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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Holocaust: Polish Warnings and World's Unbelief, June 22, 2006
This multi-faceted book, written by a Polish-Underground messenger, provides a wealth of information. Polish contacts had long been trying to inform the world about the German-Nazi extermination of Jews (p. 173, 274-276), but their warnings fell on deaf ears, even in western Jewish circles. Ignacy Szwarcbart (Szwarzbart), a Jewish member of the Polish government in exile, actually begged Jan Nowak not to use the figure of only a few hundred thousand survivors of 3 million Polish Jews, in discussions with the British, because Nowak would not be believed. Szmul Zygielbojm was driven to suicide by the fact that world-wide Jewish organizations would not heed his warnings. Adam Pragier, a Pole of Jewish origin, told Zygielbojm that accounts of even 700,000 Polish Jews killed was "propaganda which no one would believe", and that he should drop one zero to state a more-believable figure of 70,000 Jewish victims. Nowak's discussion of these events soundly refutes the charge that Poles were disinterested in the fate of their Jews or otherwise disinclined to inform the world about it. Moreover, the reaction of local Poles to the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos was an increasingly fearless resistance, combined with recognition of the fact that the Poles were next (p. 105).
Many other details of Polish Underground activity are given by Novak. This includes an almost-successful assassination of Hitler during his victory parade in Warsaw in 1939. Much information is given about the widely circulated Polish Underground bogus publications in German, designed to undermine German troop and civilian morale. (One wonders how many accounts of so-called German resistance to Hitler are actually the fabrications of this Polish Underground propaganda campaign).
Polish collaboration with the Germans was very uncommon, In fact, in locations where Poles of German extraction were rare, it was very difficult for the Germans to find enough informers to suppress the Polish Underground conspiracy to any significant extent (pp. 95, 98). In those parts of German-conquered Poland directly annexed to the Reich, some Poles did register as Volksdeutsche under duress, while remaining loyal Poles (p. 468). In some places (e. g. Gdynia), the local Poles were forced to sign the Volksliste, and were labeled "Angedeutsche" (Angehorige) by the Germans (p. 200).
Polish Underground sabotage activity was carefully planned for maximum military effect for the cost in German reprisals against the nearby civilian population. In contrast, the Communist bands (e. g. AL, the so-called People's Army), sponsored by the Soviet Union, regularly (and purposely) engaged in actions designed to provoke draconian German terror against the local Poles (p. 170). The Communists knew that they had almost no support among the Polish population, thus they encouraged (and themselves resorted to) terror (later increased by the invading Red Army and NKVD) to force their will upon the prostrate Polish nation.
Much of the latter part of Novak's book discusses the British betrayal of Poland and shameless sellout to the Soviet Union. Novak points out that the British were already giving away Poland's eastern territories back in 1941, when the Soviet Union was still on the ropes and in no bargaining position. Novak deftly punctures the many British excuses given to justify the subsequent withdrawal of their treaty obligations to their first ally Poland. For instance, rationalizations of technical difficulties for the stoppage of airdrops of ammunition to the Polish Underground by the British (in fall 1943) are exposed by the fact that British fliers had no "technical difficulties" with long-distance flights to other locations. The refusal of the British and Americans to set up underground military missions in Poland was stated to be caused by the lack of a mountainous terrain (such as in Yugoslavia) necessary to insure their safety. Novak (p. 259) explodes this canard by pointing out the fact that fugitive British POWs, most of them who could not speak a word of Polish, were successfully hidden by the Polish Underground for as much as three years in Warsaw alone. There is no reason why members of a secret British military mission could not be hidden also, mountains or not. The British moralized about the injustice of Poland wanting her eastern territories back in view of the fact that they had opposed these territories going to Poland in 1919. But, as Novak points out, successive British government recognized these territories as part of Poland throughout the interwar era (p. 268). So why did 1919-era thinking suddenly matter now? Finally, Novak (p. 298) points out that the Soviets had been strongly dependent upon western shipments of trucks (and ammunition) throughout the war. This refutes the oft-repeated claim that the West never had any significant bargaining position against Stalin.
Poland's freedom was not to be. Novak cites documents which show that Poland's fate had been sealed by January 1944 at the latest. The British had secretly given away Poland's eastern territories and had not even set any conditions or accountability for the Soviets' occupation of Poland (and Germany up to the River Elbe). Novak states that he would not have believed this himself had he not seen the documents. Reflecting upon the Warsaw Uprising over 30 years after the event, Novak believes that it was not futile because it cemented the Poles desire to regain their freedom, regardless of how long it took.
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by Filip Müller
by Alan Furst
