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Did the Children Cry: Hitler's War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-45

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This book is known less for its content than for the controversy that has surrounded it. Nominated for the Janusz Korczak Literary Award, it was subsequently beset with a flurry of Jewish protests. After a spate of bad publicity, and the threat of legal action, the award was belatedly presented--but without any ceremony.

One reason give for challenging the Janusz Korczak Literary Award is the transparently bogus charge that this book "sanitizes" Polish behavior. Even a cursory reading of it reveals just the opposite. Lukas criticizes Polish conduct many times. For example, he discusses Polish-German collaboration (e. g., pp. 141-142), even citing an Israeli study that estimates that there were 7,000 Polish collaborators in all (p. 152; which, incidentally, means that about 1 in every 4,000 Poles had been a collaborator). Another reason given for challenging the Janusz Korczak Literary Award is the claim that this book is "borderline anti-Semitic". Indeed it is--if one understands anti-Semitism to be any criticism of Jewish conduct under any circumstances. Lukas, for example, points out that Jews were commonly prejudiced against Poles just as Poles were commonly prejudiced against Jews (p. 152). He also gives examples of Jewish selfishness against fellow needy Jews at the same time that he gives examples of Polish selfishness against fellow needy Poles (p. 28). Lukas also cites a Jewish historian who faults the method that Jewish organizations used to recover Jewish children after the war (p. 220). Is all this anti-Semitism? Let the reader decide.

And, far from overstating the extent of Polish assistance to Jews, Lukas quotes a wide range of estimates (both Polish and Jewish) of how many Poles were involved in such aid (pp. 155-157). Lukas also provides figures for the deaths in some of the extermination camps. The collective death toll at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka ranges from 1.65 million to 2.54 million (p. 230).

The genocide against Jews is well known, but Lukas makes it clear that Poles were also victims of genocide. The genocide of Poles does not spark the imagination as much as the industrial-scale gassing and cremation of Jews by the millions, but it was no less real. Heinrich Himmler stated (p. 17) that all Poles will disappear from the world and that all Poles will be destroyed. Martin Bormann (p. 21) asserted that Slavs should be kept alive only as long as they are needed as forced laborers. 2-3 million Polish gentiles, including roughly half of the Polish intelligentsia, were already murdered. Of course, since the Polish population was much larger than the Jewish one, the genocide of Poles had to be a long-term German project, with greater emphasis placed on passive genocide, at least until Germany won the war. Hitler spoke of reducing the Slavs' fertility and, by 1942, the Polish birth rate had fallen by 80% relative to its prewar level (p. 87). SS General Odilo Globocnik noted that the mass killings of Poles and their replacement with German colonists meant that Poles would be gradually crushed "economically and biologically"(p. 107). Heinrich Himmler wanted the General Government (German-occupied central Poland) to be completely Germanized within twenty years (p. 107).

Throughout this book, Lukas consistently relates the experiences of Polish and Jewish children to each other. Both, for instance, experienced the horror of the German conquest of Poland. Both experienced a breakdown of morality caused by the privations of the German occupation. Both learned how to lie and steal to survive. Both quickly learned not to trust anybody. Both were in German concentration camps. Both were used in sadistic experiments conducted by Dr. Mengele. Both experienced sexual assaults (including homosexual assaults) by German guards and officials (pp. 95-96, 202). Both were sent to secret schools in their respective communities. Both took part in clandestine cultural activities. Both enjoyed the childrens' books written by Polish Jew Janusz Korczak. Both held odd jobs to help their parents. Both were forced to work in Germany as forced laborers under appalling conditions. Both were involved in the rescue of their compatriots. Both served in their respective guerilla movements. Both had to watch their parents die, and both experienced death at the hands of the Germans in large numbers. Both were commonly left orphaned. Both experienced difficulties in locating still-surviving relatives (with postwar Germans commonly resisting attempts to identify kidnapped Polish children: pp. 211-214). Finally, both experienced adjustment problems after the war. For example, both Polish and Jewish children commonly internalized the German hatred directed against their respective nationalities, scorning their respective heritages, and sometimes actually believing that their nationalities had deserved their sufferings.

Let us return to the contrived fuss surrounding the Janusz Korczak Literary Award. The reader can clearly see that this book does not fit with the template of modern thinking--where the genocide of Jews is given disproportionate attention, is accorded a special term (Holocaust), and any attempt to compare it with any other genocidal event is called "relativizing the Holocaust." In contrast to all of this, Lukas consistently juxtaposes the experiences of Polish and Jewish children. Perhaps that is what motivated the outburst of hostility to this book. So long as Jewish sufferings are thought to be higher than those of others, or at least more worthy of public attention than those of others, specifically the Poles, any such juxtaposition will be unbearable, especially for a book that is to receive any special recognition.

Did the Children Cry? : Hitler's War Against Jewish and Polish Children was an intriguing read. Not just another first account book on the war, it was a fascinating account of the fate of the children of Europe during WW2. It was an eye-opener to read this well researched book on how life in Poland and the surrounding territories was turned upside-down and inside out by the Third Reich. Most importantly for me, was the clear explanation of the different "zones" in occupied Poland and the account of what happened to the native population and their sons and daughters during the Nazi occupation. I recommend this book to any one wishing to know the WHOLE truth about Hitler's war crimes, not just the most popular stories. This book is a must have for serious WW2 book collectors and child advocates alike.

As the child of a child who lived in Poland during WWII you would think that much of what can be found in this book would be handed down first hand from my father. The reality is these atrocities which are often thought of as only impacting the Jews also deeply scarred many Christian Poles. I have gained even more respect for my father after reading what he must have lived through from his birth in 1935 to the time he left Europe in 1951. My sincerest thanks to the author for helping me to better understand what it must have been like.

Everyone knows about the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust--a large fraction of whom were children. This book tells of some of the forgotten victims of the German Nazis--the Polish children, whose only crime was being born Polish.

I have always taken an intrest in matters pertaining to WWII. Although I know no one who actually lived through the holocaust I have always taken an intrest in the event. If you have time to read only one book on the subject this should be it. It is easy to understand and get wrapped up in. Once you start you won't want to put this one down. It's full of fascinating facts.

My father watched his friends and neighbors being killed in the streets of Siedlce only because they were Jewish but my father never mentioned that they were. To him, they were his neighbors and friends.
My mother never saw her father again because he was in a Prisoner of War Camp in Dusseldorf, Germany for the Polish Home Army and did not see him until she was 19 years old in America. On top of that, my mother's farm animals and livestock were murdered as well as the invasion of Nazis in her home.
My parents were never really the children that they were supposed to be because of the War. The war against the children of Poland whether they were Jewish or Catholic remains forgotten among the books about the Holocaust and World War II. My father died a month after he finally admitted to the slaughter. It was only after my research that I learned that his friends and neighbors were Jews. My aunt recalls her first boyfriend who was shot to death for delivering newspapers. My father also remembered his parents talking about how the Nazis were going to kill all of them and since Treblinka was a train stop away, it was a possible reality that they would all be next to the gas chambers. The children were witnesses to great horror during World War II such as the bodies of soldiers, friends, neighbors, and relatives among their midst as well as the destruction of their own community. The author does a superb job in helping us understand the children's plight. Unlike adults, the children were innocent victims and now many are in their seventies and they haven't discussed the horrors of war with the younger generations. Unlike the concentration camp survivors, many Poles don't talk about the war. After World War II, there was communism which was an improvement since instead of being killed that you were arrested. The psychological horrors from World War II can be argued forever. The truth is that a holocaust is happening somewhere. The Polish countryside that was once littered with crops turned to a killing fields of rotting corpses and death.

Great book - The book gave first-hand accounts from survivors of the Holocaust. Much has been written on the elders of the War, but little on the Children - who were most affected by it. Helps to put life into perspective.

This book is a must-read for those who have been bamboozled into believing that Gentile Poles, and the Catholic Church at large, were complicit in the holocaust. This book should be considered an excellent primer, if you will, in relating that Hitler's rabid policy of genocide affected Gentile Poles as well as Jews.
In this book you will learn that:
-Polish children were also fated for either germanization or execution, even as young as the cradle. Their crime? They were Polish.
-Though there were isolated instances of anti-Semitism and informing among the Poles, many Poles suffered punishments and death for harboring Jews, among them nuns and priests-so much for the Church being complicit in the holocaust.
-The Polish underground, spearheaded by Polish Catholics, was involved in the rescuing of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.
-Altogether the deaths of Polish Gentiles amounted to approximately 3 million, as Hitler was rabidly determined to wipe Poland off the face of the map.
-All Slavs (Gentile and Jew) were considered half-human and deserving of extermination.

Did the Children Cry? by Richard Lucas was an excellent book on events of the Holocaust and the suffering of the children during this time. The first-hand accounts let the reader relate to these occurances.

This is a short and fast read, albeit one that is not for the fainthearted. It is the story of the systematic destruction of the bulk of a generation of Polish Gentile and Polish Jewish children by the Nazis. It is difficult reading insofar as the descriptions of the creative ways that the Nazis discovered to torment and murder innocent children defies comprehension. Ideology or not, it remains difficult for me to understand how one can kill an innocent child. Killing them in such numbers is truly unfathomable: 1,800,00 children (1.2 million Gentile and 600,000 Jewish).
I really did not learn much except the scope of the slaughter of children from this book. Lukas repeats some of the narrative that he wrote in The Forgotten Holocaust, almost word for word. So that was a bit disappointing.
What was quite surprising to me was that I found mention of my mother, her fiance, and the youngster who made up their little trio of saboteurs/couriers in the Sokol battalion during the Warsaw Uprising. The reference was unmistakeable, as he referred to them by name, but the translation from the original Polish reference was not well articulated. I don't know if he used Google translator or just a bad human translator, because the translation was pretty concrete and with better interpretation could have been a bit more comprehensible.
All in all, this is a book that really does not add THAT much to the repertoire of WW II literature or to the Holocaust literature. Lifton and other Holocaust writers have dealt with this subject already, although admittedly they did conflate the Gentile and Jewish numbers. It is this conflation that obscures the fact that there were more than Jewish children who suffered and died. The fact that Lukas broke them out and discussed the context for the deaths of each set of children is the value of this small book.