Europe on Trial: World War II and Its Aftermath

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Summary: Intriguing Exploration Of European Retribution After WW II!
Review: It's an old and acknowledged saw that "to the victors go the spoils". What should be added to this splendidly commonplace bit of street lore is the similarly well-acknowledged fact that it is indeed the victors who get to write and thereby promulgate the official version of history, interpreting it to their advantage, giving it such spin, direction, and body language as needed to serve the perceived needs and political purposes of the present. In this sense the historical treatment of the past, especially the recent past, tells us volumes about what forces exist to warp into particular forms and modes today. This is especially true in this absorbing and well-edited series of essays by a number of noted historians and critics relating to the subject of the relative merits of the retribution process in Europe following the conclusion of the Second World War.

As is likely true for all conflicts, the punishment delivered in the aftermath of the war was by no means fair, equitable, or necessarily deserved by those it was haphazardly visited upon, and some who deserved to be punished walked away unblemished, while others who did nothing wrong were falsely accused and punished. Indeed, one of the consistent themes in these essays is the degree to which the captive people of Europe engaged in what has to be recognized as being a widespread accommodation and cooperation with the Nazi authorities and their lackeys. Yet although their were obvious many who escaped getting their just desserts, and many more who were unfairly castigated and punished, by and large the effort at social retribution after the war appears to have served a wider and more useful role in expiating the collective guilt and anxiety that literally permeated the continent in the wake of the war's end.

This is a fine collection of essays that seek to address the complex welter of needs, drives, and issues that had to be settled in the postwar period, and among the competing strands of thoughts and arguments one finds that the historical interpretation of the past was indeed manipulated and bastardized, often at the expense of specific groups and individuals, who had to suffer the continuing social indifference to the injuries they had suffered, or worse, the accusation and punishment for deeds they either did not commit, or that they had committed in such a strange and sordid set of constraining circumstances that to make an issue our of it was existentially absurd. It is in this sense that a kind of selective amnesia overtook many of the survivors, such that they repressed the ugly truth in favor of more palatable and pleasing fictions.

Of course, many of the issues discussed here are neither fully resolved nor completely played out. Just as many of the events of the war itself found their genesis in attitudes and cultural predispositions formed long before the war, so too, do many of the issues and dilemmas of the present find their antecedents in facts and circumstances located in postwar activities, and these may never be resolved. Whether talking about ethnic differences within a specific country or cultural predispositions existing between reviving cultures, many of the complex issues and concerns threading through these essays may never be resolved. This is a fascinating and quite worthwhile book, and one I am sure you would benefit from. Enjoy!

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Summary: Combines Facts and Gross Mischaracterizations
Review: Mention of the killings of Jews in postwar Hungary (Judt, p. 321) needs further elaboration, as it refutes the common claim that this happened only in postwar Poland. The two articles by Jan Thomas Gross detract considerably from the remaining ones. The title of this review has an intentional double meaning, as Gross shows us the depths of convoluted reasoning that Polonophobes willingly go through to unfairly blame Poles for not aiding more Jews. More Poles are honored at Yad Vashem for saving Jews than any other nationality. Paulsson (SECRET CITY) has shown that, at least for Warsaw's Jews, the limiting factor in Jewish survival was the infrequency of Jews fleeing the ghettoes. It was NOT Polish "inaction". Nor was it the rate of Polish betrayal of fugitive Jews. Had more Jews sought Polish help, more Jews would have been saved.

Gross cites some indicators of the "diffuse hostility of Poles to Jews' and then, without any evidence, jumps to the conclusion that this made Poles disinclined to help Jews. In fact, the acknowledged anti-Semitic beliefs of many Polish rescuers of Jews argue for the opposite. The long history of considerable Jewish disloyalty to Poland, the most recent instance of which was the large-scale Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles (Gross' attempts to minimize it notwithstanding) was a major cause of Polish hostility to Jews.

Gross would have us believe that, since Poles already defied the German-imposed death penalty in numerous ways, they could just as easily have defied it by saving many more Jews--had they only wanted to. But his equating of various risky behaviors carrying the death penalty is transparently ridiculous, and he, being from Poland, should know better (unless, of course, he has discarded all semblance of objectivity). Gross disingenuously cites Polish incurrence of the death penalty through considerable "black marketeering". Common sense teaches that it is incomparably easier to hide contraband food than to hide (and feed) a living fugitive Jewish human being. The same holds for livestock slaughtered without German authorization, firearms, radios, and other verboten objects. Assuredly, the Germans directed far greater attention to fugitive Jews than to Polish "black marketers". Also, Gross overlooks the fact that German officials could often be bribed to spare from death a Pole who was caught "black marketeering", etc., but seldom for helping a Jew.

Gross also falsely conflates the risk of Polish participation in the Underground with that of hiding Jews. In actuality, successful participation in the Underground required one to live an inconspicuous double life that was in some ways the opposite of the overt risky behaviors necessary to save Jews. Numerous Polish guerillas nevertheless fell into German hands. Gross also exaggerates the significance of Poles covering up for each other. Contrary to Gross' selectively quoted anecdotes, membership in the Underground was a closely-guarded secret. Even close neighbors often had no inkling of each other's involvement in the Underground until they both came out in open warfare during Operation Burza (Tempest) during the closing months of the German occupation.

Despite significant efforts by the Underground to hide them, some 50% of all educated Poles were found and murdered by the Germans. Hiding a fugitive Jew from the Germans was far harder than hiding a fugitive Pole, as most Polish Jews had easily recognizable characteristics, and didn't blend readily into Polish society. Gross also ignores the fact that all Polish Underground activity was carefully weighed for maximum military benefit for the cost in terms of German reprisals. More extensive assistance to Jews would have triggered commensurate German action against Poles, and excessive incitement of German terror, resulting from any Underground action(s), would have discredited the Underground in the eyes of the Polish population.

Gross engages in blatant circular reasoning when he (selectively) cites some Polish rescuers of Jews who claim not to have been intimidated by the death penalty in order to "prove" its unimportance in the rescue of Jews. That's like going to a convention of blue-car owners, and, examining the cars parked there, arguing that all US cars are blue. Most absurd of all is Gross' mention of the Warsaw Uprising as evidence of the irrelevance of the death penalty in informing Polish conduct. In actuality, the Uprising was planned to eject the Germans within a few days, with minimal casualties, just prior to the arrival of the Red Army. No one could have foreseen the Soviet betrayal and ensuing 63-day agony, the deaths by combat and murder of a quarter million Poles, and subsequent destruction of Warsaw by vindictive Germans.

Gross takes a cheap shot at Polish heroism by falsely asserting that the absence of a collaborationist government in Poland was only due to Germans unwillingness. In actuality, Prince Janusz Radziwill and several other semi-prominent Poles were approached by the Germans as prospective Quislings for a (...) Polish puppet state, but they all refused (Lukas. 1986. THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST, pp. 111-113). (Nor is it correct that Poles eschewed organized collaboration because of the brutality of German conduct against them. Other Slavic untermenschen were treated little better, yet some of them formed organized collaborationist units).

Ironically and unwittingly, Gross undermines two canons of conventional Holocaust thinking: The one that belittles Polish suffering (e. g. "collateral damage"), and the one that insinuates that Poles implicitly led quasi-normal lives ("spectators" of the Jewish catastrophe). According to Gross, Poles could never have survived on the meager food rations allowed by the Germans (pp. 118-119; whence the Polish "black marketeering"). Moreover, German killing of Poles was so indiscriminate and widespread that Poles obedient to German dictates were little safer than violators. Sounds like Polish and Jewish victimization, on a per capita basis, was much less different than commonly portrayed! In any case, how can Poles be blamed for not saving more Jews when Poles themselves faced a desperate shortage of food, and were otherwise necessarily preoccupied with their OWN physical survival under the German occupation?