DOCSLIB.ORG

Or How Emanuel Ringelblum Was Instrumentalized by Expellees in West Germany on the History of the Book Ghetto Warschau: Tagebücher Aus Dem Chaos

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Or How Emanuel Ringelblum Was Instrumentalized by Expellees in West Germany on the History of the Book Ghetto Warschau: Tagebücher Aus Dem Chaos “It Was the Poles” or How Emanuel Ringelblum Was Instrumentalized by Expellees in West Germany On the History of the Book Ghetto Warschau: Tagebücher aus dem Chaos Stephan Stach In the 1960s, Germany’s mass murder of European Jews during the Second World War was increasingly the focus of public attention. This was precipitated, to a great degree, by the shock of Adolf Eichmann’s capture and trial in Jerusalem in 1961. A great number of reports and books appeared at the time on that and other trials of Nazis and their crimes.1 A growing number of memoirs and diaries written by Holocaust victims and survivors, along with other books on the topic, were being published as well. 2 The Holocaust soon also became an issue entrenched in the 1 ARENDT, Hannah: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York, Vi- king Press 1963; COHEN, Nathan: Rechtliche Gesichtspunkte zum Eichmann-Prozess. Frank- furt am Main, Europäische Verlangsanstalt 1963; KAUL, Friedrich Karl: Der Fall Eichmann. Berlin [Ost], Das Neue Berlin 1963; MŇAČKO, Ladislav: Já, Adolf Eichmann... [I, Adolf Eichmann…]. Bratislava, Slovenské vydavatelstvo politickej literatúry 1961. On the recep- tion of Eichmann’s trial in Hungary and its impact on the Holocaust discourse, see BOHUS, Kata: Not a Jewish question? The Holocaust in Hungary in the Press and Propaganda of the Kádár Regime during the Trial of Adolf Eichmann. In: Hungarian Historical Review, Vol. 4, No. 3 (2015), pp. 737–772. 2 HILBERG, Raul: The Destruction of European Jews. New Haven, Yale University Press 1961; EISENBACH, Artur: Hitlerowska polityka zagłady Żydów [Hitler’s policy of the ex- termination of Jews]. Warszawa, Książka i Wiedza 1961; Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord: “It Was the Poles” or How Emanuel Ringelblum Was Instrumentalized... 43 confrontation between the two Cold War blocs. This was refl ected, for example, in the show trials of Theodor Oberländer and Hans Globke in East Berlin, who held high positions in the West German government despite their involvement in Nazi crimes.3 The GDR made particular use of these trials in absentia to depict West Germany as a bastion of Nazi criminals. In return, many West German politicians and jour- nalists compared the Berlin Wall with the one that surrounded the Warsaw Ghetto, thus bringing the GDR in connection with Nazi Germany.4 Such appropriations of the Holocaust were by no means limited to the German- German confrontation. Poland and its inhabitants were, in particular, depicted as “eternal anti-semites” in American and West European media. This stereotype was often even expanded to include the thesis that the deeply rooted Polish anti- semitism had been the true reason for German extermination camps set up in occupied Poland – a claim that has long been refuted by research.5 Western Bloc interest groups nevertheless instrumentalized this stereotype for their political aims. One particularly drastic example of this, and the subject of this article, was the instrumentalization of the work of Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum, the organizer of the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto,6 by expellees in West Germany. Numerous articles and commentaries appeared in various newspapers of the expellee press, beginning in the early 1960s, that referenced Ringelblum in an effort to frame Poland as being complicit in the Holocaust. Ringelblum’s last work, his 1944 essay with the title Stosunki polsko-żydowskie w czasie drugiej woj- ny światowej [Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War] was printed in 1967 by the Stuttgart-based Seewald Publishing House with the misleading German title Ghetto Warschau: Tagebücher aus dem Chaos [Warsaw Ghetto: Diaries from chaos].7 The Göttinger Arbeitskreis Ostdeutscher Wissenschaftler (Göttingen Dokumentation über Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des 2. Welt- krieges. Berlin, Jüdischen Historischen Institut in Warschau 1960; ADLER, H. G. – LANG- BEIN, Hermann – LIGENS-REINER, Ella: Auschwitz: Zeugnisse u. Berichte. Frankfurt am Main, Europäische Verlagsanstalt 1962. 3 Several works were published in the GDR as part of the campaigns against Oberländer, including: Die Wahrheit über Oberländer: Braunbuch über die verbrecherische faschistische Vergangenheit des Bonner Ministers. Berlin, Ausschuss deutsche Einheit 1960, and Globke, der Bürokrat des Todes, bureaucrat of death, bureaucrate de la mort: Eine Dokumentation über die Blutschuld des höchsten Bonner Staatsbeamten bei der Ausrottung der Juden. Berlin, Aus- schuss für Deutsche Einheit 1963. 4 Die Mauer: Rote Nazis. In: Die Zeit (31 August 1962); SCHNURRE, Wolfdietrich: Berlin: Eine Stadt wird geteilt. Olten, Walther 1962, p. 10. Also: MECKL, Markus: Helden und Mär- tyrer: Der Warschauer Ghettoaufstand in der Erinnerung. Berlin, Universität Berlin 2000, pp. 42 and 124. 5 STEINLAUF, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust. Syra- cuse, NY, Syracuse University Press 1997, p. 80. 6 On Ringelblum: KASSOW, Samuel D.: Who Will Write Our History? Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto, London, Vintage 2009. 7 RINGELBLUM, Emanuel: Ghetto Warschau: Tagebücher aus dem Chaos. Eingeleitet von Pro- fessor Arieh Tartakower. Stuttgart, Seewald 1967, p. 22. The book will be referred to hence- forth as Ghetto Warschau. 44 Czech Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. VI Working Group of Eastern German Scholars, henceforth the “Göttingen Group”) took responsibility for the publication, as will be discussed in the presented article. This association of researchers who were either from the former German East or were active in researching the region, paved the way intellectually for the advocacy of a revision of the postwar Polish-German border along the Oder and Neisse rivers. They sought to instrumentalize Ringelblum’s work to this end. In the following text, I discuss the book, its publisher, and the manner in which an essay on Polish-Jewish relations in German-occupied Poland was transformed into an argument for a revision of the Oder-Neisse border, as well as the later infl uence of the book in Germany and Poland. To this end, I draw on various publications and the Pressedienst der Heimatvertriebenen (Expellee Press Service – hvp) published by the Göttingen Group, in addition to the book itself. Ringelblum as an Unauthorized Publication In early 1967, the Stuttgart-based Seewald Publishing House published the book Emanuel Ringelblum: Ghetto Warschau, Tagebücher aus dem Chaos, Eingeleitet von Professor Arieh Tartakower, Institut Yad Washem Jerusalem.8 Despite what the title may suggest, this was not in fact a diary that Ringelblum might perhaps have writ- ten in the Warsaw Ghetto, but was his last essay, which the author himself titled Stosunki polsko-żydowskie w czasie drugiej wojny światowej [Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War]. He wrote it from a hidden location after he was able to fl ee the Warsaw Ghetto.9 Unlike Ringelblum’s other observations from the Ghetto, this was not part of the Ghetto’s underground archives, which he himself initiated and ran, even if it was undoubtedly based on the materials that it contained. At the point in time that he wrote the piece, the archive had, however, already been buried beneath the Ghetto in metal boxes and milk cans at three different points. In his essay on Polish-Jewish relations, Ringelblum attempts to take on the neu- tral perspective of an historian, even if he himself was personally affected by the events. Even though he knew that the majority of the Polish people were indiffer- ent to the fate of the Jews and that some Polish people betrayed Jews – whether for reasons of avarice or deep-seated enmity – he himself owed his life to helpful Poles, who had freed him from the camp and hidden him in Warsaw. Ringelblum described this ambivalence in his preliminary remarks,10 which, in his biography published in 2007, Samuel Kassow referred to as “a fi nal synthesis and reappraisal of Ringelblum’s prewar scholarship.”11 Kassow alludes here to how Ringelblum’s 8 Warsaw Ghetto: Diaries from Chaos. (With a Preface by Professor Arieh Tartakower, Yad Vashem Institute, Jerusalem.) 9 RINGELBLUM, Emanuel: Z ostatnich notatek [Recent notes; Editors’ preface]. In: Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, No. 25 (1958), pp. 3–30, here p. 3. 10 Ghetto Warschau, p. 22. 11 KASSOW, S. D.: Who Will Write Our History? Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the War- saw Ghetto. The quote can be found on p. 373. Kassow discusses Ringelblum’s work on the “It Was the Poles” or How Emanuel Ringelblum Was Instrumentalized... 45 studies on the history of Jews in Poland did not view them in isolation, but always in relation to their Polish neighbours and with the awareness of the manifold social and economic interweavement of the two groups.12 In his essay, Ringelblum discussed various aspects of Polish-Jewish relations in several chapters. Ringelblum adopted a critical point of view as well, coming to the conclusion that the Polish underground and the Home Army (or Armia Kra- jowa in Polish) could have done much more for the Jews than it did. Ringelblum’s bitter disappointment, which becomes repeatedly apparent, refl ected to a large degree that Ringelblum, as a Jewish citizen of pre-war Poland, viewed himself as part of a common society. And it was to this society – or what was left of it after the war – that he in fact addressed his essay. This is borne out by the fact that he wrote it in Polish and not in Yiddish, as had been his habit.13 Along with his wife and his son Uri, Emanuel Ringelblum was discovered by the Germans and shot in March 1944. The fact that we can read the essay today is thanks to Adolf and Barbara Berman, friends of Ringelblum, who also lived in hid- ing in Warsaw, and whom Ringelblum had entrusted with his manuscript in three notebooks.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Protegowani Jakuba Bermana Jako Przykład Klientelizmu I Nepotyzmu W Elicie Władzy PRL
    VARIAIII MIROSŁAW SZUMIŁO Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej w Lublinie Biuro Badań Historycznych Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej Protegowani Jakuba Bermana jako przykład klientelizmu i nepotyzmu w elicie władzy PRL Zjawisko klientelizmu w perspektywie historycznej było już przedmiotem wielu prac naukowych. W Polsce zajmował się nim przede wszystkim Antoni Mączak1. Wzbudzało ono również zainteresowanie zachodnich sowietologów, którzy zauważyli, że niemal od początku rządów bolszewickich w Związku Sowieckim następowało grupowanie kadr wokół wpływowych towarzyszy2. Analizie poddawano m.in. układy klientelistyczne w ekipie Leonida Breżniewa3. Według Johna Willertona klientelizm oznacza wzajemne popieranie własnych interesów w zakresie uczestnictwa w elicie władzy, interesów frak- cyjnych i sektorowych oraz wspieranie się w trakcie kariery w związku ze wspólnym pochodzeniem etnicznym, pokoleniowym itp.4 Tworzenie się sieci klientelistycznych oraz nepotyzm w elicie władzy PRL nie były do tej pory przedmiotem odrębnych badań. W ujęciu socjologicznym poru- szał to zagadnienie Krzysztof Dąbek, ale tylko w kontekście funkcjonowania ukła- dów patron–klient w aparacie partyjnym w latach 1956–19805. W odniesieniu do kadry kierowniczej Służby Bezpieczeństwa tego typu dysfunkcje analizował Daniel 1 A. Mączak, Nierówna przyjaźń. Układy klientalne w perspektywie historycznej, Wrocław 2003. 2 T.H. Rigby, Early Provincial Cliques and the Rise of Stalin, „Soviet Studies” 1981, nr 33, s. 25. 3 J.P. Willerton, Clientelism in the Soviet Union: An Initial Examination, „Studies in Comparative Commu- nism” 1979, nr 12, s. 159–211. 4 Ibidem, s. 162. 5 K. Dąbek, PZPR. Retrospektywny portret własny, Warszawa 2006, s. 201–216. 456 2 (34) 2019 pamięć i sprawiedliwość Protegowani Jakuba Bermana jako przykład klientelizmu i nepotyzmu w elicie władzy PRL Wicenty6.
    [Show full text]
  • Story of Jan Karski the EMISSARY
    THE EMISSARY Maciej Kozłowski THE EMISSARY Story of Jan Karski English translation Joanna Maria Kwiatowska Foreword Jan Karski was a messenger. During the Second World War, he risked his life infiltrating the Warsaw Ghetto and crossing occupied Europe to carry news of the Holocaust to the free world; news of such suffering and atrocity that many refused to believe it. He was also a messenger throughout his 50 years as an American, bringing to us messages about freedom based on his experience in wartime Poland; messages that he delivered to generations of students seeking to understand the world of international affairs. Jan Karski was brave; he was resolute; and he demanded of us what he demanded of himself: that we face with clarity the existence of injustice and evil in the world and act with courage to defeat them. Above all, his message was that freedom must be defended. His personal courage and commitment gave weight to his convictions, and his understanding of the world gave depth to the personal history he embodied. Those who knew Jan Karski will never forget him; and his message will continue to light the path of freedom-loving peoples throughout the years to come. No one could ask for a finer legacy. Bill Clinton 5 A photograph of Jan Karski taken from a poster advertising one of his lectures about the Holocaust, May 1982 July 28th, 1943, 10:15 a.m. Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. The limousine of Jan Ciechanowski, Polish Ambassador to the United States, arrives inJ front of the White House.
    [Show full text]
  • Pogrom Cries – Essays on Polish-Jewish History, 1939–1946
    Rückenstärke cvr_eu: 39,0 mm Rückenstärke cvr_int: 34,9 mm Eastern European Culture, 12 Eastern European Culture, Politics and Societies 12 Politics and Societies 12 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir Joanna Tokarska-Bakir Pogrom Cries – Essays on Polish-Jewish History, 1939–1946 Pogrom Cries – Essays This book focuses on the fate of Polish “From page one to the very end, the book Tokarska-Bakir Joanna Jews and Polish-Jewish relations during is composed of original and novel texts, the Holocaust and its aftermath, in the which make an enormous contribution on Polish-Jewish History, ill-recognized era of Eastern-European to the knowledge of the Holocaust and its pogroms after the WW2. It is based on the aftermath. It brings a change in the Polish author’s own ethnographic research in reading of the Holocaust, and offers totally 1939–1946 those areas of Poland where the Holo- unknown perspectives.” caust machinery operated, as well as on Feliks Tych, Professor Emeritus at the the extensive archival query. The results Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw 2nd Revised Edition comprise the anthropological interviews with the members of the generation of Holocaust witnesses and the results of her own extensive archive research in the Pol- The Author ish Institute for National Remembrance Joanna Tokarska-Bakir is a cultural (IPN). anthropologist and Professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish “[This book] is at times shocking; however, Academy of Sciences at Warsaw, Poland. it grips the reader’s attention from the first She specialises in the anthropology of to the last page. It is a remarkable work, set violence and is the author, among others, to become a classic among the publica- of a monograph on blood libel in Euro- tions in this field.” pean perspective and a monograph on Jerzy Jedlicki, Professor Emeritus at the the Kielce pogrom.
    [Show full text]
  • Patterns of Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1944-1946 David Engel
    Patterns Of Anti-Jewish Violence In Poland, 1944-1946 David Engel The story of the infamous Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946, during which forty-two Jews were killed and forty more were injured, has been told and retold in popular and scholarly works to the point where the recent fiftieth anniversary of its occurrence prompted a public commemoration that made news around the world.1 A fair measure of controversy still exists, however, regarding the meaning of the murderous events. While the background to the outbreak of violence was a medieval blood libel, one central axis of disagreement is the manner in which the underlying cause of the violence should be represented. Certain depictions have given explanatory primacy to the immediate historical context in which the pogrom occurred - that of a fierce ongoing armed battle between passionate pro- and antigovernment forces, in which Jews assumed a highly visible and remarkably uniform pro-government position, in sharp distinction to the antigovernment attitudes of what was evidently a sizable majority of Polish society. Such an approach has made the events at Kielce appear mainly either as an instance of political protest - in which case the savage anti-Jewish overtones reflected an unfortunate but nonetheless real correlation between ethnicity and political behavior - or as one of cynical manipulation by a regime bent on exploiting that correlation to deflect or suppress potential opposition to 1 The most thorough and reliable treatment to date is Bozena Szaynok, Pogrom Zydow w Kielcach 4 lipca 1946 (Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Bellona, 1992). Other narrations of the events include Stanislaw Meducki, "The Pogrom in Kielce on July 4, 1946,” Polin 9 (1996), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Life in a Jar: the Performative Efficacy of the Embodied Historical Archive
    Life in a Jar: The Performative Efficacy of the Embodied Historical Archive By Susan C. Bubna Submitted to the graduate degree program in Theatre and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. ________________________________ Chairperson Rebecca Rovit ________________________________ John Gronbeck-Tedesco ________________________________ Leslie Bennett Date Defended: January 29, :2013 The Thesis Committee for Susan C. Bubna certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Life in a Jar: The Performative Efficacy of the Embodied Historical Archive ________________________________ Chairperson Rebecca Rovit Date approved: January 29, 2013 ii Abstract: During the World War II Nazi occupation of Poland, a young Catholic social worker Irena Sendler became a prominent leader in Warsaw’s Zegota, a Polish Resistance organization. Sendler rescued 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, saving them from execution in German killing centers like Treblinka. Over fifty years later, her relatively unknown story became a performance Life in a Jar , researched and developed by three American high school students Elizabeth Cambers, Sabrina Coons, and Megan Stewart and their social studies teacher Norman Conard. Through a series of unusual circumstances, the performance Life in a Jar catapulted Sendler, Conard and these students from a small rural community to national and international acclaim. Life in a Jar moved significantly beyond a series of singular performances for Kansas and National History Day competitions and became an ongoing pedagogical forum influencing Holocaust and contemporary genocide education. Since its first performances Life in a Jar has demonstrated relevancy and efficacy for the performative embodiment of an historical trauma or event.
    [Show full text]
  • The Holidays of the Revolution Myth, Ritual and Identity Among Tel Aviv Communists, 1919-1965
    The Holidays of the Revolution Myth, Ritual and Identity among Tel Aviv Communists, 1919-1965 by Amir Locker-Biletzki A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of PhD in History Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Amir Locker-Biletzki, March, 2013 ABSTRACT THE HOLIDAYS OF THE REVOLUTION MYTH, RITUAL AND IDENTITY IN AMONG TEL AVIV COMMUNISTS, 1919-1965 Amir Locker-Biletzki Advisor: University of Guelph, 2013 Alan McDougall The Israeli Communist Party (MKI) and its precursor, the Communist Party of Palestine (PKP), were a unique Arab-Jewish organization. Marginalized and persecuted for most of its formative years, the Communist Party developed, from 1919 to 1965, its own distinctive subculture. Negating and absorbing the Zionist-Socialist and Israeli statist cultures, influenced by both Soviet and left wing European traditions as well as Jewish traditional elements, the Jewish Communists developed their own cycle of holidays. Through the examination of primary sources, ranging from internal Communist documents and newspaper articles to photographs and posters, as well as interviews with contemporaries and comparison with parallel Communist experiences in the United States and in the Arab world – this thesis examines the myths and rituals reflected in the holidays, as practiced by the Jewish Communists in MKI and the Israeli Young Communist League (Banki). The thesis scrutinizes the identity these cultural practices produced. By examining the Jewish holidays, the Israeli civic holidays, May Day, the Soviet November 7th and May 9th holidays, and the rituals concerning the relations between Palestinians and Jews, it is shown that between the years 1919 and 1965 the Jewish Communists created a local, Jewish-Israeli, anti-Zionist patriotic identity.
    [Show full text]
  • Remembrance for Poles Who Saved Jews
    MONDAY, 26 MARCH 2018 DZIENNIK ZACHODNI A SUPPLEMENT PREPARED WITH SUBSTANTIVE COLLABORATION OF THE INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL National Day of REMEMBRANCE Remembrance for Poles who saved Jews Jarosław Szarek, PhD, President of IPN: Let’s celebrate the National Day of Remembrance for Poles who saved Jews Distinctions for pinpoint the actual date when the word “Righteous” was used for the first time in relation to someone Humanity who helped Jews. It has been in use officially since 1963. The title of Dorota Koczwańska-Kalita PhD, such strict regulation, many the extent of these risks was Emanuel Ringelblum, a historian Righteous Among the Nations can Head of the IPN Delegation in Poles decided to engage in acts incomparable. of the ghetto, appealed for be awarded after a commission Kielce of humanity. Szymon Datner in It appears that, in general recognising such actions with recognises that the saved person his "Las sprawiedliwych. Karta terms, the dilemma could be an “order for humanitarianism” was a Jew and the rescuer was not, he outbreak of z dziejów ratownictwa Żydow solved in four ways: the first in future Poland. Julian and that the help did not involve World War 2 in w okupowanej Polsce" with would be to turn the Jew in Aleksandrowicz, a great scholar any benefit. Poles constitute 1939 irreversibly uncanny accuracy describes to his pursuers in accordance from Kraków, requested the the largest group among the changed the the situation of people seeking with the ‘law’ imposed by the Israeli government to create a Righteous Among the Nations, world. The help and those who were asked invader, which equalled a death Chapter of the Commander’s with nearly seven thousand period through for help.
    [Show full text]
  • Der Dornbusch, Der Nicht Verbrannte Überlebende Der Shoah in Israel
    Der Dornbusch, der nicht verbrannte Überlebende der Shoah in Israel Herausgeberin: Miri Freilich Deutsche Ausgabe: Anita Haviv und Ralf Hexel Der Dornbusch, der nicht verbrannte Überlebende der Shoah in Israel Herausgeberin: Miri Freilich Deutsche Ausgabe: Anita Haviv und Ralf Hexel Übersetzung aus dem Hebräischen Rachel Grünberger-Elbaz Im Auftrag der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Israel und des Beit Berl Academic College Für die Inhalte der Beiträge tragen allein die Autorinnen und Autoren die Verantwortung. Diese stellen keine Meinungsäußerung der Herausgeber, der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung und des Beit Berl Academic College, dar. Herausgeberin: Miri Freilich Deutsche Ausgabe: Anita Haviv und Ralf Hexel Lektorat: Astrid Roth Umschlag und graphische Gestaltung: Esther Pila Satz: A.R. Print Ltd. Israel Deutsche Ausgabe 2012: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Israel P.O.Box 12235 Herzliya 46733 Israel Tel. +972 9 951 47 60 Fax +972 9 951 47 64 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Berlin Hiroshimastraße 17 D - 10785 Berlin Tel. +49 (0)30 26 935 7420 Fax +49 (0)30 26 935 9233 ISBN 978-3-86498-300-9 Hebräische Ausgabe: © Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Israel 2011 Printed in Israel Inhalt Ralf Hexel Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe 6 Tamar Ariav Vorwort 9 Wladimir Struminski Der Optimist – Erinnerung an Noach Flug 11 Anita Haviv In memoriam Moshe Sanbar 14 Eliezer Ben-Rafael Die Shoah in der kollektiven Identität und politischen Kultur Israels 16 Hanna Yablonka Shoah-Überlebende in Israel – Schlüsselereignisse und wichtige Integrationsphasen 32 Eyal Zandberg Zwischen Privatem
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 4. the Konrad Zegota Committee
    PRESERVING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski. Zegota. Price-Patterson Ltd. Montreal, Canada. Chapter 4. The Konrad Zegota Committee The Underground movement in Poland arose spontaneously and regionally as soon as the German occupation began. Polish officers and soldiers who had not been put in prisoner- of-war camps buried their uniforms and their arms, then met secretly in their neighbourhoods to plan resistance. Cells were composed of men and women from established political parties, from former army units, or – simply from their home districts. Eventually, all of these small units, – excluding the Communists on the extreme left and the fascists on the extreme right, united under one command. The military arm later became known as the Home Army – the AK (Armia Krajowa) – one facet of what became in reality an underground state. Resistance was not new to Poles. From the late 1700s, to 1918, their country had been partitioned and occupied by the Germans, the Russians and the Austrians. But Poles had never accepted foreign rule, resisting, regardless of the cost. They resisted again, but no one at first expected the perversions and savagery that would be directed against the entire population. Nor was it immediately apparent that this time Germany was determined to carry out the unprecedented biological destruction of entire nations, most notably the Jews. Even in the context of daily terror, it was not long before the special brutality directed against the Jews was noted. Reports appeared both in the Polish Underground press and in communiques to the West. After the death sentence was decreed for anyone helping Jews, Poles were exhorted in clandestine publications to defy this "law," but initially, no general strategy to do so was developed.
    [Show full text]
  • Lobbies, Refugees, and Governments| a Study of the Role of the Displaced Persons in the Creation of the State of Israel
    University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1988 Lobbies, refugees, and governments| A study of the role of the displaced persons in the creation of the state of Israel James Daryl Clowes The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Clowes, James Daryl, "Lobbies, refugees, and governments| A study of the role of the displaced persons in the creation of the state of Israel" (1988). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 2867. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/2867 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact scholarworks@mso.umt.edu. COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 THIS IS AN UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT IN WHICH COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS. ANY FURTHER REPRINTING OF ITS CONTENTS MUST BE APPROVED BY THE AUTHOR, MANSFIELD LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA DATE : 1988 LOBBIES, REFUGEES, and GOVERNMENTS: A Study of the Role of the Displaced Persons in the Creation of the State of Israel By James Daryl Clowes B.A., University of Montana, 1981 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Montana 1988 Approved Chairman, Board of xammers De"Sn, Graduate ScnSol ' '^ x 11 i / •• -C/ 5P Date UMI Number: EP34336 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Introduction September 18, 1946. Aker weeks of preparation and planning, searchers had finally begun to dig under the rubble of Nowolipki 68 in the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto. They were looking for the buried Oyneg Shabes Ar­ chive. It was not an easy job. In the Warsaw Ghetto, the Oyneg Shabes— led by the historian Emanuel Ringelblum— had included dozens of men and women who documented and recorded Jewish life under the Nazi Occupa­ tion.1 But this secret “sacred society,” as Ringelblum called the Oyneg Shabes, shared the grim fate of Warsaw Jewry. Only very few of Ringelblum’s coworkers in the Oyneg Shabes survived the war. The journalist and writer Rachel Auerbach was one. Another was Hersh Wasser, who had been its secretary, and his wife, Bluma. Wasser him­ self had stayed alive by the slimmest of margins. In 1943 he jumped from a Treblinka-bound train. In 1944 Germans discovered his hideout in north Warsaw and killed three of his friends in a short, intense gunfight. But, once again, Wasser and his wife survived. Without Wasser directing the search, it is unlikely that the archive would have surfaced. The diggers moved carefully. It was slow and dangerous work. Where the Warsaw Ghetto had once stood was now a scene of total destruction. Auer­ bach compared the painstaking efforts to locate the street and the building to an “archeological expedition.”2 Jews and Poles worked side by side. They dug deep tunnels under the debris, built ventilation shafts, and pushed long metal probes through the rocks and bricks.
    [Show full text]
  • In the District Court of Jerusalem
    IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF JERUSALEM Criminal Case No. 40/61 Before His Honour JUDGE MOSHE LANDAU (Presiding) His Honour JUDGE BENJAMIN HALEVI His Honour JUDGE YITZCHAK RAVEH For the Prosecution: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL The Accused: ADOLF, son of Karl Adolf, EICHMANN J U D G M E N T The references in the Judgment are to the official record in Hebrew. Adolf Eichmann has been brought to trial in this Court on charges of unsurpassed gravity - charges of crimes against the Jewish People, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The period of the crimes ascribed to him, and their historical background, is that of the Hitler regime in Germany and in Europe, and the counts of the indictment encompass the catastrophe which befell the Jewish People during that period - a story of bloodshed and suffering which will be remembered to the end of time. This is not the first time that the Holocaust has been discussed in court proceedings. It was dealt with extensively at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg during the Trial of the Major War Criminals, and also at several of the trials which followed; but this time it has occupied the central place in the Court proceedings, and it is this fact which has distinguished this trial from those which preceded it. Hence also the trend noticed during and around the trial, to widen its range. The desire was felt - understandable in itself - to give, within the trial, a comprehensive and exhaustive historical description of events which occurred during the Holocaust, and in so doing, to emphasize also the inconceivable feats of heroism performed by ghetto-fighters, by those who mutinied in the camps, and by Jewish partisans.
    [Show full text]