of national culture (p. 140), mass deportations for forced labor (p. 137), promotion of alcoholism (p. 132), etc. For all the current emphasis on Jews and Poles being unequal victims, their experiences overlapped considerably: "It is legal for Germans to shoot Poles and Jews." (p. 101). "The Germans are beating the workers for no reason, Poles as well as Jews." (p. 121). "The Germans are taking good furniture, carpets, and paintings from private homes, not only Jewish but Polish also." (p. 125). "...the court building...a sign reading,`Jews and Poles Not Allowed'." (p. 134).

Klukowski's diary has been twisted by professional Polonophobe Jan T. Gross into an indictment of Polish conduct against Jews. Ironically, Klukowski himself warned against this: "Yesterday, a general destruction and looting of the stores took place, Polish and Jewish. But since there are more Jewish establishments than Polish, the common statement was, `They are plundering the Jews'." (p. 28).

Throughout this diary, there is frequent mention of mostly Pole-on-Pole robbery and banditry (including murder) (p. 28,30,128,137,163,181,187,195,198, 201, 212, 216, 217, 244). In fact, "Approximately 30 robberies take place each day [at Zamosc]".(p. 199). The rampant banditry is what explains eventual anti-Jewish attitudes: "There are several Jews active with the bandits. The villages have turned against the Jews because of this and try to find them in the fields and forests. It is hard to believe but the attitude toward Jews is changing. There are many people who see the Jews not as human beings but as animals that must be destroyed." (p. 227).

Now consider Pole-on-Pole denunciations:
(p. 57,77,85,87,89,110,136,205,232,249,256,257,258,335). These stemmed from such things as social de-moralization (p. 77), simple meanness (p. 87), etc. Klukowski's obvious bias towards recording ignoble Pole-on-Pole conduct explains the frequency of his references to comparable ignoble Pole-on-Jew conduct. Finally, all the Polish misdeeds must be placed in proper geographical and numerical context, so as not to appear more common than they actually were. They occurred not in one small village, but over a large geographic area, out of a sampled population base of many thousands of Poles.

Gross misrepresents "our own gendarmes" and "Blue Police" killing Jews. (p. 219). Actually, the gendarmes and part of the "Blue Police" were Volksdeutsche (p. 222), and the ethnic Poles in the "Blue Police", usually not collaborators, were often forced by the Germans to perform collaborative deeds. Also, not mentioned is the fact that: "...the Jewish police are very active in hunting the Jews. They know the hiding places..." (p. 223). It is also forgotten that fugitive Jews turning themselves in was a "common occurrence". (pp. 225-226).

Poles hid and aided Jews. (p. 237,247,256). Ridicule of suffering Jews was true of SOME Poles (p. 102,197), as were expressions of sympathy by "the whole [Polish] population" (pp. 163-164) in other instances. The Gross-emphasized Polish "acquisitiveness" of post-Jewish properties was also true of German-abandoned properties. (pp. 161-162).

On another subject, mention is made of the administrative and other privileges of Ukrainian collaborators (p. 83,106,114,159,269), their settling at the expense of Poles (p. 272), and of their assassinations by Poles (p. 273,293,304). The latter has been misrepresented by past and present OUN-UPA apologists as an ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians, and made into a pretext for the OUN-UPA genocide of Poles further east, and in the area. (p. 259,286,310,316-317).