From: avr@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (adam.v.reed)
Subject: Follow-up - Polish-Jewish history - Home Army WWII
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 03:55:49 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.jewish
Keywords: References Jews Poland Home-Army Government-in-Exile

I have received several requests for sources and more
information on points raised in my capsule summary.
The material is voluminous and the time I can devote to the net
limited, so I will respond gradually, as time permits. I will
start with the most recent material and work backward, since the
most recent material appears to be the most controversial.

> > 11. After Poland was defeated by Hitler and Stalin in 1939,
> > the underground opposition to the invading forces split into
> > dozens of military factions, some opposed to anti-Semitism and
> > accepting Jews as equal members, some excluding Jews (and other
> > minorities) on the basis of a putative ascription of
> > disloyalty, still others proposing to create an ethnically
> > pure Poland by murdering everybody else, beginning with Jews.
> > The Home Army, affiliated with the Polish Government in Exile,
> > initially excluded Jews and approved of Polish collaboration
> > with German authorities in the incarceration of the Jews in
> > Ghettos, as being "motivated by the welfare of the Polish
> > Nation". However, in 1942 the Home Army's intelligence
> > established that the Jews from the Ghettos were not being simply
> > "deported to the East" but systematically murdered, and this
> > finding shook the Home Army and the Government in Exile out of
> > their previous complacency. The Home Army began to accept Jews
> > into its ranks, slowly changed its policy of tolerance for
> > collaboration with the Nazis (although action against
> > blackmailers who denounced Jews was not authorized until
> > February 7, 1944), and began to urge the Allies to attack the
> > Nazi extermination facilities (which they never did). It also
> > sponsored Zegota, a heroic but belated and largely ineffectual
> > effort to aid Jews in hiding. On the other hand, the Home Army
> > persisted in its alliance with the National Armed Forces (NSZ),
> > which had a policy of killing Jews on sight, even after NSZ
> > murdered two Jewish officers of the Home Army High Coomand.
> 
> From: "Marek J. Druzdzel" <md33+@andrew.cmu.edu>
> Of course I knew about the large diversity of the underground
> and obviously representants of the anti-Semitic factions. What
> is surprising to me, is that the Home Amy and the government
> in exile approved of Polish collaboration with Germans in the
> incarceration of the Jews in Ghettos. Also, my conviction was
> that blackmailing of the Jews (szmalcownictwo) was never
> a socially/morally accepted behavior and it was treated as
> a criminal deed (in as far as the underground was able to
> have control over that). Alliance of AK with NSZ was something
> that is understandable, but I didn't know about the latter's policy
> of killing Jews on the spot, and about killing the two AK officers.
> Was there no AK's retaliation for that?
> 
> From: "Lech (lech@aukuni.ac.nz)" <l_jancze@COMU3.aukuni.ac.nz>
> You wrote that the Home Army (Armia Krajowa?) "... approved of Polish
> collaboration with German authorities in the incarceration of the Jews in
> Ghettos..". Was that really an official position of the Army H.Q.?
> I have heard that some officers did think or behaved that way,
> but really was that the Army policy?
> 
> From: W. Dobosiewicz
> That certainly was not the policy of the Home Army, although, no
> doubt, some of its members may have expressed such views. The main
> counter-intelligence unit of the HA was run by a Jew (gee, what was
> his name? Hirszfeld? Someone may help here.).
> I am not aware of HA's policy of approving of any collaboration with
> German authorities. As a matter of fact, the HA did not exist when
> ghettos were created (winter 1939/40).

The most comprehensive source on the Polish underground is

Stefan Korbonski: The Polish Underground State - A Guide to the
Underground 1939-1945. New York, Hippocrene Books, 1981(1978).

The corresponding source about the Jewish underground in Poland
is

Shmuel Krakowski: The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance
in Poland. New York, Schocken Books, 1984.

A good critical review of other relevant sources is

Yisrael Gutman: Polish and Jewish historiography on the question
of Polish-Jewish relations during World War II. In: The Jews in
Poland, edited by Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk, & Antony
Polonsky; Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986.

To W. Dobosiewicz: Your "matter of fact" happens to be
counterfactual. The organization that was to become known as
"Armia Krajowa", or home army, was founded October 10, 1939, as
"Service for Poland's Victory" (Korbonski, p. 18), and
re-organized as the "Union for Armed Struggle" on December 4,
1939 (Korbonski, p. 23). On February 14, 1942, the name of the
"Union for Armed Struggle" was changed to "Home Army", but this
merely changed the name of an organization that had functioned
continuously since 1939 (p. 57).

The initial exclusion of Jews from the "official" (UAS/HA) Polish
resistance is documented by Gutman (p.184).  The AKs approval
of collaboration with early anti-Jewish measures is documented
there, and also in Korbonski's chapter on "collaboration"(p.140).
In preparation for the incarceration of Polish Jews in the
ghettos, the occupation authorities ordered Feliks Mlynarski,
the head of the Bank of Poland, which was renamed Bank of Issue
for the Generalgouvernement, to organize the confiscation of all
Jewish accounts in Polish banks. Mlynarski asked the Government
Delegate (the chief of the political echelon of the Home Army)
whether to follow this order or resign, and was told that
staying (and therefore organizing the confiscation on behalf of
the Nazis) would be considered "service motivated by the welfare
of the Polish Nation".

On "szmalcownictwo": It was first proclaimed to be a crime, by
the AK's Directorate of Civil Resistance, on March 18, 1943,
i.e. after the blackmailers had already been in operation for
over *three years*. Even then the AK did not authorize action
against the blackmailers, promising only that "such blackmail
will be recorded and prosecuted with all the severity of the law
- right away, whenever possible, but, in any event, in the
future". Action without a court sentence was first authorized
February 7, 1944, i.e. after 3/4 of all Polish Jews had already
been murdered (Korbonski, p.126).

I have not been able to find a reference to a "Hirszfeld" in the
AK. However, it is possible that such a person existed, and was
one of a number of Jews who joined the AK in or after 1942. The
hunting down of Jews by the NSZ, and the NSZ murder of two Jewish
officers of the AK High Command, engineer Jerzy Makowiecki and
professor Ludwik Widerszal, are also documented by Korbonski
(p.137). Korbonski says nothing about why the AK did nothing
about these murders.

			Adam_V_Reed@ATT.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish