Customer Reviews

Forgotten Holocaust The Poles Under German Occupation

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is exactly what it advertises - a history of Poland while under German occupation. After years of hearing only about the anti-Semitism of Poles, and their willingness to coldly turn in their Jewish neighbors, it is refreshing to read of what the majority of the country took part in. The tales of Polish resistance are truly remarkable and valuable for anyone interested in the truth of WWII.

Lukas never makes an attempt to minimize the Jewish experience in this book; he only brings attention to the fact that five million non-Jews were also exterminated, and for Hitler, as soon as Europe was free of Jews, the Slavs were next. I found it a very valuable, scholarly read.

Lukas put a new spin on the word anti-Semitism as he methodically & factually moves the reader through generational facts and fiction - ultimately revealing the utterly complicated psychological and physical aspects of the Holocaust. The "Poles" were not the only bystanders - if indeed they were bystanders; and the Jews were not the only victims. Deep within his explanations of history, he makes the reader understand the true misunderstandings of "survival guilt" - and the detrimental effects that occur to perpetuate hatred & blame when misundestandings are allowed to turn into truths. This book is a MUST READ for anyone with an open-mind who wants truth - and anyone willing to trade blame for understanding.

This is one of the best overviews of the German occupation of Poland. This book explains how it "felt" to live under the Nazis. The Underground press, Underground schools, boycotts, posters, attacks on SS officers, plays and movies, cafe life: these details paint a priceless picture. Chapters also cover efforts to assist Jews, and the Warsaw Uprising. Anyone with any interest in this story should have a copy.

I read this book in college as part of one of my history papers. Being 2nd generation Polish, it was important to read the full story of the genocide in Poland, and that it was not just limited to the Jews. Lucas does a fine job of showing all aspects of life under occupation, and that ALL Poles suffered, regardless of religion, gender, occupation, etc. Poland lost 15-20% of her population during the war, the most of any country, and they came from all walks of life. I was glad to see somebody finally wrote a boook about the "forgotten" millions who were murdered simply because they were born Polish. This is a must read for anyone interested in Poland or European history.

This second edition of the book contains new chapters. One of them contains a list of Polish gentiles, murdered by the German occupants, while attempting to assist Jews (Poland was one of the only countries where the death penalty was handed out by the Nazis to anyone who gave the slightest assistance to the Jews). Of course, this list is but a drop in the bucket: The actual number of Polish gentiles strongly assisting Polish Jews, but caught and slain by the Germans for helping Jews, is estimated to be as high as 50,000.

The second new chapter is a discussion of Zegota: A clandestine Polish underground organization for assisting Jews. At its height, it consisted of tens of thousands of Polish gentiles in German-occupied Warsaw alone--all working under the threat of death if caught.

Lukas also discusses Polish collaboration with the Nazis, but shows that, contrary to much popular Holocaust material, this level of collaboration was much smaller than those of most other German-occupied European nations, and was also dwarfed by the number of Poles who assisted the Jews.

Earlier, Lukas documents how 3 million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during World War II. This is very rarely mentioned in most Holocaust materials. Also included is discussion of the cultural genocide of Poland: the systematic, barbaric German practice of systematically destroying visible traces of Polish culture (monuments, libraries, museums, etc.). If you are one raised on the belief that only Jews suffered in the hands of the Nazis, you are in for a shock when you read this excellent book.

This 200+ page book is certainly worth reading and having it in one's own personal library for future reference. There are not enough books written about the WWII experience of Gentile Poles under German occupation. The Polish nation was targeted for annihilation. Much is written about the Jewish people's suffering
and not enough about the suffering of the Christian Poles. Who suffered more is not the issue....... both went through terrifying experiences !!!

I highly recommend this book especially for all those who have a short attention span or are short on time particularly in today's hectic times.

after the recent controversy regarding the village of Jedwabno in Poland this book begins to show the true sign of the common thread approach between Jewish resistance and the Polish underground. The author leaves no holds barred in this book. He specifically tells both sides of the story. While Jedwabno may have been a tragic item the true tragedy is one of the Polish nation be it Jewish or Polish those individuals that gave their lives in the fight against nazism is remembered in the book. One should rad this account before reading the one-sided view of mr gross and his Jedwabno. There were 100's of Jebwabnos on both sides which at least this author had the courage and common sense to point out.

If you were tempted into buying the book by its title, expecting to find detailed information about Nazi policies against the Polish gentile population and its suffering and dying, you will be badly disappointed. Only the first chapter, entitled "The German Occupation of Poland", which makes up a full 39 of the 219 pages of the book's main part, deals with the subject matter of the books title, The Forgotten Holocaust. Although it addresses every realm of Nazi brutality, from the executions of members of the "intelligentsia" over mass expulsions and deportations to the concentration camps, the reader still doesn't know at the end of it how all the horrors described add up to the horrendous death toll of the Polish Gentile population (out of 5,384,000 victims of prisons, death camps, raids, executions, annihilation of ghettoes, epidemics, starvation, excessive work and ill treatment, 2.9 to 3.2 million were Jews and the rest were Gentiles). Such a detailed breakdown is essential information that a book entitled "The Forgotten Holocaust" should absolutely contain. Instead of providing it, Lucas leaves the reader with the single reference in the notes to this chapter (no. 174) that "Most informed estimates place the loss of Polish Christians at 2.8 to 3.1 million and Polish Jews at 2.9 to 3.1 million". He then dedicates five chapters to "The Polish Government and the Origins of the Underground", "The Military Underground in Operation", "Civilian Resistance and Collaboration", "Poles and Jews" and "The Polish Government, the Home Army and the Jews". Chapters five and six have a certain relevance because they do away with the myth that the Poles were mostly collaborators of the Nazis in the killing of the Jews or grinning bystanders. As for the other three: Is this a book about Polish suffering under Nazi occupation, or a book about the organisation, politics and activities of the Polish underground? Chapter seven contains an account of the Warsaw Uprising, the repression of which was the greatest single Nazi atrocity of the war - certainly gripping, but I read a better account of that tragedy in Earl F. Ziemke's "The Soviet Juggernaut" edited by Time-Life Books in 1980. The book is written in a thoroughly pro-Polish stance, which is certainly justified but becomes irritating at times, to say the least. The statement that angered me most in that respect is found on page 93 in Chapter Three about the operations of the Polish military underground: "Though the Polish resistance killed about 150,000 Germans, this did not come remotely close to the 5,384,000 Polish citizens killed by the Germans during the occupation." I frankly don't know what to make of this sentence. First of all, it is not clear whether the figure for Germans killed by the Polish resistance refers only to military or also to civilian casualties. In the former case, it would be wildly exaggerated, cross off a naught and you got the accurate figure including casualties sustained by German forces during the Warsaw Uprising. In the latter case, we are talking about a lot of innocent people who deserve more than only such a perfunctory notice, even if the number of Polish victims was 36 times higher. But as Lukas doesn't even bother to provide a detailed breakdown of the 5,384,000 Polish Jews and Christians who perished under Nazi occupation, why should he dedicate more than one sentence to German civilians killed by the Polish underground? The apologetic tone of the sentence is another irritating factor. When we speak of crimes against innocent people, comparing numbers and setting off one crime against the other is an utterly inappropriate attitude, one that I would expect to find with a pro-Nazi revisionist, but not with someone who is supposed to be a serious scholar. I must say that I once recommended this book on a Third Reich discussion forum after reading through its first chapter. I would not recommend it again, however, after going through the whole of it. As an old German saying goes, you should not praise the day before the evening...

Most popular Holocaust-education materials only mention Jews as victims of the German Nazis. Or, if hard-pressed, homosexuals will also be included. Lukas' excellent book shows how Poles suffered and died under the German occupation of Poland. Hans Frank later admitted that most Poles thus killed were not killed because they were resisting the Germans, but were in fact killed for the sole reason that they had been Poles.

Very few people are aware of the fact that 3 million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during World War II. And most of these were not involved in anti-German activity at all. Clergy and intellectuals were murdered in disproportionate numbers. Lukas documents this and many other facts in painstaking detail. The book is a must for those interested in the FULL story of the Holocaust.