Customer Reviews

Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The invasion of Poland by Germany and Russia in September of 1939 was an unprovoked partition of the country. It is understood that the Poles were not pleased by the Russian occupation, but it may be thought that the Russian occupation was a minor annoyance compared to the occupation by the Germans. In an earlier book Revolution from Abroad written in his pre-postmodern days, when Gross was an associate professor at Emory, Gross carefully and with excellent documentation shows how wrong this notion was. He wrote (Revolution from Abroad, Princeton Univ. Press, 1st ed., p. 229):

"These very conservative estimates show that the Soviets killed or drove to their deaths three or four times as many people as the Nazis from a population half the size of that under German jurisdiction. This comparison holds for the first two years of the Second World War, the period before the Nazis began systematic mass annihilation of the Jewish population."

Gross shows that, for Polish Catholics, the Soviets were even worse, indeed much worse than the brutal Nazis. Essentially all the Polish professional and semiprofessional classes (doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, managers, foremen, farmers with holding beyond a few acres, etc.) were rounded up by the Soviets and then either killed immediately or retained in prisons for shipments to slave labor camps in Siberia and Central Asia. Prison conditions were hellish, worse than those in the Nazi concentration camps. Gross writes (Revolution from Abroad, p. 161): "In Lwów, twenty-eight people living in a 11.5 sq. m cell relied on the geometrical skills of a gifted high school student who fitted them most ingeniously by size into an intricate pattern." Sanitary conditions were appalling, with inmates frequently forced to urinate and defecate on the floors of the cells.

What was the situation with the Jews in the lands occupied by the Soviets and what was their attitude to the occupiers? Gross writes (Revolution from Abroad, p. 32):

"What Poles and Ukrainians report, often with biting irony, the Jews do not deny: 'Jews greeted the Soviet army with joy. The youth was spending days and evenings with the soldiers. . . Jews received incoming Russians enthusiastically, they [the Russians] also trusted them [the Jews].'"

Again, Gross writes (Revolution from Abroad, p. 34, quoting Celina Koninska):

"It is hard to find words to describe the feeling -- this waiting and this happiness. We wondered how to express ourselves -- to throw flowers? To sing? To organize a demonstration? How to show our great joy? I think the Jews awaiting the Messiah will feel, when he finally comes, the way we felt. "

These warm receptions by Jews for the Soviets in eastern Poland were in September of 1939, when there were no Germans in sight. The Jews were rejoicing over the occupation of eastern Poland by the Russians. To Polish Catholics, this was simply treason, analogous to the occasional warm receptions in western Poland of the Germans by some Volksdeutsche.

Now, it is undeniable that in the German-occupied portion of Poland where the situation of the Jews was worse than that of the Catholics, many Polish families hid Jews from the Nazi occupiers. It is a matter of record that Poles are listed at Yad Vashem numerically first amongst the righteous Gentiles for risking their lives and those of their families for sheltering Jews from the Nazis. So, it is fair to ask the question, "When did Jews use their favored position in Soviet occupied eastern Poland to shelter Polish Catholics from the NKVD?" This reviewer regrets to say that he cannot find any instances of such assistance.

Up to the day (June 22, 1941) when Hitler broke his deal with Stalin and invaded Soviet-occupied Poland, Gross (Revolution from Abroad p. 194) estimates that 1.25 million people were transported into the Soviet Union from eastern Poland. The ghastly NKVD prisons in Poland were generally used as holding cells for Poles awaiting execution or prison train space for transportation to the gulags. When the Germans attacked the Soviets on June 22, 1941, the NKVD killed or moved to the east 150,000 prisoners from these holding cells. In the Brygidki prison in Lwów, on June 22, 1941, the NKVD killed almost all of the 13,000 inmates. (Revolution from Abroad, p. 179). This was recorded by Gross as a "massacre" rather than a pogrom.

After the Nazis occupied western Poland in 1939, they encouraged anti-Semitic acts by the Poles, including pogroms. The Germans had only the most minimal success. Polish Catholics were not inclined to participate in Nazi murders. Moreover, the Polish underground punished betrayal of Jews to the Nazis by death. In Fear, Gross eschews the careful data based arguments he gave in his earlier book Revolution from Abroad. What is substituted is the kind of postmodern sermonizing that appeals to Gross's anti-Polish, anti-Catholic choir.

I have been disturbed to read the acclaim for this book. I'd like to use someone else's words to give different perspective (Mark Kohan review): Calling post-war Poles property-grabbing murderers is racist. Were there Poles who resented Jews for what the Nazis had done to their country? Certainly. Does that make all Poles anti-Semitic? Certainly not. Were there Poles who, at the cost of their own lives, gave Jews food and shelter? Certainly. Does that make all Poles heroes? Certainly not. Why is blame not placed squarely on the occupying communist authorities, who--wishing to establish complete control over Poland--were the instigators of post-war pogroms? Gross and his ilk--writing as if obliged to deface Poland--refuse to see the truth, which is neither black, nor white, but a depressing gray." I have read enough history books to know that a book that villifies a whole nation has a squeued vision of what really happened.

In his new book, "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz" (Random House), Jan T. Gross advances a novel thesis: "it was widespread collusion in the Nazi-driven plunder, spoliation, and eventual murder of the Jews that generated Polish anti-Semitism after the war." His case in point is the Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946.

The Kielce pogrom was a horrific massacre; an uncontrolled mob of soldiers, policemen and civilians murdered 42 Jews. Gross devotes two chapters of his book to Kielce, but his narrative of the pogrom does not prove his thesis.

Nowhere does Gross show that the victims were former residents who had returned to Kielce to reclaim their property, or that the perpetrators held formerly Jewish possessions. It's doubtful he could: the victims had arrived from the Soviet Union, and presumably came from the eastern Polish borderlands, not Kielce.

Nor is the allegation of "widespread collusion" in plunder and spoliation substantiated. The over 20 million ethnic Poles in postwar Poland could not, as a whole or in major part, have plundered the limited amount of property the 3.3 million Jews in prewar Poland owned.

The "eventual murder" of Jews was a German crime without Polish participation, except in a few instances like Jedwabne. The Germans did not use Poles as death camp guards or SS-auxiliaries. It is illogical to claim that a postwar pogrom is proof of Polish behavior during the war.

Gross prefaces his theory with "Until someone offers an alternative explanation, we must consider that..." He makes bald assertions, with scant statistical data behind them.

Deborah Lipstadt mistakenly wrote in Publishers Weekly that a government investigation confirmed Gross's book "Neighbors" about the Jedwabne massacre. The investigation found about 400 victims, not 1,600, about 40 perpetrators, not half the town, and two other cities, not "many," with similar size massacres.

In reviewing Jan Tomasz Gross' book "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz," one must consider two phenomena: the book itself, and exploitations of it.

The book "Fear" is excellent. The subject matter, anti-Semitism in Poland after the Holocaust, is of vital interest to any adult human with a conscience. The central portion of the book addresses the 1946 Kielce pogrom. Holocaust survivors were murdered, including being slowly stoned to death, on the basis of blood libel. This eruption boggles the mind; as part of understanding what one is as a human being, one wants to plumb this event. Thus, though aghast and sobbing, the reader can't help but continue to turn the pages until a conclusion is reached.

Gross' prose is elegant. His authorial presence is never intrusive, and yet the reader feels as if in the hands of a world-class expert with an encyclopedic command of even the most minuscule of pertinent historical facts. At times Gross' self-restraint weakens, and he makes a cutting comment, and those moments, rare as they are, merely enhance the reader's experience. You want to know that this powerful mind was driven to anguish by these facts, just as you are.

Gross struggles to be evenhanded. In fact, he is the author of previous books that depict Polish victimization under Nazi and Communist invasion ("Revolution from Abroad"; "Polish Society under German Occupation.") He opens "Fear" with a snapshot of the disaster that was WW II for Poland. In short, he wants us to know that human beings don't commit atrocities in a vacuum.

Though I greatly admired this book, there are some shortcomings.

Gross appears to state that he is the first to argue that Poles experience guilt over having taken over property vacated by Jewish Holocaust victims, and that this guilt exacerbated post-war Polish anti-Semitism. But Steinlauf said as much almost a decade previously, in 1997's "Bondage to the Dead," and Polish authors have said as much in less-read publications. Steinlauf also successfully harnessed Robert Jay Lifton's theories; Gross should have engaged this, and at least mentioned cultural reflections like the Czechoslovak film, "Shop on Main Street."

Gross should have at least mentioned Edna Bonacich's "Middleman Minority" theory. Thomas Sowell has recently written on the, to outsiders, inexplicable atrocities that have been inflicted on Middleman Minorities in places as distant from Poland as Southeast Asia.

The Kielce pogrom was sparked by blood libel. Blood libel is so absurd that readers may come to regard Poles as a lesser species. Gross himself, as utterly masterful as he is in his command of historical personages and events, is adrift when discussing folklore. He does not even cite, for example, Alan Dundes' basic work, though Gross' theory is similar to Dundes. Gross never uses the Freudian term "projective inversion," but, like Dundes, that is his understanding.

In fact, the Middleman Minority theory sheds some light on this item of ugly folklore, to a reader, unlike Gross, familiar with the study of folklore. Regard organ theft legends in the Third World today. Villagers insist that Americans are stealing children's organs for transplants. In 1994, June Weinstock, an Alaskan environmentalist, was beaten with sticks until thought dead by Maya Indians in Guatemala. A boy had wondered off; Guatemalans convinced themselves that the Gringo tourist had stolen his organs. This absurd legend is believed because it encapsulates the people's feeling of economic exploitation.

This understanding does not excuse anti-Semitism -- nothing does -- in fact, the very best Poles have always owned up to the anti-Semitism in their country, and given their lives to fight it. But unless a real attempt is made to understand why destructive folklore has currency, we can't help prevent atrocities.

The reception of "Fear" by the media, community leaders and readers here is disconnected from the book. Sadly, many readers have used this book, itself a courageous protest against hate, exactly as a carte blanche justifying their own hatred. While Gross struggles for fairness and conscience, too many exploiters of "Fear" struggle to make it say something it never says, i.e., "I have been telling you all along; those Polaks? They are animals."

Two misconceptions stand out. One is the insistence that a Polish national essence is responsible for the crime at Kielce. Gross himself attempts to fend off this kind of essentializing with his opening quote about the genocide in Rwanda. Events like these have happened before, far distant from Poland; they will happen again. We must develop a cross-cultural paradigm for understanding, one that is not hostage to the accumulation of chips in an ethnic grudge match.

The other misconception is the insistence that Gross alone has "forced" Poles from their "denial." Again, in this understanding, Poles are essentially incapable of conscience, and require a Jewish author to be pilloried for their crimes. This stereotype is all the more believable because many readers are unfamiliar with Poland, and don't speak Polish.

First, Warsaw-born Gross is as Polish as any Catholic. In any case, even if one rejects his identity on the racist grounds that a Jew can't also be a Pole, non-Jewish Poles, as well as Jewish ones, have been writing about Polish guilt for Polish crimes against Jews. Steinlauf's "Bondage to the Dead" offers a good summary of works by authors like Jan Blonski, Jerzy Ficowski, and Czeslaw Milosz. Many of these writings have not made a splash in the West in the way that Gross' have, but they have ignited self-examination in Poland. Gross quotes one of these works at length: Marcel Lozinski's 1988 film "Witnesses."

The publication of Jan Tomasz Gross' "Fear" is a victorious shedding of light on a very dark time. Its victory will be complete when readers can accept it for what it actually says, rather than what they want it to say, and exercise, for themselves, the very same courage, integrity and compassion that Gross therein exemplifies.

One only need read the reviews of this book from both professional and amateur critics to see that, if Gross's purpose is to aid the reconciliation between Jews and Poles, he has utterly failed. Unlike books dealing with heroes who surmounted prejudice to create miracles, this book stirs an old cauldron of hatred, freshening the pot. Readers without a more complete history of both the Jews and the Poles are especially at risk. Jan Karski's "Story of a Secret State" which was actually written DURING World War 2 and deals with the situation in a balanced and informed manner would be a good companion book to this.

Additional reading should include a comprehensive review of Polish-Jewish relations, beginning with the Charters of Sanctity responsible for so many Jews living in Poland in the first place. When Jews were being blamed for the plague and slaughtered throughout Europe, the Poles opened their doors and gave them a homeland, where they thrived for many centuries.

The Lutheran armies of the Swedish invasions brought anti-Semitism. Later, Poland was divided by Germany, Russia (with a German Queen), and Austria, an occupation which lasted for more than a century. These countries waged a cultural war on the occupied Poles, determined to convert them to their own.

The Poland of WW2 had only been liberated for a few decades. The equivalent of Ronald Reagan's era to today. Many of the citizens were of German descent and actually aided the Nazis in their fight against other Poles, not only Jews.

And although the sickening atrocities recounted in this book are inexcusable, one must keep in mind that they were committed by people driven to collective madness by decades of oppression, poverty and terror. We've seen similar episodes in recent years in the Balkans and Africa and elsewhere. Even the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem maintains a website decrying violations by hate-infected Israelis today.

Poland has only regained her true national and cultural identity in the last two decades, after two hundred years of occupation. Pope John Paul 2 was emblematic of that spirit, and Poland's support for Israel and attempts to honor her Jewish heritage, embraced by her youth of today, are evidence that she has turned a corner and is nurturing the great ideals of her past. The Poland that was once a mighty power, yet never imperialistic. The Poland that was the Promised Land for Jews in the Middle Ages.

First, for the true history about this period, read Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947, Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944 and read chapter 19 of Zamoyskis book The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture the absolute best concise summation of Poland and its devastating losses of WWII!

Bottom line here is that after years of Soviet Communist and Jewish collaboration against Poland, the Communists betrayed the Jews, and wanted them out of the Soviet Union and Stalin controlled Poland. This was ans still is pure Communist propagada against the Polish Nation.

Read: Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust
Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947
Again,The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture If you read just one chapter in the Polish Way, read ch. 19. Unlike Gross' venemous and hateful diatribes, Zamoyski writes a calm and objective truth about Poland's, uncomparable, losses.
One More:The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, New Edition 2nd Edition This book is basically Gross' bio and explains why he writes lie after lie about Poland. Gross sold his integrity to write these books, but that wasn't very expensive.

Read boyh sides, but read credible authors - not Gross.

For all of the media fascination with this book, little of its content is new. There are too many fallacies, non sequiturs, and ridiculous assertions in this book to even begin addressing here. Those readers familiar with some of the sources that Jan Thomas Gross cites will notice immediately that he does so in a selective manner according to his Pole-demonizing agenda. Gross cites Browning on rural Poles betraying Jews to the Germans--while conveniently omitting the fact that those Jews had been stealing food from the Poles (Browning, p. 126)(magnified by the near-starvation conditions under the brutal German occupation). As for Gross' expansive accounts of Polish-German collaboration in the killing of Jews (as at Jedwabne--itself a Gross exaggeration--pardon the pun), Gross tiptoes around Browning's paragraph (p. 52) on the Germans' dissatisfaction with the overall rarity of Polish collaborators and the need to replace them with Ukrainians and Baltics. (The latter subsequently became a mainstay in the roundup and killings of Jews throughout German-occupied Poland). Elsewhere, Gross' citation of Yitzhak Zuckerman, on Jewish grief after Kielce, avoids mention of Zuckerman's statement (p. 661) on the disarming of Kielce's Jews the day BEFORE the pogrom (excellent evidence for well-preplanned Communist staging). Elsewhere, Gross' preoccupation with Poles rejoicing at Jewish sufferings conspicuously omits Zuckerman's (p. 374, 493) detailed description of Polish conduct during and after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. A few Poles, mostly underworld figures, did make cruel jokes. But masses of Poles watched "without a trace of spiteful malice", while other Poles cried. There was also widespread Polish admiration for Jewish bravery. (Of course, Jews had sometimes rejoiced at Polish tragedies in the past).

Gross' tendentious use of readily-available sources destroys the credibility of his many obscure citations. In addition, almost all of Gross' accounts of in-war and postwar "Polish killings of Jews" occur in a contextual vacuum. They all automatically assume that: The killers were all ethnic Poles, anti-Semitism was always the sole or main motive, and extenuating circumstances were always absent.

Gross abandons all reality in his contentions that Poles should've overlooked the almost-completely Zydokomuna (Jewish Communist) leadership of the Soviet puppet state forced upon them. To say that they had nothing to do with Jews (since most Jews weren't Communists) is akin to saying that Einstein had nothing to do with Jews (since most Jews weren't and aren't exceptionally intelligent). Gross elaborates on the Communist persecution of Jews as "evidence" against the Zydokomuna. It is no such thing. Jews had persecuted Jews before, while Communists, ever the masters of duplicity, first played both ends and then eventually dumped the Jews altogether. Perhaps silliest of all of Gross' self-refuting statements is the one about Communism being imposed upon Poland even in the absence of Jewish Communists. Well, what about the fact that 5-6 million Jews would've been murdered by the Germans had not a single Polish anti-Semite ever existed and not a single post-Jewish property gone to the Poles?

In a rare display of genuine scholarship, Gross (pp. 228-230) cites various estimates (13%, 24.7%, 30%, even 50%--probably top leadership) of the Jewish share of the leading positions in the Bezpieka (UB: Communist security police). But Gross fails to "connect the dots". A conservative 20% share means that Jews were twenty times more common as leaders in the hated police than in the general population, and were responsible for at least 16,000--60,000 of the 80,000--300,000 Polish victims of the Communist terror. The clear, inescapable fact is that Jews killed more Poles than Poles killed Jews. Of course, the reader can guess which side is called upon to "come to terms with the past", engage in endless apologizing, etc.

Gross dusts off anti-Catholic Stalinist propaganda when he accuses the Church of a "tardy" response to the Kielce tragedy. Who is holding the stopwatch? And how many influential Jewish religious (and secular) leaders had promptly, loudly, and specifically condemned Jewish Communists for their torture and murder of Poles?

Gross engages in imaginative "psychoanalysis" of Polish thinking (pp. 246-249), accusing postwar Poles of murdering Jews out of a guilt complex over the earlier purchase of post-Jewish properties in Nazi-sponsored auctions. His egregious thesis begins with Polish "opportunistic complicity" in the Holocaust based solely on these acquisitions. Gross' bizarre reasoning implies that anyone who acquires the property of a murder victim thereby becomes complicit in the murder (and, what's more, also a "plunderer" and "exploiter" of the victim), regardless of the circumstances surrounding the acquisition and the fact that the recipient had nothing to do with the murder itself! Considering the massive loss of Polish life and property, and the destitution and desperate housing shortage during and after the war, what were Poles supposed to do? Let the Jewish properties stand vacant in reverence for Jewish deaths, and on the outside chance that the owners may return? Let's also have a little perspective on the 600 Jewish postwar deaths (p. 35; somewhat higher quoted figures are unproven) in the light of the 300,000 returning Jews and assumed 5 Jews per property. Merely 1% of Jewish property reacquisitions had met with murderous Polish resistance, claiming the lives of a miniscule 0.2% of Poland's surviving Jews. Some mini-Holocaust! Some Polish guilt complex!

The perceptive reader can see through Gross' preposterous equation (pp. 248-249) of the Kristallnacht-related looting of Jewish properties with Polish post-Jewish property acquisitions. Decades after the former, a woman expressed guilt over an ill-gotten pillow, and asked the Jewish owners' descendants what to do. The moral of the story is obvious: The Poles, "suffering from a long-repressed guilt complex", can finally resolve it by paying massive tribute ("restitution") to Jewish organizations (part of the Holocaust Industry). The plot gets even thicker: Gross discards WWII completely and actually equates the Polish acquisitions of post-German properties with the post-Jewish ones (p. 248)! Is this a veiled reference to a Jewish/German-revanchist alliance for the coming shakedown of Poland?

I have read "Fear" with much pain. As a Pole, each time Gross wrote about how my compatriots killed and robbed their Jewish neighbours, my heart ached. The facts presented in this book have not been unknown to historians, but they were not publicly discussed in Poland for decades. Learning the extent of brutal, murderous Polish anti-semitism during and after WW II was a huge shock for me. For this reason, this an important book. Many people have accused Gross of a "one-sided view". Well, it seems to be done on purpose. We Poles like to talk about Polish priests and nuns who hid Jews during the war, about who has the most trees in Yad Vashem, and so on. It is the public discourse on Holocaust in Poland which is one-sided -- a veil of silence is held over Polish anti-semitism and Polish murdering of Jews during and shortly after WW II. Gross aimed to break this silence, and I think he partially succeeded. The book is worth reading but is not an easy, nor a comfortable reading.

Below is full citation of an article by Jerzy Robert Nowak about J.T. Gross' "Fear" published in "Niedziela" ("Sunday") catholic weekly magazine in Poland on April 2008

In the summer of 2006, the book entitled `Fear' by Jan Tomasz Gross was published in the U.S.A. The book was a publication slandering Poland and Poles to a greater extent than `Neighbours', the previous book written by this American Jewish sociologist. The majority of critics explicitly accused Gross of various lies, anti-Polish and anti-Catholic ones, undermining the scientific worth of his book. Suffice to mention the reviews of Polish professors living in the U.S.A John Radzilowski and Marek J. Chodkiewicz as well as the well-known activist of the Polish immigrants' community in Canada lawyer Ryszard Tyndorf. In the autumn of 2006, my 300-page book entitled `Nowe klamstwa Grossa' [The New Lies of Gross] was published in Warsaw. It unmasked the extremely slanderous, anti-scientific and lampoon-like character of Gross's publication (...). It is meaningful that the lampoon written by Gross met a severe, overwhelmingly negative, critical opinion written by Dr. August Grabski, a well-known researcher from the Jewish Historical Institute (Kwartalnik Historii Zydow, issue 3, 2006).

Anti-Polish and anti-Catholic book

The extremely negative opinions of the lies included in Gross's `Fear' delayed obviously the publication of the Polish version of his book, which appeared over one year and a half after the American edition. Gross, obviously fearing the Polish reaction to his book, made significant changes, including many fragments that were criticised in my response to his lampoon. The characteristic cynicism and dishonesty of his approach to the subject - Gross did not inform his readers about his considerable abridgements and alternations, weaken the still embarrassing expression of the arguments that preyed on Poland and Catholicism. For example, Gross removed one of the most spiteful anti-Catholic slanders from the American edition of `Fear' (p. 162) accusing the Catholic clergy of the `ritual murder' of the Jewish children. Gross wrote, `As far as the accusation of the ritual murder is concerned we can clearly discern a different practice that has never been discussed as a controversial problem of the Polish-Jewish relationships. I mean `the ritual murder' of the Jewish children by the Catholic clergy, the crime committed every time when a Jewish child was baptised without the explicit request or authorisation of the child itself or its parents.'
Let me remind you that hundreds of Jewish children were left at the gates of Polish monasteries, and the monks and nuns who provided shelter for the children risked their lives if the Germans had learnt about their Jewish charges. Are these types of accusations of those who risked their own lives hiding Jewish children brought by Gross not examples of extreme anti-Catholic fanaticism?
The various drastic cuts in Gross's `Fear' could not cover the vulgar anti-Polish and anti-Catholic meaning of his book. My astonishment was even bigger when I learnt that such a lampoon was published by the Publishing House `Znak' in Krakow. In order to image the scale of Gross's slanders I am going to quote some examples of his anti-Catholic calumny form the Krakow's edition of `Fear', leaving the anti-Polish lies to my different publication. Attacking the Polish clergy for their attitude towards the Jews Gross wrote (p. 137) about `theological cannibalism of the majority of the Bishops' Conference' in Poland.' He accused the Polish clergy of `deep anti-Semitism' during the war (p. 205), claiming that the Polish Church was reputed to play the role of `a collaborator through nonfeasance' (p. 315). The slanderous attacks of Gross against the Catholic Church are vulgar slanders, completely contrary to the historical truth and the authentic testimonies of the Jews who survived the Holocaust. I want to mention the wonderful and moving memoirs of the outstanding Polish mathematician of Jewish background Stefan Chaskielewicz. In his book `Ukrywalem sie w Warszawie, styczen 1943 - styczen 1945' [I was hiding in Warsaw, January 1943 - January 1945] Chaskielewicz wrote, `Another chapter, relatively less known, was the wonderful attitude of the Catholic clergy' (p. 188). I also refer you to the objective testimony of the well-known British columnist Steward Steven, published in his book `The Poles' in 1982. Among other things Steven wrote about the attitude of the Catholic Church towards Jews during the war, `The Church showed unique courage in spite of the fact that even the monks and priests were not exempt from persecutions by the authorities. It was determined that almost every monastery in Poland cared for its local Jews, hiding thousands of people, mainly women and children ...Individual acts of heroism of priests are too many to enumerate them here ...Fr Urbanowicz from Brzesc on the Bug River was shot by the Germans in 1943 for helping some Jews. The Rector of the Theological Academy in Warsaw was sent for the same `crime' to the concentration camp in Majdanek, where he was tortured and died in October 1943. The dean of the parish in Grodno and the prior of the Franciscan order were shot for helping Jews.'

Slander against Cardinal Sapieha

The slander against Cardinal Sapieha, Metropolitan of Krakow, one of the greatest figures of the Catholic Church in Poland in the 20th century, spread in Gross's book, is especially base. On page 206 of the Polish edition of `Fear' we read the opinion concerning Cardinal Sapieha, which Gross quoted, `Cardinal appeared to be an evil man, merciless man ... And he was an anti-Semite.' On page 314 of the Polish edition Gross `creatively' supplemented his slanders against Cardinal Sapieha, included in the English edition, `Even Cardinal Adam Sapieha, whose attitude towards the occupant authorities was praised after the war, did not lodge any protest against the Nazi action of murdering the Jews with Governor Frank. Neither his statements nor the statements of other hierarchs of the Polish Church - recollects Fr Stanislaw Musiol in the interview that was published just after his death - have any traces of compassion or concern. This is horrifying.'
One finds no justification to refer to Fr Musiol's opinion. The late Fr Musiol did not have any deep knowledge about the history of the Polish-Jewish relationships. But he was known for his bias texts, contrary to the stand of the Church concerning the relationships between Christians and Jews. Furthermore, the Primate of Poland Cardinal Jozef Glemp called him a representative of the Jewish option and the Jesuit Society sent him a letter containing the command `not to speak about the matter of the Oswiecim crosses and similar topics.' Cardinal Sapieha of Krakow, whom Gross accused of being an Anti-Semite and who did not show `any traces of compassion or concern for Jews' in accordance with the words of Fr Musiol and Gross, was actually the main organiser of the secret help offered for the Jews living in the region of Malopolska during the war. Jerzy Slaski wrote about the significance of the help for the Jews given by the Metropolitan of Krakow, `Cardinal Adam Sapieha of Krakow, who many a time appealed to Frank to stop terror against the Jewish population, was a model for the clergy in this respect (help for the Jews). When his appeals failed he personally directed the rescue action. He provided birth certificates to the Jews, asking his diocesan priests to do that. He opened the gates of religious orders for them. He placed Jewish children in boarding schools and orphanages run by religious congregations. The main helper of the Archbishop was Fr Dr Franciszek Machay from the Blessed Sacrament Church in Krakow-Zwierzyniec, a known social activist and preacher.'
In his book entitled `Zaglada Zydow w Krakowie' [The Holocaust of Jews in Krakow], (Krakow 1985, p. 38) Aleksander Biberstein, a Jewish physician and director of the Jewish isolation hospital in the Krakow's ghetto, wrote about the interventions of Cardinal Adam Sapieha with the German authorities in 1940. Unfortunately, the only reaction to that intervention, as Biberstein writes (op.cit, p. 223), was the imprisonment of three rabbis who dared to ask the Cardinal's help and their transport to Auschwitz.' As we can see, in spite of Gross's lies, Archbishop Adam Sapieha intervened with the Governor General Frank as early as in 1940. His attempts failed. On the contrary, the appeals caused the criminal German retorsion against the Jews. Would any further attempts make any sense? Cardinal Sapieha focused on the most effective activities: to organise on a wide scale help for the Jews in his archbishopric, the help that was very much appreciated and exposed by authentic historians and not by jealous men and impostors like Gross. In his latest work published in the book entitled `Wokol pogromu kieleckiego' [Around the Pogrom in Kielce] Prof. Jan Zaryn, a historian working in the Institute of National Remembrance and the most outstanding expert in the history of the Catholic Church during the war, wrote about the great merits of Archbishop Sapieha in organising the dangerous actions of rescuing the Jews, `The Archbishop of Krakow, in spite of the German ban, let his priests baptise Jews and falsify their certificates as well as he personally intervened in the cases of the Jewish Catholics.'

Why did `Znak' publish the book that preys on Catholics?

Cardinal Adam Sapieha supported `Znak' and `Tygodnik Powszechny' and helped them to come into being and develop to a large extent. Therefore, it is astonishing that in the light of the vulgar slander the chairman of the board of the Catholic publishing house `Znak' that published `Fear', Henryk Wozniakowski did not defend the wonderful figure of the Archbishop of Krakow in his preface to the book. It is amazing that the preface written by Mr Wozniakowski does not include any statements dissociating from the anti-Catholic slanders placed in `Fear'. But it is even more amazing that `Znak' decided to publish the book that so much preys on Catholics and Poles. I want to quote, following the Polish Press Agency, the latest commentary of the President of the Institute of National Remembrance Prof. Janusz Kurtyka on the book `Fear' by Gross, `I think that Mr Gross can be called a vampire of historiography because his book has little to do with science; above all it uses emotions and a very limited set of sources, which are unilaterally interpreted.' It is especially shocking that `Znak' published such a valueless lampoon, which brutally attacks the ecumenical dialogue between Christians and Jews, the dialogue that is so important to the Church and to us. Gross's book favours building new walls of misunderstanding between Poles and Jews, fomenting discords and it is harmful both to Poles and Jews. Let us add that Mr Wozniakowski himself gave totally false information that after the war Poland had been the only country in which Jews felt endangered as Jews.' Has Mr Wozniakowski not heard about the post-war pogroms in the Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary? Has he not heard about the criminal anti-Zionist action in the Soviet Union, notabene described by Gross, which resulted in the death of the famous Jewish actor Salomon Michoels, the leader of the Anti-Fascist Committee, the deaths of Zionist physicians and other people?
Besides the especially outrageous slanders against Cardinal Sapieha spread in the book entitled `Fear' we can find various false generalisations concerning such Polish hierarchs as Poland's Primate Cardinal August Hlond or Bishop Czeslaw Kaczmarek who was imprisoned and sentenced by the communists during the Stalin's period. Accusing Cardinal Hlond and the whole Polish Catholic hierarchy (except for Bishop Teodor Kubina) of the lack of public reaction against the crime against the Jews in Kielce in the July of 1946 Gross cynically omits the whole complicated context of the situation in question. First of all, he fails to mention the fundamental thing that the hierarchs had to take into account the possibility that their statements would have been cynically fabricated in the media for the use of the regime and they would have had literary no chances to put it right. There were drastic examples of such falsifications, e.g. the Polish Press Agency deliberately manipulated the course of the talks between the representative of the Jewish Religious Associations Prof. Michal Zylberberg and the Primate August Hlond in the January of 1946. Then the Polish Press Agency informed wrongly that during his conversation with Prof. Zylberberg the Primate had `condemned' the attacks on the Jews and called them `criminal activities of the conspirators who attack Jews, fighting against the government (cf. J. Zaryn, Hierarchia Kosciola katolickiego wobec relacji polsko-zydowskich w latach 1945-1947' [The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in View of the Polish-Jewish Relationships in the Years 1945-1947] in the book `Wokol pogromu kieleckiego', IPN, Warszawa 2006, p. 92). Then the communist authorities did not allow publishing any disclaimer concerning the lies on the pages of `Niedziela' in Czestochowa (cf. p. 92). Gross eagerly refers to the public speech of Bishop Teodor Kubina against anti-Semitism and the pogrom of Jews, presenting him as some kind of `the only righteous one' among the Polish bishops. But at the same time he omits the fact that Bishop Kubina's appeal was fabricated in the paper for the reason of propaganda by the authorities. The things that were added, without Bishop Kubina's knowledge, were the political statements, favouring the regime and supporting the authorities, and attacking the independent underground movement. Among other things there were such statements, `Today the majority of the society must clearly say that they do not want any crimes and fratricidal fights and they reject the intentions of those irresponsible political factors that favour murders, excesses and riots in the country. The society will muster all possible forces against those factors to defend the order in the country, to defend the lives of fellow citizens and to defend the work of rebuilding the Homeland that has already begun' (J. Zaryn, op. cit., p. 99). No wonder that seeing such a fabrication of Bishop Kubina's appeal the Polish hierarchs were critical towards any proposals of public statements concerning the crime in Kielce.
It is amazing that in his preface the Chairman of the Board of `Znak' Mr Wozniakowski did not muster the courage to include a disclaimer on the slanderous generalisations of Gross concerning the attitude of the Catholic hierarchy towards the crime in Kielce. The tendentiousness of Gross is well illustrated in his commentary to the fragment of the statement made by Poland's Primate Cardinal Hlond, spoken during the meeting with foreign journalists on 11 July 1946. On page 195 of the Polish edition of `Fear' Gross quotes the words of Cardinal Hlond, `I cordially desire that the Jewish question in the post-war world will be finally and rightly solved.' Gross comments those words of Cardinal Hlond, writing `In other words, it would be best if all Jews left Poland.' Is such a comment not a proof of the maximum of evil will for his part?! The rather special verbal `invention' of Gross is his attempt to introduce new terms `katoendecja' and `katoendecy'. According to Gross (op. cit., p. 185), `A katoendek, in other words, is a special case of Catholic and National Democrat [a member of the right-wing Polish political party created at the turn of the 20th century] - a Catholic priest who got on to politics in the National Democrats' way and a National Democrat who prays and backs him up.' It is that invented `katoendencki' [Catholic National Democrat] ideology that Gross makes guilty of murdering the Jews by the Polish people during the war and after the war. The word `katoendek' assumes extremely pejorative meaning, and even slanderous meaning, in Gross's book and interviews. Thus it is more shocking that Gross uses the term `National Democrat historian' for of the most leading historian of the Institute of National Remembrance Prof. Jan Zaryn who is known for his accuracy and objectivism. In his book (p. 203) Gross uses the epithet `shameless' to describe Zaryn's book `Hierarchowie Kosciola katolickiego wobec relacji polsko-zydowskich w latach 1945-1945', which I have already referred to. Gross accuses him of having written an alleged hagiography concerning the Church (p. 202). Let us add that after the publication of his `Fear' in Poland Gross keeps saying venomous Anti-Polish and anti-Catholic slanders in his press interviews. For example, in his interview for `Dziennik', the daily published by the Germans (on 12-13 January 2008), Gross dared to spread an extremely horrifying slander that preyed on Poles, saying, `On the basis of testimonies of those who lived in those days one can state that Poles were thankful to Hitler for murdering Jews and they thought that he deserved a monument for that. The Poles' aggression towards Jews did not only result from their getting used to death but from accepting the Holocaust.'
In another interview for `Zycie Warszawy' on 12-13 January 2008 Gross went as far as to say the extremely anti-Catholic slander: `By the way, my opinion about the role of the Church in those events is the worst. The Church was not completely able to behave properly in that situation - neither during the occupation nor after the war. That does not only concern the Polish Church. After all, the Pope did not say a word to defend the Jews during those days. So the model that the Polish hierarchy could follow was the worst one.'
As we can see, on the latest occasion Gross combined his slanders against the Catholic Church in Poland with the calumny against the Holy Father Pius XII who according to the Jewish historian Lapide managed to rescue several hundred thousand Jews during the war.
Another Gross's prank that preys on Catholics can be found in his interview for the weekly `Wprost' on 20 January 2008. Gross went as far as to say slanderously that the Church `morally sanctioned the persecutions of Jews. One can even speak about the collaboration of the Church with Nazism through nonfeasance... For millions parish priests were the only carriers of the moral norm. Not saying straight that one cannot kill Jews, persecutions were sanctioned ... most clergymen did not pass the examination.' At the same time Gross attacked the great Primate of the Millennium Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. The anti-Catholic statements of Gross evoked the critical response of Archbishop Jozef Zycinski. According to `Gazeta Wyborcza' dated 14 January 2008, Archbishop Zycinski stated that Gross's book `hurts and divides, often without any reasons.'

Source: [...]

Poorly written by unqualified and clearly uneducated person, who sold his soul for few bucks to prey on emotions and genuine Jewish tragedy by grossly exaggerating data and using false information. Author, is disgraced by majority of Poles, as no one else in Europe did so much to help Jews to survive as Poles did. Help came despite being the only one European country under German occupation, where death penalty was always exercised on entire families or even villages for helping Polish citizens of Jewish background. From the beginning 'till the end Poland fought with soviets and german occupiers, unlike other European countries ( example: Vichy gov't in France).
Unyielding attitude is evidenced by 10 million dead. No other country fought like Poland.

Google " Ulm family" - it is estimated that Ulm family was among 50,000 executed by SS, Wehrmaht for helping Jews.

Yes, nazi and soviet occupation brought out the worst among minorities or criminalns- but this subject is good for 10 page report, not for entire book.
Unless those 10 pages were part of broad, 1000 page book about 800 years of history. Actually Poles and Polish Jews lived together, within one border and they accomplished great things together. Poland is among the most honorable nations. Everyone could learn honor, heroism and tolerance from us. Poland for centuries was powerful, yet never imperialistic. Not for any other reason, but for tolerance, most orthodox Jews for generations lived nowhere else, but in Poland.
In '20 and '30 Poland accepted large Jewish population in its borders, despite rebirth of its independence and rebuilding process after victorious, yet costly war with Russian Bolsheviks.I see so much critique towards Poland from US Citizens- how about St. Louis ship event and 930 Jews seeking shelter? St Louis ship in June of 1939 with Jewish escaping from Nazis, was turned away from Cuba..., America not only refused their entry but even fired a warning shot to keep them away from Florida's shores"

For a moment, I would like to turn to one other aspect. Small portion of Arab immigrants in Germany and France. Strong Arab identity with Islam pushes immigrants away from embracing culture of their new country. Raise of micro-communities with separate values and disbelief that integration and mutual respect is the way to go and key to coexistence- leads to intellectual shutdown,no dialog, alienation and finally detachment from their new motherland, even disloyalty. To a small degree, but still noticeable, small percentage of Jews lived that way in Poland and demonstrated similar dynamics. In those marginal cases, drive for cultural distinction, separation, sense of superiority, among orthodox Jews have been a reason for 99% of tensions, but never to an extent described in Gross's book.

I believe that Polish Jewry in 99% were the finest and patriotic people. 1% were traitors and soviet collaborators, who betrayed their own Polish country and sold it out to soviets and NKVD in the same shameful manner, as some Poles did towards Jews, when they betrayed them to nazis. Both events were inexcusable. And lets not forget that in the end all were betrayed by Stalin- Poles first, when invaded in 1939, Jews later, during communism reign.

In my final thoughts, today, if we can disproportionately analyze marginal events of anti-Semitism in Poland with such passion, then it shouldn't be hard to understand what disproportionate effects alleged collaboration of Jews with Soviet occupiers may have had on Polish opinion.

Lets show good faith. If we have to reconcile, lets do it with mutual respect.We all deserve it. Poland had lost over 5 million of its own citizens. Among which half were Polish Jews.

Gross does not help in any reconciliation if he draws an upside down picture of honorable Poland.

I belong to family of prominent pre war politicians, so great, that when in 1938, one of them died- national mourning in Poland was declared.

I m giving one star, only because there is no option to give zero.