Customer Reviews

Justyna's Narrative

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This is not a particularly engaging work when it comes to the average reader. Its value is primarily for the specialist. It includes a timeline, introductory chapters, and well as fragments of a diary written in a Nazi prison.

In common with many Jewish authors, Justyna describes the Jews of Krakow as unduly trusting of the Germans. As the Jews were being shipped on railroads to the death camps, they continued to believe, as late as at least mid-1942, that they were being sent to labor camps. (p. 40).

A small group of Jews fled the Krakow Ghetto, obtained a few firearms, and attacked a few cafes and other German hangouts in Krakow. (p. 6, 26-27). Perhaps seven German officers were killed. The book does not mention how many Polish civilians were shot by the Germans in reprisal for this Jewish act. [Polish guerillas (AK, or A. K.) carefully planned their attacks for maximum military benefits for the cost of Poles killed in the ensuing German reprisals. For this reason, the Polish Underground generally avoided killing run-of-the-mill Germans, and limited its targeting to especially-prominent or especially-sadistic Germans. Communist guerillas (GL and AL) attacked Germans indiscriminately, having no concern for the Polish civilians that would be killed in German reprisals for their actions.]

The Polish Underground was leery of supporting Jewish fighters because of their support of Communism. Although this matter is not explicitly discussed in the book, it does come through. Justyna (Golda Davidson Draenger) was a close friend of Gola Mira, an avowed Communist. (pp. 9-12, 24). The Akiva movement to which the Jewish fighters belonged, while not itself Communist, included the Hashomer Hatzair, which is identified as Marxist-Zionist. (p. 33). Jewish fighters who, up to now, had been distrustful of Communism became less so. (p. 84). The attack on the Cyganeria café itself was performed in conjunction with the Polish-Communist P.P.R. (p. 26)(This was the so-called Polish Workers' Party, which later assumed power in Poland as the forcibly-installed satrap of Moscow).