Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2011 Bystanders, blackmailers, and perpetrators: Polish complicity during the Holocaust Jacob Flaws Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Flaws, Jacob, "Bystanders, blackmailers, and perpetrators: Polish complicity during the Holocaust" (2011). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 11917. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/11917 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Bystanders, blackmailers, and perpetrators: Polish complicity during the Holocaust by Jacob A. Flaws A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Major: History Program of Study Committee: John Monroe, Major Professor Kevin Amidon Charles Dobbs Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2011 Copyright © Jacob Allen Flaws, 2011. All rights reserved. ii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Pre-War Polish Anti-Semitism 12 Chapter 3: The Silent Masses 26 Chapter 4: Scavengers, Blackmailers, & Extortionists 44 Chapter 5: Carrying Out the Holocaust 59 Chapter 6: Conclusion 81 List of Works Cited 86 1 Chapter 1: Introduction “For every noble Pole who risked all to rescue a fellow human being, there were ten scoundrels who hunted Jews for a livelihood.”1 Why would a Holocaust survivor make this statement? In a scholarly field where a substantial fraction of the literature claims that Polish hostility was minimal, survivor statements like this one cast a negative light on certain Poles.